Just Like the Lights, You Could Go on Forever
Just Like the Lights, You Could Go on Forever
There’s a golf ball in your throat, the beginning of a sickness that you know is to come. But there’s another lump there too. Perhaps it’s your heart or a frog or another proverbial item that couldn’t possibly be there. For you had checked already. You had stretched your mouth wide open to see the angry swollen tonsils staring back at you in the mirror, but nothing else was different. You can feel it though, a heavy weight that makes it twice as hard to swallow as it already is. Something is lingering and it pulls the strings of your heart as if for a puppet show. What is it? That’s the question.
The first time you thought about death was when you were five, maybe younger, and you had just woken up from a tunnel dream. You don’t know what else to call it and maybe there’s an actual name for it – you did try googling it once, but not even the ever dependable Freud had the answers – but it makes sense to you. Trains always feel like they’re going inordinately faster in pitch-black tunnels than when it’s out in the open. There’s something about the absolute darkness. Maybe it’s the anticipation for the end, the holding of breath, that warps your perception. But it’s exactly like how the dream comes to you – normal-paced, then fast all at once, and when the train is just about to hit the light, that is when you wake up.
On that first occasion, you were startled awake to wetness on your scrunched up cheeks, fears looming fresh in your mind, a gut-wrenching feeling lodged in your throat. You didn’t know why you were crying or what those fears were, just that you were feeling something. It felt wrong and terrible and altogether disconcerting. Running for your mother’s arms, hoping to find comfort for this alien emotion, you admitted out loud something you didn’t even know you were going to say. “I’m scared of death,” you had said. And once you had uttered it, it felt like the one universal truth in the world. You thought you would always be scared of death and at the age that you were, you didn’t know anything other.
But she didn’t hear you. Or if she did, she ignored it. The ‘mms’ and ‘huhs’ she made, like all people make when giving the pretence of listening, were a giveaway. Because after all, you were a little kid then, and little kids spout the weirdest shit. It’s inconsequential when thinking about bills and work and other adult things at two in the morning. So nothing came out of it, and you got put back into bed like a stray kitten from its litter. You slept. And days later when the tunnel dream happened again, you decided to have a good cry. Not one loud enough to wake the sleeping, but good enough to know that was all you could do. And then you forgot about it for a few years.
But it returned, to your surprise – always the same, always different – all undeniably tunnel dreams. Once, twice a year they came and each time you startled awake, there were no tears anymore. Instead, that nameless lump in your throat was what remained. But you swallowed it down every instance it came and you went back to sleep because fuck that. It was still a ridiculous time in the morning for you to confront your fears of death or wonder what those dreams meant. When you woke up, you wouldn’t remember it anyway. Those feelings were only reserved for the night-time, the idea of death had no place in the day. Besides, you don’t believe dreams have any intrinsic meaning. And you aren’t anymore, you think, what you said back then.
Perhaps you realised you weren’t scared anymore the day you were told your grandfather had died, or certainly later in hindsight. You were 15 and you’d just come home from school and your mother hugged you (a rare occurrence), and uttered it softly. You said, “what,” because you weren’t expecting it but you heard her. She told you again and suddenly you felt that your lips were in the wrong position, turned slightly upwards, and you needed to quit it immediately. Nobody smiles when they hear this kind of news. Not a teenager with no ill-conceived thoughts for them.
It was the first funeral you attended. At one point your family walked slowly up to and around the open coffin in tandem (to this day you don’t know why, do people walk around the open coffin at all funerals?). When it was your turn, you looked down at the deceased’s face and thought, holy fuck, they’re right. It looks just like he’s sleeping. For the rest of the service, you didn’t feel anything you thought you were supposed to feel. Like the despair your eleven-year-old cousin felt when she broke down reading her eulogy, or maybe the anger your mother felt because your aunt was holding everyone up, weeping loudly at the casket. You could’ve just been sitting for a Sunday sermon in that church, it wasn’t any different. You were so close to death – his dead body – it didn’t seem real.
Was it because you were in denial and the grief wasn’t hitting you yet? That couldn’t be true. Because the grief didn’t hit you days later or even years later. You felt like you should’ve been feeling something – it was you grandfather’s funeral! The two of you weren’t close but you weren’t heartless. You felt like an imposter, sitting at a funeral for a stranger. You realised it later, though, what you thought you should’ve felt. The ache in your throat wasn’t there. It wasn’t in your heart or your lungs or even your foot. It wasn’t anywhere within a 10 metre radius of you. The unmistakeable vestige of death had been right in front of you and you weren’t scared. Something you used to wake up crying about no longer fazed you. That was why the lump wasn’t there. (But that isn’t entirely true.)
