But I don’t want to be the cliché outsider who thinks that he knows better than everyone because he sees everything in a jaded light. Social constructs and conventions always seem like a stupid waste of time to me, but I only think they’re stupid because I’m incapable of enjoying them. While I always judge the people around me and hate them for being human, I never think myself better than them. If anything, they are all better than me. I envy them all; envy them for the lives they get to live, the mental stability they get to enjoy. Social lives, friendships, romance, just the ability to integrate within collective and find joy and understanding… There are students down below me who are parts of something bigger, be it something as simple as a school club, but I’m simply not capable of being able to do that.
I looked at the tables surrounded by just girls. There was a time when I would have sold my soul to just find a girl who would go out with me. In my heart, I knew that only love or death could bring me peace, and I had known it for years. For close to a decade, I had been looking for my soul mate, the one girl who could take away my pain. At least, that’s what I used to want. Now I knew it was too late.
I staggered through the hall, trying to recover from a seizure only a few moments’ prior.
“Marcus, do you want to talk?”
I already knew who it was. Her name was Julia, and she was one of the few people who were nice to me. Well, she used to be. I hadn’t talked to her since sophomore year. She was kind and beautiful, and for a while, I thought that I loved her. But then I learned that she had a boyfriend, and after that, I simply lost interest. Now I saw her simply as a nuisance, a reminder of the days of wishing I could be with her, no matter what the cost, days when my pain and desperation were euphoria compared to my current agony.
“No.”
“You need to talk to someone.”
“No, I just need to get to class.”
I spat out a mouthful of blood. The bleeding would always start after every seizure.
“Why won’t you look at me?” she asked in desperation.
“Because I’m in pain! I’ve been in pain long before I got these tumors. I used to think that either love or death could cure me, but I hate this world and everyone in it far too much to ever fall in love! I’m already dead, I’ve been dead for as long as I can remember, but for some reason, my body won’t take the hint and croak, so I’m stuck in this wretched and agonizing bag of flesh and bones, trapped in a world I despise and surrounded by a species that I pray would go extinct! You’ve made it clear that you cannot be the one to help me, no one can. I can only suffer until my abominable existence wipes itself out.”
“Are you mad at me?!” she asked defensively.
I turned around and walked away. “No, I’m mad at fate. I’m mad at my own cursed existence. If you want to help me, then put a bullet in my head.”
Wanting some fresh air and deciding it would be better not to risk having a seizure on the bus, I walked home. The weather wasn’t too bad, and the cold helped ease my pain a little, plus it gave me time alone with my thoughts, free from distractions and noise. Walking along the ice-caked road with my hood tightened to keep my ears warm from the snow, I let my mind wander back to my dream. If what I had concluded about that star was right, then my death truly was approaching and would soon conclude. Even if what Dr. Turner had said about my cancer not being terminal were correct, the side effects sure would be. How long could the human body truly last when forced to suffer endless torture?
‘Whether or not it is my true death or not, until that time comes, this is how I must march through time. Whether I will continue to exist in some other form is irrelevant, no mind can truly understand the meaning of death or the weight it carries, therefor, it cannot exist within our minds. We cannot comprehend death, we cannot understand it, not without experiencing it ourselves, at which point, we cease to exist. Therefor, death is incomprehensible; it is the end of all reason, in which all human rules and assumptions become meaningless. We can only understand things that exist, while we ourselves exist, so while we may fear death, it is impossible to become aware of it ourselves.
We cannot feel our own death, just as we can’t feel nonexistence. We can watch others die, we can feel our own lives slipping away, but we cannot feel that final moment. We cannot know precisely when it ends. We can see a million people die, but we cannot see our own. It’s like every single person is an immortal surrounded by mortals, a continuing paradox of observation and ignorance. Life occupies the entirety of our minds and our existences, it is infinity; it is the endlessness. Death is the world outside of infinity, the realm beyond argument, in which beginning and end are one in the same.
If I cannot find or detect the end of my life when it happens, then through my senses, it will never happen. I am immortal, and the only way for my death to occur is for everything and nothing to collide and end my existence. Or am I wrong? Will I continue to exist beyond death? Will I live on, even while my body rots in the ground? Is there a life after this one? Is it better? Is it worse?’
“Hey Marcus, want to play chess?” my brother Phil asked.
I was sitting on the couch in the living room, watching TV with a wet towel on my head. I had been feeling feverish all day. Phil was three years younger than me and had the same black hair as I did, though his was cut shorter and he had a different bone structure. He and I had been playing chess for years and he had never once beaten me. You could say it was the one activity we did as brothers, and from what I guessed, this was his attempt to try and distract me from my pain.
I shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”
Phil sat on the other end of the couch and the board was set up. I kept my eyes focused mainly on the TV, looking at the board only when it was my turn. I had some difficulty moving the pieces; my fingers felt stiff and brittle.
“Phil, do you know where I could get some pot?” I asked out of the blue.
“What?”
“Come on, I know you’re a freshman, but you’ve always been on the social circuit. You must know someone who can sell me some weed.”
“No, I don’t hang around with people like that.”
I sighed again and continued to play. For once, Phil managed to beat me, but it was a hollow victory, especially with how quickly he won. I knocked over my king with a click of my tongue.
“Well now, it looks like the old king is dead and the new king has risen. Long live the king,” I said dryly before getting up and leaving.
“Hey Marcus, what’s up?” my sister asked, surprised to see me standing in the doorway.
Emily was a year younger than me and a Junior. She had my mom’s blond hair, but it was mixed with my dad’s dark hair gene.
“Do you know anyone at school who could sell me some pot?” I asked, nearly scaring her with how blunt I was.
“What? No! And you shouldn’t be smoking that stuff, it’s bad for you!”