Corpus Civilization

Bhutan

Deki woke up with a pain in her chest.

It was a sharp, blossoming pain that began at the base of her ribcage and floated upwards into her heart. It was like a herd of cattle romping over her internal organs, wreaking havoc on the cells. It was all-encompassing.

It hurt.

"Mother?" Deki called out from her bed, unable to so much as shift without worsening the pain. "Mother!"

Soon, the door to Deki's bedroom creaked open. A tall woman with an indigo blouse and black hair pinned into a low bun peeked in on her daughter.

"Yes, Deki? What's the matter?"

"My heart...my chest. It hurts." Deki motioned to her torso, wincing as another throb echoed throughout her midsection. "It feels like something is burrowing inside of my chest with pointed claws. I can't move. It hurts."

For a while, Deki's mother said nothing. She gazed thoughtfully at her daughter, measuring the circumstances of the present. Her eyes said nothing, yet Deki knew she was about to either receive a lecture or some other story to explain how to deal with her situation. It was always a story, with her mother.

"Deki...hmm."

The woman crossed the tiny room, crossing her arms. Gracefully, she settled into the foot of the bed and crossed her legs, staring intently at the wall. Deki waited.

"A chest pain, you say? Burrowing?"

"Exactly...ow." Deki laid a flat palm against her heart. "Right here."

She hoped she wasn't dying of a heart attack or something. Then she wouldn't get to make it to the colorful farmer's market on the weekends or spend time with her friends again. She wouldn't be able to enjoy all the priceless things about being a teenager. She wouldn't be able to explore the freshness of the world with a less jaded mindset. If Deki were to die at this age, hardly older than sixteen, then she would be an outlier in her village, a figure to mourn. Almost no one died at that early an age in Bhutan.

"When did this start, the pain?"

Deki sighed.

"When I woke up this morning. I had a bad dream, opened my eyes, and my chest was-"

"What was the dream about?" Deki's mother turned, curious.

"Uh..." Deki paused to think.

What was her dream about? Now that she was awake, the memory of it was nothing but a blurry throng of mental images and emotions that she could barely place. If she tried really hard, she could picture the middle of her dream, when she and her friends were traveling up the mountainside without a care in the world. It was freeing, that part of the dream, but it preceded an event far more disturbing. At the top of the mountain, Deki vaguely remembered her friends pushing each other over the ledge for no apparent reason, one after another, children tumbling down the rocky mountainside as sacrifices to some invisible, larger power. As she remembered how horrified she was in the dream, her chest pain worsened. Her hand trembled against the nightgown covering her ribs, and her mother granted her a strange look.

"The dream...it was about dying. Seeing others die. My friends...we were at the top of this mountain, and they were pushing each other off...a-and laughing."

Deki's mother listened carefully. She didn't seem fazed by the bothersome content of the dream. "Okay. What were you doing in the dream?"

"I was...watching." Deki's lips pursed in displeasure. "I was watching them as they were smiling and pushing each other off. But I couldn't move. Something in the dream was holding me there, not allowing me to stop them. I could only watch and yell at them to stop. They didn't listen to me. They ignored me...it was awful."

"Your friends died, but you didn't?" Deki's mother glanced out the window. The sunshine was just beginning to touch the early ground, illuminating the outdoor scene with life. "You got lucky, then."

"Oh no, I didn't get lucky!" Deki shook her head vigorously. Images of her friends' laughing faces toppling over the edge of the mountain...it was painful. Her chest hurt worse, a jagged pain crawling up her ribcage. "It was horrible! I couldn't help them-"

"Didn't you say they were smiling, Deki?"

"Well...yes."

"Then why are you so upset? They seemed pretty happy to be pushing each other off. If they didn't push you off, wouldn't you feel relieved?"

"No..." Deki tried to understand what her mother was telling her, but she kept drawing blanks. "I, well...it's not fair! They can't just smile and laugh and then fall to their death a moment later! It was so disturbing, mother. And now my chest hurts, so much."

Deki's mother stood up from the bed and studied the room. Her etched face paused on each picture frame lining the bedroom wall, pictures of Deki as a baby, in adolescence, and finally at age 16, laughing along to something her father said. All pictures were proof of her existence, yet they were so ephemeral, so temporary, they could be gone in the blink of an eye. Or a push off a cliff.

"Deki...do you know why Bhutan is the happiest place on Earth?"

The girl frowned. She was definitely not happy, not after that unnerving dream. "No, mother. I don't. I've heard them say at school that it's an objective thing anyway."

"Well, you aren't wrong." Deki's mother traced the frame of a toddler picture, letting her eyes fall to Deki's disheveled frock and messy black hair in the picture. "But it's more than that. It's more than a number, or measurement. It's relinquishing the fear of death, the fear that holds so many people back, which makes the people here so joyous. Living in the now. Living not with their hopes in material objects, but in the connections they foster. Like the friends in your dream, darling."

Deki shifted ever so slightly. "That's kind of impossible to get rid of, the fear of death. Weren't we born to fear it?"

A wistful nod.

"Yes, well. That's a survival instinct. But we can get beyond that, Deki. We recognize that death is inevitable, so we must accept it as an outcome. Like your friends in the dream, for instance."

Deki sat up quickly, her mouth working before she could stop it.

"Are you saying my friends were right to do that? That they accepted their fate and laughed about it?"

The woman shuffled over to the bedside and laid a hand upon the girl's shoulder. Deki had so much left to learn, yet she was wise beyond her years.

"I'm not saying your friends were right. But if you dwell on death, on the horrors of the planet, then physical pain will worsen. Deki, I think your chest pain is from—"

"The fear of death." The girl commented suddenly. Her hand removed itself from her chest, and she stared out the window. "Yes, that's it. That's what that burrowing feeling is."

Deki's mother said nothing, but a very pleased grin spread on her face. She exited the room to get on with her day, hoping her daughter would do the same without worrying herself sick. On the bed, Deki's hand savored the steady thumping of her heart in her chest. She felt it pulsing, the beat of life, and wondered what it would feel like if her heart suddenly stopped.

Minutes later, Deki rose from the bed to get ready for the day. Her chest pain was entirely gone.

---

By Izzy