Remember that time when you thought, “Good. Good. How can it be this good?” You were 19 and you felt like the planets had all aligned and the stars were in your favour, and you looked for Orion every chance you could. Maybe the glorious hunter of the night sky had to do with your absolute euphoria. You don’t like thinking about that occasion (apologies for bringing it up) but something was right in the world and you felt the best you had ever felt. It’s true. Admit it. You felt the best you had ever felt. And you felt like dying, you wrote it down: “I feel like dying, I feel like dying, I feel like dying.” But why would you feel like dying when it felt so good?
But you were right. It can’t be that good. It wasn’t that good. Bet you’re feeling sorry now. (You’re not feeling sorry, you’re glad you thought it was, excuse the bitterness.) You jinxed it and it turned into, “How can it be this bad?” You swallowed your heart whole – or it felt like you did – multiple times over. You couldn’t get rid of the feeling, the feeling of absolute dismay. The planets broke formation and you felt like a child again, but you were older. You knew you wouldn’t find comfort for the lump making its way back into your throat. And though you didn’t shed even a single tear for what happened, you found it hard to swallow every time you thought about it.
So you hoped to forget everything. To block it from memory, have a clean slate and start fresh. But you couldn’t. Oh, lord, you couldn’t. You wanted to say ‘sorry, sorry, sorry’ or ‘fuck you, fuck you, fuck you’, but you didn’t know which. Both at the same time, maybe. You didn’t get the chance to, though (you don’t ever get the chance). So you engulfed it all down and hid it away in the deepest crevice of your mind and let father time do the rest. It was the only thing you could do.
It must’ve been half a year after that whole ordeal, you were out and expecting nothing. The day was nothing special; you and a few friends had decided to meet up in a small bar just to catch up. You don’t remember the name of the bar or even the topics you and your friends talked about. But you remember your cheeks stretched so much it hurt, and the insides of your mouth were chewed raw. You cursed your molars but at the same time, you imagined yourself with a Colgate ad smile, because you felt like what those toothy photoshopped grins pretended to feel like. You couldn’t see very well in that dim room, your contacts never appreciated the night time as much as you did, but the swelling of your cheeks and squinting of your eyes obscured a lot of your vision too. You laughed and you glowed (from the few drinks of alcohol or the feeling of absolute happiness, you didn’t know) but things felt good again.
When you went to the toilets, you looked at the completely graffitied walls of the stall around you. You had always wondered about the sentiments behind graffiti, what drove a person to leave that specific mark? And when you turned your head to the left, the phrase at your exact eye level was the mantra you had been repeating to yourself ever since you had heard of it – “I think, therefore I am.” Maybe you don’t completely agree with Descartes’s philosophy, but it keeps you from being a nihilistic old hag. You don’t believe in fate or lady luck but perhaps, by chance, the planets were aligning again. For that night, at the very least. You didn’t recognise yourself in the mirror whilst washing your hands. Your cheeks were flaming red and your lips were locked in that upward turn, but you felt good. Whole.
When you stepped out of the bar into the cool night air, you were greeted by the glowing logos of the establishments all around you. They crooned for you to come closer while the skyscraper buildings in the distance winked reflections. But all those city lights gleamed out of focus, and you gulped in the wind and the stars and the people and the cars. Or maybe it gulped you in and drowned you. But either way, you were immersed and it was there. And you didn’t know why the fuck it was there. It was a hindrance and it had no place being there when you felt so good. But choosing to be the bigger person, you embraced it. (Well, you tried. You tried to embrace it. As much as anyone possibly could anyway.)
You ran through the streets and there was a festival going on so the city streets were even more packed for a Saturday night. And everybody was rowdy and you were tetris-ing your way around the people in order to catch your bus on time. People knocked into you, and you weren’t supposed to run across the road carelessly but all you could feel was liberated. The bus was crammed, unsurprisingly, when you made it on there and though you hate crowded spaces, you didn’t think anything could ruin what you were feeling. Shortly into the ride, someone proposed a sing-a-long and before you knew it, half the bus was singing and it was difficult to hear even your own thoughts but it was so commendable that they knew all the lyrics to the songs. You can still hear the collective screams of “Alice. Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?” that seemed to make the bus tremble. Nearly every person was a stranger to the other, but there was a unity going on. And you had thought a stupid night like this, cramped on a bus with a boisterous inconsiderate lady bumping against you repeatedly, was even better than that one. The one where you felt like dying.
