goddamned mortality

Dear Grim Reaper,

I think I’ve had my fair share of your doings in my life this last year or so and it would be fair if you spread out your portfolio a bit. How about going after someone far and away from anyone I know?

It’s no use, is it? All around me I see people I love who are old or sick and will probably die soon. The shitty part is I worry what will happen to me when they do. Death, at the very least, guaruntees some peace. No more bills or deadlines or problems to worry about. No more doubts, no more glory, just peace at last. Makes me sort of envy those who are going up there sometime soon.

dreams

Another disturbing dream, one of impending darkness. I blame approaching midterms for all the gloom and doom.

I was a part of a civilization that knew only daylight. We had no need of artificial lighting. One day we watch, disturbed, as the moon starts to set five times faster than the sun. It sinks all too fast into the seas, I feel the slight sting of deja vu stirring. I have seen a large ball of light gently dipping into the ocean before somehow…

And in those microseconds before the fall of total darkness over the entire planet and the last silver strand of moonlight disappearing for good, I am left in absolute terror. Was it the fear of the unknown or just a fear of complete darkness taking over? My hand reaches for something, anything to burn, to stave off the darkness for one more minute. And then I woke up.

Yes, the dream was pretty much a venture into the premise of the short story Nightfall by Asimov, a great piece of sci-fi work that I linked to earlier on my blog as well, but within a dream, all that is happening is real. There is no talking yourself out of the fact that what can be seen and felt isn’t real, although I’ve had dreams like that too, on rare occasions. Ones in which you’re at the edge of a building and you suddenly realise, to your delight, that this is a dream and I can do whatever I like before I wake up, and you jump off, knowing you’ll be awake in bed before you ever hit the bottom. What was that old quote about how flying is the art of throwing yourself at the ground and missing? In my dreams, I can fly, because I have faith that I can throw myself at the ground… and miss.