In Continuum.

Tease Of The Inevitable

Bones, sinking like stones,
All that we fought for,
Homes, places we've grown,
All of us are done for.

Receiving the news that Stanley opened his eyes today, proved that my dream is coming true a step at a time. The last time we visited him, his eyes were half closed and looked like he was in a daze of sorts. From the accounts today, he seemed to have opened them up whenever people visited him, and was also more responsive to the opening and closing of doors. I guess the big guy is going to make it after all, and I am sure everybody is going to be overjoyed just knowing this piece of news. Now, all we have to worry are the aftermaths of the coma, if he is going to suffer from traumas such as amnesia or whatever. Knock on wood, but that's a very possible outcome, no?

But that piece of good news, however good it is, cannot deny a thought that I've been harboring in my head ever since the episode last night. RuiYi caught me in a strange mood last night, and because she was feeling mopey as well, she joined me in our club of self-depreciation. In the end, we started talking about Stanley and the nurses at hospitals. Studying a nursing course in a polytechnic(Sorry RuiYi, I forgot which!), she has seen deaths at hand and the way people change from being a perfectly healthy person to one at the brink of death, all within the blink of an eye. So the threat was very real, this vulnerability all humans experience. And the fact that Stanley was in a coma back then, had me thinking about it throughout the night despite RuiYi's constant efforts of comfort.

And we live in a beautiful world,
Yeah we do, yeah we do,
We live in a beautiful world.

The process of inevitability began the moment we came out from our mothers' wombs. Death is inevitable, as we all know it. And as we progress on in our everyday lives, it silent creeps closer to you like a pouncing leopard in the African plains. It hides in the bushes at first, slowly finding its way around the herd of buffaloes, silently and skillfully. The bushes then acts as a camouflage of sorts, and the buffaloes do not see the flowery patterns on the leopard's skin. So the leopard is safe for now, safe from its prays' detection. You are one of those hungry buffaloes, grazing upon the great African plains in the spring, unaware of the looming death in the bushes. All of a sudden, the leopard jumps out of its cover and pounces onto one of your friends from the herd. It struggles and tries to break free from under the sharp claws of the leopard. But the leopard's grip was tight, and its fangs sunk into the thick skin of your friend in the neck area. Blood spurted from the punctured holes, and your friend succumbs to the grip of the leopard, and dies.

Subsequently, this leopard follows your herd around, and one by one it takes out your friends. You watch every time as your friend collapses under the grip of the leopard, and its hunger never seems to be satisfied. Always, it craves for the next prey, and then the next, and then the next. You start to wonder how many more of such teases can you tolerate, how many more slaughters of your friends can you witness before you collapse yourself in horror, in fear. You start to wonder, when is your turn going to be? When is it going to be me?

Bones, sinking like stones,
All that we fought for,
And homes, places we've grown,
All of us are done for.

My grandfather from my mother's side was the first to leave me. He was the first person I know to succumb to Death, and subsequently in my life, Death teased me with his invisible fingers and sickle. It was followed by my grandmother, then my grandfather from my father's side, the people of that generation. At that time, I thought Death was still far away, that he is not going to reach me any time soon because I am still one generation away from everything. Then my uncle succumbed to liver failure, and that marked the beginning of Death in my father's generation. So one by one, it just seems to be closing in on me all the time, like a torpedo closing in on its target in the waters, silently and deadly. What makes things worse: It never misses, when it tries to kill you.

I've seen funerals, and I have seen deaths. The difference between life and death is just a breath's width, and at the end of it all everybody will breathe their last breath, and die. My mother told me about her mother's last breath, and it was over-rated, for the lack of a better word. To her, she thought to herself," That's it?" Because that really is what happens at death, the way you struggle for that last breath, hoping that it would last for a long time, but it doesn't. I've seen my grandparents' generation of people dying, and then slowly it became my relatives' turn. And seeing Stanley - my close friend - struggling with life, Death is all of a sudden closer than ever.

And we live in a beautiful world,
Yeah we do, yeah we do,
We live in a beautiful world.

We can't escape it, and the brush against death by Stanley is only the tease of Death. It is going to come sooner or later, and last night I started talking to RuiYi about attending my relatives' funerals, then my parents' funerals, followed by my friends' funerals and then my own. It was a saddening though, one which she denied and tried to make sense to. But my mind was settled with that inevitability, that I am going to have more and more of such 'teases' in the future, whether I like it or not. And it's just sad, that we cannot do anything about it at the beginning. It's not like as a baby, we could say "No thanks to life, if we are going to view the deaths of our loved ones". We never had a choice, and now that the process has begun, it is scaring the hell out of me.

Outliving all the people that you love is a scary thought, and as much as I hate to admit it, I am terrified of death. But I guess, there are more issues at hand right now than to worry about something so far away. Stanley's condition for example, and of course the school admission in a weeks' time. Also, there is that heart of mine to heal, still left in pieces for me to fix. I guess death is too vast a problem, and too far away, for a person like me to worry about. After all, one should not be afraid of death, but a life not lived, right?

And we live in a beautiful world,
Yeah we do, yeah we do,
We live in a beautiful world.

Oh, all that I know,
There's nothing here to run from,
Cause, yeah, everybody here's got somebody to lean on.