You didn’t feel like dying on that night. (What an awful way to die; nobody wants to die on a bus.) Maybe spiteful. You were going to live forever just to prove you didn’t feel like dying anymore. But it was there, subdued down, but still undoubtedly there – the lump. But why? What was it doing in such a time of joy? You’ve been on enough rollercoasters and theme park rides to know how it feels when the sudden drop in a ride gives rise to a flutter in your body. The exhilaration and lack of notice produces something that makes your stomach churn and your head swirl. It’s terrifying but thrilling at the same time. And maybe, possibly, it’s akin to that nameless lump. That night screwed up the notions you had cultivated over the years but you were getting closer to the answer. You felt like you had it.
You feel the intrusive lump more at other times, in other places. Sometimes understandingly but sometimes it surprises you (and in those moments, you think, no, no, go away). One time you were under your blanket and in your slippers and you were riding in the passenger seat with the lights coming at you, blearing and blearing and blearing. You could go on forever. Just like the lights. You could go on forever, you thought. Feeling utterly dismal for no conceivable reason, you had gone out for dessert to keep from sinking at home. But the cold vanilla ice-cream you bought did nothing to extinguish the ache you had grown to know too often.
It is inexplicable, the things you feel and the times you feel them. Your mortality isn’t something you think about everyday but something – a transcendental being or mother nature, perhaps – reminds you that you are irrevocably, undeniably alive. It lodges in your throat and lingers until you’ve got the message. It’s not the most pleasant feeling but you embrace it as much as you can because that’s all you can do. Winter is looming in the wings, coming up fast, and you simultaneously long and dread for it. You know flu season won’t be kind to you so you will stock up on tissues and medication as is annually regular, and you will hope for the best.
Your familiar friend will visit you habitually but at least you know now that the times won’t always be when you feel the most forlorn. And Wild Beasts’ words ring in your head – “though the way is dark and hands will grab at us, I’ll remember this” – and you’ll continue to live your life. To think, there are more than seven billion human beings under the heavenly sun at this very moment. And you are one of them. So, maybe you are still waiting for your chance to live it out in the Bahamas or the Sahara desert, thinking ‘this is it’, the moment that will change your entire perspective on life. Maybe you won’t get that moment at all. But you know you exist. And that’s a glorious thought. You think.
The first time you thought about death was when you were five, maybe younger, and you had just woken up from a tunnel dream. You don’t know what else to call it and maybe there’s an actual name for it – you did try googling it once, but not even the ever dependable Freud had the answers – but it makes sense to you. Trains always feel like they’re going inordinately faster in pitch-black tunnels than when it’s out in the open. There’s something about the absolute darkness. Maybe it’s the anticipation for the end, the holding of breath, that warps your perception. But it’s exactly like how the dream comes to you – normal-paced, then fast all at once, and when the train is just about to hit the light, that is when you wake up.
On that first occasion, you were startled awake to wetness on your scrunched up cheeks, fears looming fresh in your mind, a gut-wrenching feeling lodged in your throat. You didn’t know why you were crying or what those fears were, just that you were feeling something. It felt wrong and terrible and altogether disconcerting. Running for your mother’s arms, hoping to find comfort for this alien emotion, you admitted out loud something you didn’t even know you were going to say. “I’m scared of death,” you had said. And once you had uttered it, it felt like the one universal truth in the world. You thought you would always be scared of death and at the age that you were, you didn’t know anything other.
But she didn’t hear you. Or if she did, she ignored it. The ‘mms’ and ‘huhs’ she made, like all people make when giving the pretence of listening, were a giveaway. Because after all, you were a little kid then, and little kids spout the weirdest shit. It’s inconsequential when thinking about bills and work and other adult things at two in the morning. So nothing came out of it, and you got put back into bed like a stray kitten from its litter. You slept. And days later when the tunnel dream happened again, you decided to have a good cry. Not one loud enough to wake the sleeping, but good enough to know that was all you could do. And then you forgot about it for a few years.
