I died yesterday

I dreamt that I had died. A bullet in-between my eyes, through the skull. They say your entire life flashes in front of your eyes after you die, so I tried hard to recall what had been my life. I got as far back to the last hour but then I couldn’t do it. It was too tedious.

I could feel the warm blood fill the hole in my head. Everything was so slow. It felt like ages before I dropped to the ground. After that all I could feel was warmth from the blood that was starting to cover my face, blurring my vision to the point where all I could see was red. It felt like I was inside a womb.

And then it faded into black. A lapse of memory.

I awoke to find myself on a red desert with large orange canyons that held up a Prussian blue sky. A colorless river ran through the rocky earth like a vein; shallow and thin, like a blood vessel. It was neither too warm nor too cold. I didn’t know what I was wearing.

I suddenly felt hungry, and then remembered that I had died. This is the afterlife, I wondered to myself. Now where could I find something to eat?

I thought about it for a while. I remembered that in my culture, they would make balls of rice and butter, and float them into the Ganges as offerings to the dead — food delivery for their starving ancestors. So, I went to the river and, to my genuine surprise, found some rice balls, neatly wrapped in the leaves of tropical trees. I looked around to see who they belonged to but there was not a single soul in sight. I nibbled on one. It was enough to fill my appetite.

It was after a while that I realized the significance of the rice balls. I had found proof of an afterlife, and it was surely the Hindus that had got it right. If I could bring this back to mankind, I could prove religion and the importance of these customs. I could prove that the Hindu way was the right way. I had always been agnostic, a borderline atheist my entire life. For there to be proof of a religious afterlife was huge.

Then I remembered that I was dead. It didn’t matter if any religions were right or wrong. There was nothing I could do to get back. The living world’s ignorance didn’t bother me anymore.

My vital needs fulfilled, I started walking towards what looked like a mountainous peak. It was the only landmark I could see, so it must be of some significance. The desert eerily reminded me of Mars. I had never been to Mars. Till the day I died, no human ever had. But there was something about the place. As I started walking, I began to think and really absorb what had really happened. I was dead. I was dead. My family was in another world without me. All my friends, my teachers, my students, everyone I had ever met, I would never see them again, and even if I did, they would be vastly different from how I would remember them to be. My loss would have changed them. It just would never be the same. Everything I had done, now gone. I wondered if there was a heaven, and a hell. This didn’t seem like hell. It was probably purgatory, and I would soon be judged for my sins.

At that moment, I finally started panicking a little. I had led a good life, but I had done bad things. I never took religion seriously, argued frequently against the existence of god. I had probably stolen things I didn’t mean to, et cetera. The very thought of a hell frightened me for a while. I would not like it if they sent me there.

In my panicked state I tried to reason for a while. Maybe I was dreaming. So, I tried to wake up. I tried my best to let my conscious mind take over my dreams, which usually worked since I was a lucid dreamer. It didn’t work. I didn’t wake up. I tried again. I started getting worked up.

I lie. I wasn’t worked up. Frankly, it didn’t really bother me much that I was dead. I wasn’t excited, but I wasn’t terrified to bits that I would try everything to go back. My panicking felt just like a momentary hiccup. I was surprisingly calm.

That was the strangest part. It was unsettling how calm I was. I was eager, even, to see what lay in the great beyond.

Eventually, I reached the base of the mountain. There was a vertical train there that led to the top of the mountain. There were some people inside. There was something of importance at the top of the mountain, I could feel it. The people were all somber, wearing scarlet red dresses and suits, and they were all beckoning to me. No one spoke. It was still very silent. So, I got on the train, silently awaiting the judgment that might await me at the top. I don’t remember much of the ride or the way after. I just heard someone say, Not now. Not now…

Then I woke up. The sudden wave of relief hit me. I was on my bed. All my memories came back to me like a flood. I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t dead.

I died yesterday.

What keeps you alive?

It has been a very turbulent six months for me, since I started my formal education here in the United States. I came here on the fourth of August 2015, previously never having set foot outside the country I was born in.

Needless to say, America was… new to me. There were so many things here that I didn’t understand. Specially how effortless so many things were. It felt weird, having everything you could ever want at your fingertips. Everything was so easy. So ridiculously easy. I really enjoyed my first two months here.

Then something happened, I don’t know what.I didn’t feel very energetic like I did when I started out. I started skipping classes. Became lazy to the point where I only ate from vending machines because I didn’t want to walk to the cafeteria. I started spending my days in my room, alone. I played video games a lot. I don’t know why. It felt so comfortable. I was getting tired of adapting to this country. Everything was so different from what I was used to. The food, being one of them. I was disappointed, in a sense. The wonder that had hit me was now gone, replaced by cynicism. But the video games hadn’t changed. So I hid in the things I knew. I stopped meeting people. I was either always in my room, or working. I spent money on things I didn’t want, bought things I would never use. I don’t know what had come over me.

Time went on, and finals came. I didn’t do well. I don’t know why I was surprised.

Then, on my winter break, one of close friends passed away. I didn’t take the news to heart, because it seemed like I was living a dream anyway; nothing was real. So I couldn’t take the news for what it was.

After that, all through my winter break, I would go to bed in my uncle’s house and think of what kept me alive.

Death is a strange thing. It’s the only thing life promises to you, the only thing that will happen, for sure if you were ever born. I feel as if death is a sort of ground. Like life is something that happens to people until they can get back to the normal state of being dead. We are dead until we are born, and after we are born we will die.

But if death is so normal and so sure, do I fear it much?

I don’t think I do, really. I am perfectly fine with dying. I do not want to leave a legacy that will be remembered because time erases all, and we are naught but grains of sand in this beach we call the universe. We are not special. I am aware of this so I do not fear dying.

However, I realized that even though I wouldn’t mind dying, there were things that kept me alive. I want to be alive for so many things, my parents being at the top of the list. I want to be alive to eat the food I love. I want to be alive to meet wonderful, wonderful people. I want to be alive to talk, to discuss philosophy, books, ideas, anything. I want to be alive to experience love. I want to be alive for these small, trivial things. To feel the wind in my hair when it blows in the spring. To see the orange and yellow of fall. To smell the breath of the fresh morning air, sometimes when I actually wake up on time.

My faith in humanity doesn’t keep me alive. Nor does my passion for science, to know more about the world. I am perfectly fine if I die not knowing how the world works. The ultimate questions don’t keep me alive. Art doesn’t keep me alive. There’s nothing grand that supports my existence. I am alive because of the small things. The small earthly pleasures of a human being. I think it’s pretentious to think that something you cannot imagine is what keeps your blood pumping.

It was difficult. It is difficult. Living. Existing. I think everyone goes through a similar existential crisis at some point in their lives. The only way someone could get away from it is by being blissfully ignorant of the meaninglessness of our existence. Shame I read too much as a child.

I do not think I am sad. I am quite happy, yes. It’s just sometimes it’s hard to sleep at night. I’m not complaining. I’m just saying it is.