WAKING UP TO LIFE

Some time ago, a woman with a gun in her hand demanded of me and my companions that we provide good reasons why life is worth living. Otherwise she was going to terminate us.

I thought to myself: This is the very question that I've struggled with for so long and now I am being forced to provide a definitive answer. Do I make up some fancy reason and thus escape with my life? But if I lie, then my life is not really worth pursuing.

How many times have I dreamed and read about this kind of a life-and-death situation and convinced myself that I thoroughly understood it, assumed that I knew exactly what it felt like. And now finally it has happened for real and this time I cannot wake up nor close the book.
  
I realise that we all have to go some day, but what a pity it would be to go on a brilliantly sunny day like this, when the whole world is pulsating with life and every cell of my body is screaming out with the desire to live. How much more fitting it would be to leave on a cloudy, sunless day with the sky shedding cold tears.
  
No, this doesn't feel like the right time to die! But when is the right time to die? How can one tell that one has accomplished all that one can accomplish on this Earth?
 
To make the most of my existence, I really should try to cram it all in, all of my life, into these last few remaining minutes, the way that I used to try to squeeze in all of the information just before the start of the exams. Now is the time to live my life to the fullest degree, like I never bothered to before.
  
Yet this fear of death that I am feeling right now is out of all proportion to the joy and satisfaction that life has brought me so far. Why does my life seem so dear and precious to me now? Is it because only now, on the threshold of death, does the vision of ideal life appear to me, life free of all the illusions that have previously brought me down, illusions that only the proximity of 'The End' can destroy?

Is it because that only now can I see life as it really is, free of all the grime that besmirches its true visage, free of all the trivial annoyances that make life so hard to bear in day-to-day existence?
  
It is as if during the day of my existence, life concealed her features with dowdy garb and only now, as the midnight approaches, does she shed her frumpy dress and stands before me in all of her natural, radiant, shining glory.

  
In the distance, I saw my friends getting finished off -- obviously their answers weren't good enough. Almost certainly they all used the "My life is unique" defence and it didn't work.
 
Should I make my reasons stand out from theirs? But I am a person just like them. Wouldn't making my reasons more striking imply that my life is more valuable? Surely we all live for pretty much the same reasons and so my answer should be identical to theirs.
 
But what does the tormentor want from us? Honest, straightforward replies or singular, elaborate explanations? How can one justify one's existence? Where does one begin?

I have no need nor reason to justify my past for it is already gone and she can't take it away from me. Nor can I justify my future for it hasn't yet occurred and is therefore of completely intangible and unknown nature. It follows then that I am only in a position to justify the now, the immediate moment during which I am alive.

 

Should I appeal to her humanity, her compassion? But what is morality, what is conscience but some intangible, nebulous substance that we can  only hope has found a safe refuge in the breast of fellow man.

 

It was now my turn. I came in and faced the interrogator. In a voice devoid of any tone she commanded me to present my case.

"Life is hard, really hard sometimes", I replied to her, "and a lot of times I don't want to go on struggling against the unyielding, overpowering forces. Yet I want to continue living. That is all I can say. I want to live."

The interrogator gazed at me with an empty look, a look lacking any human expression, deciding on her answer.

Just as she was about to make her pronouncement, I woke up to life.

Reviews

[Bella Marie]

In the distance, I saw my friends getting finished off -- obviously their answers weren't good enough. Almost certainly they all used the "My life is unique" defence and it didn't work.

I thought perhaps you could change (I saw my friends getting finished off)..to me it doesnt if in with the flow...but that is just me!!

This piece gets you thinking, it is quite unique and leaves it all up to ones own interpretation...is this the piece that was published?

I did enjoy the read, thankyou for sending it to me.

Bella
XXX

[Annelise]

This is so wonderful! I will tell you the truth, I didn't see your last line as a "waking up from a dream" kind of line. I saw it as "in this moment so close to death, I've woken up to the meaning of this life." It seems as though you have left it unresolved, not knowing wether the answer is good enough for the women, just letting us know that he had found his reason for living. But that is just my opinion, I could be completely wrong.

[dead]

“on the threshold of death, does the vision of ideal life appear to me, life free of all the illusions that have previously brought me down, illusions that only the proximity of 'The Ed' can destroy?”

I agree with that, since life and death are each other ‘necessities’, this really means that the fullness (essence) of life can only occur at the brink of and in being eye to eye with death, because otherwise life always seems to escape us or pass by unnoticed. I like your answer at the end, “I want to live” and even the ‘I want’ is not important, but really all that matters is ‘to live’. There is a brilliant film by Akira Kurosawa called ‘to live’ (Ikiru in Japanese) about a bureaucrat stuck in the routine of his job (a job in which nothing ever happens) who realizes he is dying of stomach cancer and decides with the last couple of months left in his life, to actually live. At first he kind of goes down the road of debauch, but he realizes that is wrong and he decides to go back to his job but to actually make a difference.
Anyway, your story tells us something very important which is why all your ‘companions’ got killed off, people are so busy trying to figure out meanings to life, that they forget about living life. Thank you!

Steven

[Cursorblock]

Very nicely done. It takes something that has been written about before but moves it not to the life/death physical stuggle between prisioner and interrogator but to the life/death mental struggle inside the prisioner's mind. You take the philisophical question that has plauged humans since the beginning and brought an urgency to it. Great work.

[Bubo]

"Yet this fear of death that I am feeling right now is out of all proportion to the joy and satisfaction that life has brought me so far. Why does my life seem so dear and precious to me now? Is it because only now, on the threshold of death, does the vision of ideal life appear to me, life free of all the illusions that have previously brought me down, illusions that only the proximity of 'The End' can destroy?

"Is it because that only now can I see life as it really is, free of all the grime that besmirches its true visage, free of all the trivial annoyances that make life so hard to bear in day-to-day existence?

So many questiona when faced with death we realise in life we wasted so much time, worrying about things that really were not important enough to consume so much time.
Therefore, this dream taught you life, what truely matters, yes sometimes we want to lie down and not get up, but we do get up and each day find something new to smile about............
a very honest answer you gave.We all fear death.

[Michey Sharp]

Oh this was wonderful...I love how you compared making the most of your existence to cramming for an exam...the way you ended it was wonderful...leaves the reader wanting more!

[Boris]

This is left to your own interpretation Shalini

[Shalini R]

is life in death? or did u awake from a dream? or is this left to interpretation?