Isabela - Day 2

I disappeared without a single soul realizing I had left. I guess this is what it means to see life and death intertwine until they form one. I used to pray every night not to die alive. It wasn’t death that I feared. It was the ever-growing feeling of emptiness that terrified me. It was the idea of watching my life slip through my fingers without being able to retain would it be a single second of the time I had been given. My life slowly became a memory stored in a dusty shelf of human existence while death gradually became a reality. It filled my lungs replacing the air I once breathed almost without me noticing it. It was part of life. It rested in its very fabric and carved its way into my mind. It was a strange duality.

I used to be afraid to live. My fear from life grew unguarded, directing me on the road to perdition. I was afraid of the unknown, terrified of what laid ahead. It made my head spin and my stomach howl in fear. It pushed my system to its breaking point and made it impossible to breathe. I lived in a perpetual state of anguish and, at that point, I wondered if it really was a life that I was leading. Every letter I heard, read or wrote seemed to transform into a river of thoughts and an ocean of voices tormenting me day and night. A single letter opened the path to uncontrolled notions of fear and destruction. Soon I felt as though I was submerged under water, feet anchored to the ground.

I held my breath as the fog darkened, screams of fear and tears of blood filling the once empty space. The water covered itself with filth clouding my white dress mutating ever so slightly into a raven’s gown. Thunders of pain filled the ocean as cold pearls dripped along my silver cheeks. I look down at my wrists whose skin slowly ripped apart leaving raw flesh visible to the naked eye. I witnessed my veins crack open like a pot. And blood began dripping, leaving my body in pearls of stained glass. I opened my arms as to embrace the horrid scene, dark clouds seeming to extend towards the unknown, carrying with them sweat and tears of experience. Silent screams pleaded in my teary ears while the ocean made itself thicker exerting pressure against my chest, emptying me of air. I could feel my vision blur as blood left my frail corpse.

Everything started rushing as thoughts fused across my collapsing mind. Screams detonated loud as thunder and devilish laughter rose from the core of our mother we called earth. The voices soon became unbearable, their cries almost violent. The lights were too bright, the colors too vivid, the sounds too loud. Too loud. Too much. Too sudden. Flashes of life and laughter; cries of joy and fear. Pictures frozen in time, never to be seen again. Sound and taste combined into an explosion of celestial colors; a universe extending before my eyes. Too loud. Too much. Too sudden.

Stop.

I shut my eyelids as I fought for air one last time. Then froze, and slowly, I left the stage thus leaving room for silence. I stepped down, without anyone noticing. It was perhaps something I should have done a while ago. My body slowly lost tension as my chin dropped to my chest. My snow-white dress slowly fell to my sides and my crooked feet progressively relaxed. Finally, my last bubbles of breath rose to the heavens, carrying my soul with them.

Who are you?

I could feel the wings of my immaculate dress dance around my motionless body and gently touch my skin as it swayed to the ocean’s rhythm. The currents gently pushed my chin to the side, forcing my golden hair to create a foggy cloud circling my head. I was surrounded by nothingness. The geography of my sorrows remained unknown to me, but for once, I did not care. And so, I floated, legs and arms tied yet never freer as I was then. I rested for once peaceful and calm. I was free, having encountered peace for the first time.

Lying there, my mind began to wonder across the colorful paths threaded by Life and Death. I realized that the human mind could encounter two ends. One being death as we hear it: the rise of a profound feeling of nothingness and total lack of emotion. And the second being the definite disappearance of our motor skills and physical envelope. Both seemed terminal. Both reverberated an ending. Death as we heard it, was encountered while living. It concealed our smell of putrefaction behind a scented mask; one we chose to use as a protective tool against the oppressive world. The second freed our soul and enabled us to live.

Funny how only now, so far from home and under the crushing pressure of water, I understood what life really meant. In the end, we were all a series of letters assembled to form words which, in the end, would narrate stories through the creation of worlds extending beyond what was imaginable. And even so, we would be lucky to contribute would it be a phrase.

Buried fifty feet under water, I realized what I once detained and was finally able to meet who I once was. I was finally able to meet that person I saw every morning in the mirror, the one I watched without ever looking, the one I heard without ever listening. It was a death that should have been filled with anxiety and regret but instead, I felt nothing. Nothing but peace and serenity. I simply allowed my hair to float, following the back-and-froths of the ocean. I allowed myself to give in to the stillness of a world in perpetual motion. I had never been more alive than at that moment, having ceased to exist. I guess that is the funny thing about life. It is interesting to see how closely it resembles its sister and how painful it can be.

And yet I wondered, in the dawn of this young end,

Is this what death feels like? A soft blanket leaving you comfortably numb?

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