Death is a funny old thing. Nothing ever truly “lives” forever. From the smallest microbes to the Universe itself, everything inbetween will perish. Does perish.
I won’t go into many details as to how I managed to witness the end of all living things, but I did, the reason I did being the motivator for the rest of my insignificance on this planet.
My Father was on the mantle piece, his ashes, recently departed from this world due to a medical complication that in many ways could have been avoidable. For months after his death I kept asking myself how this could happen, how can one just vanish from the world and not take the memories with it. My attempt to grasp the reality of death was futile as I always came back to the same conclusion, that one day I will die and be wiped of conciousness forever like factory resetting a hard drive, the 1’s and 0’s to never be displayed in quite the same way again.
I spent my days in a haze, lost in thought and honestly scared of my own mortality. It ate up a lot of my free time and made me into a slob, afraid to do anything for fear of death knocking at my door. Many, many sleepless nights spent staring at a ceiling of darkness, the faint audio of the sleeping world outside my window and the break of a new day dawning, it hurt me to my core knowing I would one day die.
As I sprawled across my bed one early morning I felt my eyelids becoming heavy just as the light poured through the cracks. A new day starting but my previous day only just ending, intertwined in a beautiful mess. I hadn’t slept for a couple of days so I knew this was my body shutting down for the day, battery running on empty. I slept.
Have you ever had a lucid dream? You can control every aspect of your visions, it is truly a breathtaking ability to posses and is something I practice to keep my mind occupied. I entered my lucid dream, I flew through mountain ranges and gorgeous valley’s, then it happened.
A voice. It spoke in a hushed tone but echoed through the “world” within my dream. It boomed and shook the mountains and valleys I was flying through. The voice asked me a question, it asked if I felt alone.
I said I did.
It asked if I felt as though I was living life for the weekend, doing things not for the passion or love but to stay busy and keep my racing mind occupied.
I said I did.
It asked me if I wanted perspective.
I said I did.
My flight abruptly ended, I crashed to the ground but felt no pain. As I got to my feet, I saw that I was in a lushious forest in what appeared to be like the middle of the Fall season. The orange and yellow leaves falling around me but something was off. They began to fall upwards towards the sky. Soon after I felt my body becoming weightless and rising, slowly at first, into the sky as though gravity had inverted and I began falling towards the dark abyss of space. I was terrified, my lucid dream had been hijacked and turned into a nightmare. As I ascended past the gravity belt, the wind, birds and general “earth” sounds became distant, fading behind me as I continued my ascension towards nothingness.
I floated through space for what felt like an eternity, periodically passing by other planets, gas giants, supernovas and asteroids all before looking forward and seeing nothing but blackness. The blackest black that your brain cannot comprehend, so deviod of light that I couldn’t see my hand an inch in front of my face.
No more stars, no more planets.
I turned around to face back and saw, well, a sphere. A sphere of dotted lights and colours, slowing fading, one by one.
The voice returned, asking me if I understood what I was looking at.
I didn’t understand.
It told me, it whispered it to my soul. I was witnessing the end of all life in the Universe. I was witnessing the end of the Universe itselfs.
The voice spoke to me once more: “You are so afraid of your mortality that you have forgotton that death is just another part of the cycle of all things. You spend the very little time you have on Earth thinking you can leave that passion project one more day or you can forego an opportunity for adventure because all your comforts are at home. I am here to tell you that your short, meaningless life is made meaningful by the content of which you fill it with. Why are you waiting? What are you waiting for, death?”
The lights now almost all gone. A final flicker and then…
…nothing. I just watched the Universe, and everything contained within it, perish. Never to happen again, never to be witnessed or talked about or understood in any way. Why was I shown this?
“So you understand that it doesn’t matter what you do, everything dies in the end. So why wait around for things to happen. Make them happen yourself, and don’t worry about death.”
The blackness began to fill with colour and lights in the distance once more, rapidly growing in size and shape until my entire vision was engulfed in a bright white light.
I opened my eyes, the sun pouring through the cracks, the sound of chirping birds and the hum of my fan in the corner of my room. Was I still dreaming? No, I knew I wasn’t. I could feel it.
I got myself out of bed and down to the living room. My fathers ashes sat neatly on the side. I knelt by his side and hung my head in prayer for a moment. I planted a kiss atop the Urn, then turned to the door.
The air was warm, the wind ruffling my hair. I took a deep breath in and could smell the pine from the trees, the food from the store down the road and the sea breeze all at once. I took a moment to collect myself, a single tear rolling down my cheek.
I opened my eyes, I was finally ready.