What Follows

0.0: My Death

~ what a shame . . . beautiful scars on critical veins ~

️⚠️graphic suicide details will be included toward the end of this chapter; proceed with caution and know that this story is meant to be there for you, hold your hands and raise awareness⚠️
...

15th of May, 2019

I knew death when I was just about ten.

I was pretending to be asleep under my bed's fluffy blankets after a long school day, Mom's phone clutched tightly in my small, clammy hands. The screen was bright against the room's darkness as I gleefully played Snake when a notification chimed way too loudly for my liking (cause what if Mom heard and was on the way to take her phone away?).

It was Mom's friend sending her a message about something I surely had no business with.

Nevertheless, my indispensable curiosity encouraged me to read it.

It was about her husband's death.

A car accident, she had described. Pray for him, she had typed.

I remember slowly peeling away the blankets, getting off my bed and tiptoeing to the kitchen in my white nightdress. Mom was standing, drinking something, when she turned to me, surprised I was awake, and asked me if something was wrong (if I had a tummy ache?).

In response, I handed her the phone and whispered the news to her, because shush, perhaps no one should know this huge secret (is it a secret?).

Mom cried over her friend's loss and called her to 'comfort' her. I barely understood her reaction back then, but I did cry too because I thought that that was what needed to be done. That was what Mom did. Because death was, apparently, supposedly, a sad, bad, far-away thing.

And here's the thing with growing up; 'far-away' things keep stealthily steadily inching toward you and the people you love.

We all then grow up and learn that death is just a part of life, that we're all trapped in a life cycle just like that fly you swapped dead a day ago. That, yes- we and our problems are as small and finite as that fly.

So yes, death is very normal- yet not the least bit normal.

Normally, everyone fears death. And I did. At least in the very beginning. I saw it as a scenario to fear, not to accept. I feared the idea of it and anything that could cause it. I didn't like hearing about it, and I hated being reminded of it everywhere (like, okay, Rebecca, I know your dog died, but what you don't know is that you've awakened an endless trail of deeply philosophical, not-very-happy thoughts).

I have a vast imagination that did nothing but creatively terrify me of death. I'd keep telling myself: imagine dying, imagine your family crying, imagine bones, dust, maggots, imagine dying, I'd tell myself- imagine dying.

So of course, I did. I imagined dying; and thus feared crossing streets, standing close to the ledge of my high balcony, fights and cancer. I feared the ceiling falling over my head when I slept on my bed.

But let me tell you that it didn't last for long because sweet sixteen arrived.

My sixteen was everything but sweet. And maybe where I am right now is making me want to thank it (I'll explain later).

So yes, finally, life got way too heavy to handle. Way too miserable and meaningless. I carelessly crossed streets and drove fast, I would lean, without any reason, way too much over the balcony to watch people pass by. I would eat unhealthily and toy with the concept of death like play-dough. Like how if I'd leaned any further over the balcony's ledge, I would stumble down to my certain death, or how if I didn't eat for long enough, I might starve myself to nothingness.