But it returned, to your surprise – always the same, always different – all undeniably tunnel dreams. Once, twice a year they came and each time you startled awake, there were no tears anymore. Instead, that nameless lump in your throat was what remained. But you swallowed it down every instance it came and you went back to sleep because fuck that. It was still a ridiculous time in the morning for you to confront your fears of death or wonder what those dreams meant. When you woke up, you wouldn’t remember it anyway. Those feelings were only reserved for the night-time, the idea of death had no place in the day. Besides, you don’t believe dreams have any intrinsic meaning. And you aren’t anymore, you think, what you said back then.
Perhaps you realised you weren’t scared anymore the day you were told your grandfather had died, or certainly later in hindsight. You were 15 and you’d just come home from school and your mother hugged you (a rare occurrence), and uttered it softly. You said, “what,” because you weren’t expecting it but you heard her. She told you again and suddenly you felt that your lips were in the wrong position, turned slightly upwards, and you needed to quit it immediately. Nobody smiles when they hear this kind of news. Not a teenager with no ill-conceived thoughts for them.
It was the first funeral you attended. At one point your family walked slowly up to and around the open coffin in tandem (to this day you don’t know why, do people walk around the open coffin at all funerals?). When it was your turn, you looked down at the deceased’s face and thought, holy fuck, they’re right. It looks just like he’s sleeping. For the rest of the service, you didn’t feel anything you thought you were supposed to feel. Like the despair your eleven-year-old cousin felt when she broke down reading her eulogy, or maybe the anger your mother felt because your aunt was holding everyone up, weeping loudly at the casket. You could’ve just been sitting for a Sunday sermon in that church, it wasn’t any different. You were so close to death – his dead body – it didn’t seem real.
Was it because you were in denial and the grief wasn’t hitting you yet? That couldn’t be true. Because the grief didn’t hit you days later or even years later. You felt like you should’ve been feeling something – it was you grandfather’s funeral! The two of you weren’t close but you weren’t heartless. You felt like an imposter, sitting at a funeral for a stranger. You realised it later, though, what you thought you should’ve felt. The ache in your throat wasn’t there. It wasn’t in your heart or your lungs or even your foot. It wasn’t anywhere within a 10 metre radius of you. The unmistakeable vestige of death had been right in front of you and you weren’t scared. Something you used to wake up crying about no longer fazed you. That was why the lump wasn’t there. (But that isn’t entirely true.)
Remember that time when you thought, “Good. Good. How can it be this good?” You were 19 and you felt like the planets had all aligned and the stars were in your favour, and you looked for Orion every chance you could. Maybe the glorious hunter of the night sky had to do with your absolute euphoria. You don’t like thinking about that occasion (apologies for bringing it up) but something was right in the world and you felt the best you had ever felt. It’s true. Admit it. You felt the best you had ever felt. And you felt like dying, you wrote it down: “I feel like dying, I feel like dying, I feel like dying.” But why would you feel like dying when it felt so good?
But you were right. It can’t be that good. It wasn’t that good. Bet you’re feeling sorry now. (You’re not feeling sorry, you’re glad you thought it was, excuse the bitterness.) You jinxed it and it turned into, “How can it be this bad?” You swallowed your heart whole – or it felt like you did – multiple times over. You couldn’t get rid of the feeling, the feeling of absolute dismay. The planets broke formation and you felt like a child again, but you were older. You knew you wouldn’t find comfort for the lump making its way back into your throat. And though you didn’t shed even a single tear for what happened, you found it hard to swallow every time you thought about it.
So you hoped to forget everything. To block it from memory, have a clean slate and start fresh. But you couldn’t. Oh, lord, you couldn’t. You wanted to say ‘sorry, sorry, sorry’ or ‘fuck you, fuck you, fuck you’, but you didn’t know which. Both at the same time, maybe. You didn’t get the chance to, though (you don’t ever get the chance). So you engulfed it all down and hid it away in the deepest crevice of your mind and let father time do the rest. It was the only thing you could do.
It must’ve been half a year after that whole ordeal, you were out and expecting nothing. The day was nothing special; you and a few friends had decided to meet up in a small bar just to catch up. You don’t remember the name of the bar or even the topics you and your friends talked about. But you remember your cheeks stretched so much it hurt, and the insides of your mouth were chewed raw. You cursed your molars but at the same time, you imagined yourself with a Colgate ad smile, because you felt like what those toothy photoshopped grins pretended to feel like. You couldn’t see very well in that dim room, your contacts never appreciated the night time as much as you did, but the swelling of your cheeks and squinting of your eyes obscured a lot of your vision too. You laughed and you glowed (from the few drinks of alcohol or the feeling of absolute happiness, you didn’t know) but things felt good again.
