Red-brick-wall
Disclaimer: The following is a piece of fiction. It dabbles in negative themes. It is not an apology to suicide or crime of any fashion. If you think about ending your life, seek counseling. There are many non-profit organizations who can help you for free. Seek help, do not go gentle into that good night.
I shall do the world wrong today. I breathe anger toward my recent actions. I throw the precious time I have in hedonisms. I pray I receive my muse, but time lapses in images of meaningless value. I see many stories die untold. My mind grasps them. They are real for a moment, lost in oblivion the next. I pray, heavenly saints, aide me out of this torment. They grant my wish. I feel peace for some time. It vanishes as soon as I touch that dark addiction. No peace can withstand a sip of this dark pleasure. It makes my senses soar in a surrogate-bliss. I fly to the false paradise of hedonists. I stay there unmovable for the good part of a day. I force feed myself because I know I could fast all day in this state. I am those lab-rats with a food and a pleasure buttons in front of me. Once I go for pleasure, nothing else happens but pleasure. My objective is to unwire my brain connections. It’s simple. All I have to transpose is a barrier as high as the sky.
Oh, what a game. Even the life of a random nobody can be a source of much intrigue. Chaos toasts with me, “Here is to your happiness,” it says, “let’s bring havoc and set this world ablaze. You can drive shotgun.” I go inside the dubious ride, knowing what fate has in store for me. I go inside, though I see it leads to a fatal accident, my soul shattered to pieces. The car will hit a wall 80 miles per hour head-on. This poor vessel will go to many parts at once. My life force will run down the gutters of this road.
The road I ride takes me to utter destruction, a path worst than one with no return. I tag along, I see the landscape. A rush of happiness salutes me every time I see a sign confirming I am in the right direction. There are many sideways to different locations. Some are awesome choices, I think. But I accepted to go where Chaos drives me. My mind is set on that. I’m on the way of many returns. Every mile comes with an exit number: 581, 582… I wonder why so many chances to quit when all I wish is to hit that wall. I could go to Self-Realization beach or Charity Mountain if I took one of those last exits. I imagine how pleasant a weekend in any of them places would be. I take a note to plan for a trip there another time.
I dream of possibilities. I binge on “what-ifs” for an hour because the highway lost its charm. I look outside this metal-glass-cage again. The world passes before my eyes like your life crosses your mind the before you die. The people I see amaze me. Where might their cars go, I think, are they following my same destination? Will we hit that wall together? I don’t know it then, but many are my companions indeed. We head to the same red-brick-wall on Desperation Street between houses 53 and 66. “The Unpassable,” they call it. Like me, many others want to prove the name wrong. “I will cross that thing,” “I am a competent worker,” “I planned ahead,” “I did it before with a smaller wall and succeeded.” I am prepared to pierce through a one-mile thick wall on 80 miles an hour. Somehow the last sentence never sounds impossible. I put on the work, but people keep telling me to give up. Mr. Billionaire didn’t give up, I answer them. Mrs. Higher-Spirit told me everyone would pull me back to my chair. Social inertia, she called it. This inertia thing works outside Physics too. The environment will grind and resist your initial displacement every time you decide to change. On the good side, it won’t disturb you after that. You will go forever on your path unless you wish to alter speed. Consistency gives you a smooth ride.
I aimed for consistency many times in previous travels. I was successful in some. Drive 60 miles per hour the whole time and see many gallons of gas saved.
I saved a lot. I saved myself from delusion by having no friends. I spared myself from family drama by moving far away from home. I lack the disturbed spirit of one who swims in debt because I consume my bare necessities. I shop only on Black Fridays. Miss Frugal taught me all that. I remembered her after one billboard passed me: buy a house, realize the dream of home-ownership. Every generation before mine loves that mantra. “Own stuff,” “care for yourself and your family first,” “go gentle into that dream of yours,” “learn to drive a car before you become a musician.” This last sentence never sounds insane to the speaker.
Miss Frugal also introduced me to Siddhartha’s commandments: I can wait, I can fast, I can think. I find the choice of words marvelous, commandments that do not command.
The sudden acceleration brings me back to here and now. We are leaving a toll-booth. Even marching for your own demise, people will pave a way there and profit from your destruction. Funerary services and cemeteries come to mind. My father will pay his father’s burial grounds maintenance until he dies. Then, it will be my turn to pay for both my father and grandfather’s burial sites. How long will this pyramid hold before collapsing? Modernity comes with many kill-switches. All one can hope is a mile-thick wall to hit before the circle stops ascending and turns nose down to its bottom. I won’t be here to see it though. I have no more illusions of crossing those bricks and reach the promised land beyond no more.
A poem assaulted my subconscious again and again while I wrote the story above. I heard someone say it before in a movie. I searched and discovered it was Interstellar. It goes like this:
Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Poem by Dylan Thomas, 1914–1953
