Have you ever had one of those dreams, the ones where you're running and, then all of a sudden you fall and you jump up out of your slumber, with your breath racing, your heart pumping, your nerves vibrating. Some say that its an effect caused by the mind confusing sleep with death, thinking its about to die. So you fall, alarming your body to wake up, and stay alive. Well that's kind of how it feels, dying. Feeling like you're falling, only you don't jump up, relieved it was a dream. You keep falling and falling, trying to grasp onto something but fail, trying to breath over the intense air, but falter. You just keep falling, until finally your body accepts the alternate, and you stop. Stop falling, stop breathing, stop living.
I remember my fall, as clear as day. The people's screams still ring in my head sometimes. Not as vibrant but still evident. We were all on the city bus, on our own destinations, on our own paths. I would like to say that I sensed something sketchy about the driver. I wish i could say that i knew that something was wrong from the second i stepped on to that damned bus, felt that we were all damned. But i didn't. I was just as oblivious and ignorant as the rest of the dammed. It wasn't even after the screams and panics had begun that my oblivion faltered. The Drivers face in my mind is somehow blurry and clear at the same time. Skinny older aged man, white hair and white beard, baggy eyes and a mole on his chin. I don't know how i remember this, with the half a second that i took to look at him, you would think that he, along with other useless memories would slip into the back of the mind, the part that is lost for 'almost' ever. But i do. Somehow that 'almost ever' seemed to have marked my mind, and i can not rid myself of his haunting face.
However the faces that i do remember, The faces that i took extra time to examine and memorize, where the faces of the damned. Filled with horror and fear at first but, then surpassed with anger and the smallest hint of joy. I would like to think that their God came to them, or a faint memory that put them in their safest place. A place that they would be happy to die in. I however, had no safe place, nor any God that came to me during what i had thought were my last seconds. I just had my memory, of these dammed faces awaiting their dammed faith.
After a while, i had tuned the screams out, even my own. All i had been focused on was the edge that the bus was inching closer and closer to. And then it happened, The fall. So exhilarating and heart racing. I closed my eyes and tried to enjoy the fall, to accept it. Until finally, the screams came to a dead stop. As had the lives of the damned.
I don't know, maybe i'm one of the lucky ones, one of the blessed ones, enchanted. Or maybe i am just as damned as the passengers on the bus. If not more. Maybe its my survival that damned me, That sealed my faith before i had any chances to object.
Waking up to the smell of burning flesh came with the sweet sensation of peace. Thinking that i am enduring my last breaths on this world. Not questioning where ill go, or why i have to, but just knowing that i am ready to finally find out. As i closed my eyes i saw myself, i saw my body lying under the broken bits of the combusted machine, with a sinister smile sprawled across my face that intimidated me. And then, i fell. Fell back into my life, back into my injured body.
"Hey!" is the first thing i hear after falling
"Hey!, are you alive?". YES! YES! i tried to yell but i was exhausted. My body was exhausted. all it had wanted to do was lie here, sleeping, dieing. YES! i tried to cry out but came out as a faint mumble.
"C'mon, you have to get up!, we have to go!" After a few minutes had passed, the voice hadnt repeated. It had gone, they had gone. Who ever it was, had no interest in saving me anymore. Probably assuming I was dead.
So i lie there, alive, but immobile. barley breathing, not that i was struggling to stay awake or alive. Ironic actually how i was so quick to give up in the beginning. had no hope or need to stay alive. There was no reason for it. I had never dreaded living or anticipate death before. My life had no significant hardship for me to loose hope. Then again, my life had no significant hardship for me to gain hope either.
However i might have felt in my most vulnerable and weakest moment, has never been mimicked, that i can assure you.
Having been ready to give in to death, an oddly comforting thought, like seeing an old friend after many years, gave me a sensation of freedom and release. A breath taking feeling, a feeling as if you're falling, and you never want to stop.
As I succumb to the feeling, letting it consume me, I feel my body being lifted off of the ground, although not in a spiritual, heavenly way. A physical way, a painful way. As i am being lifted i feel all of the pain. The pain i have agreed to let go of in my last dieing moments, all comes back like a tidal wave. Excruciating pain takes over my body and mind. All i want to do is scream and beg for death, my old friend, to return. The pain becomes unbearable, too much for my already broken body to handle, and i faint, lieng half dead in the arms of my faceless carrier.