When you went to the toilets, you looked at the completely graffitied walls of the stall around you. You had always wondered about the sentiments behind graffiti, what drove a person to leave that specific mark? And when you turned your head to the left, the phrase at your exact eye level was the mantra you had been repeating to yourself ever since you had heard of it – “I think, therefore I am.” Maybe you don’t completely agree with Descartes’s philosophy, but it keeps you from being a nihilistic old hag. You don’t believe in fate or lady luck but perhaps, by chance, the planets were aligning again. For that night, at the very least. You didn’t recognise yourself in the mirror whilst washing your hands. Your cheeks were flaming red and your lips were locked in that upward turn, but you felt good. Whole.
When you stepped out of the bar into the cool night air, you were greeted by the glowing logos of the establishments all around you. They crooned for you to come closer while the skyscraper buildings in the distance winked reflections. But all those city lights gleamed out of focus, and you gulped in the wind and the stars and the people and the cars. Or maybe it gulped you in and drowned you. But either way, you were immersed and it was there. And you didn’t know why the fuck it was there. It was a hindrance and it had no place being there when you felt so good. But choosing to be the bigger person, you embraced it. (Well, you tried. You tried to embrace it. As much as anyone possibly could anyway.)
You ran through the streets and there was a festival going on so the city streets were even more packed for a Saturday night. And everybody was rowdy and you were tetris-ing your way around the people in order to catch your bus on time. People knocked into you, and you weren’t supposed to run across the road carelessly but all you could feel was liberated. The bus was crammed, unsurprisingly, when you made it on there and though you hate crowded spaces, you didn’t think anything could ruin what you were feeling. Shortly into the ride, someone proposed a sing-a-long and before you knew it, half the bus was singing and it was difficult to hear even your own thoughts but it was so commendable that they knew all the lyrics to the songs. You can still hear the collective screams of “Alice. Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?” that seemed to make the bus tremble. Nearly every person was a stranger to the other, but there was a unity going on. And you had thought a stupid night like this, cramped on a bus with a boisterous inconsiderate lady bumping against you repeatedly, was even better than that one. The one where you felt like dying.
You didn’t feel like dying on that night. (What an awful way to die; nobody wants to die on a bus.) Maybe spiteful. You were going to live forever just to prove you didn’t feel like dying anymore. But it was there, subdued down, but still undoubtedly there – the lump. But why? What was it doing in such a time of joy? You’ve been on enough rollercoasters and theme park rides to know how it feels when the sudden drop in a ride gives rise to a flutter in your body. The exhilaration and lack of notice produces something that makes your stomach churn and your head swirl. It’s terrifying but thrilling at the same time. And maybe, possibly, it’s akin to that nameless lump. That night screwed up the notions you had cultivated over the years but you were getting closer to the answer. You felt like you had it.
You feel the intrusive lump more at other times, in other places. Sometimes understandingly but sometimes it surprises you (and in those moments, you think, no, no, go away). One time you were under your blanket and in your slippers and you were riding in the passenger seat with the lights coming at you, blearing and blearing and blearing. You could go on forever. Just like the lights. You could go on forever, you thought. Feeling utterly dismal for no conceivable reason, you had gone out for dessert to keep from sinking at home. But the cold vanilla ice-cream you bought did nothing to extinguish the ache you had grown to know too often.
It is inexplicable, the things you feel and the times you feel them. Your mortality isn’t something you think about everyday but something – a transcendental being or mother nature, perhaps – reminds you that you are irrevocably, undeniably alive. It lodges in your throat and lingers until you’ve got the message. It’s not the most pleasant feeling but you embrace it as much as you can because that’s all you can do. Winter is looming in the wings, coming up fast, and you simultaneously long and dread for it. You know flu season won’t be kind to you so you will stock up on tissues and medication as is annually regular, and you will hope for the best.
Your familiar friend will visit you habitually but at least you know now that the times won’t always be when you feel the most forlorn. And Wild Beasts’ words ring in your head – “though the way is dark and hands will grab at us, I’ll remember this” – and you’ll continue to live your life. To think, there are more than seven billion human beings under the heavenly sun at this very moment. And you are one of them. So, maybe you are still waiting for your chance to live it out in the Bahamas or the Sahara desert, thinking ‘this is it’, the moment that will change your entire perspective on life. Maybe you won’t get that moment at all. But you know you exist. And that’s a glorious thought. You think.