Liquid Dreams

[Saliko]

Death is an odd little thing, companion and predator to all. Some people embrace death and love it, while others fear it and fall helpless at thoughts of it. Most fall some place inbetween those two extremes, though what the level is would be hard to say.

Attitudes towards death seem to come with the times, it seems. In good times, death is never a worry, and is more likely to be feared than embraced. Yet in bad times, death might seem an escape from this place, something wonderful. And to those in pain, death is a welcomed promise of freedom from that pain, a chance at escape that could not be found any other way.


But it seems death has a way of taking those who least need it, and leaving those who care for it most to suffer endlessly onward. Sandra had lived a life, if one could call it that. A mixture of good times and pain, she found the median of feelings towards death for her situation itself was the median between those who loved and cared for it. Yet years pass, and that which once brought happiness fades away while that which brings pain still stands firm and powerful as the day that it first came. She loved many things, but she could not love her life when it involved such pain as she was forced to endure.

But death does not come easy to those who come to care for it. She wished so much to simply take her own life at times, and yet she could bring herself to no direct way, for she loved many things and could no actively remove herself from that which she cared for so deeply. Pills and the passive ways had she tried many times, yet they were little more than horrible fits of more pain, like a horrible hangover after a binge on trying to escape. And they only made the reality of what she faced more real.

Of course, there is one thing that will come to kill all: Time. Time does not distinguish between race or gender or religion. It is like death, accompanying every person and making itself known, yet slowly stalking them till the time is right to make its strike. Sandra found that time was the only way which she could possibly escape from this world. Since Time does not distinguish age, it offered her hope. Perhaps, soon, it would be her time to be removed, and Time would take her into the arms of the sweet death for which she dreamed and begged for with all of her being.

Time, however, is a very queer thing as well. Sometimes it moves quickly, stalking with great cunning and prowess. Other times, it moves slowly and stealthily, barely noticeable to all but the most keen of people, all others misjudging what is happening. Time would be Sandra's hope, but how close that hope was, she did not know. She spent many sleepless nights in fear and pain, wondering what could come next, how many minutes had passed, if Time had decided her time was now. This horrible mixture of thoughts often brought her to sleep, though it was never the peaceful sleep that most long for, but instead a horrible sleep of nightmares and fears that only accented the pain which she was forced to endure.

She spent many of her morning hours on Time as well. The sun would rise and move, marking the passage of time, and making her wonder if Time was what helped move this world around. She would wait for the churchbells to ring at noon and bring her to the midpoint of one frame of pain, which brought both relief that it was half finished, yet lowered her spirits with the knowledge that so much of this day alone sat before her. The afternoons brought more thoughts on Time, and with the rising of the moon and the stars wonderment on ideas of how Time might create and destroy even that which lies in the heavens, that Time shall one day take each star just as it takes each human. Shooting stars in the evening told her that Time was kind to at least those stars, and would one day take her too, even if not in such glory and such light. But eventually the night returned, and the cycle would begin anew.

So the days passed, a study in Time for the poor girl that had no choice but to endure. Sandra felt as if she was a spectator in her own life, watching everything around her pass by, fade, taken by Time or otherwise change, while she simply remained alone and in pain, with little other comfort than the Time on which she so often dwelt. It seemed that her studying and watching were of no help to her, only torturing her mind which was already forced to endure so much. She refused to stop taxing her soul, and instead pushed it to the limits of the pain that it could endure, just as she had no choice but to feel this pain that was imposed upon her from the outside. It became almost a balance, the pain created on the inside balancing the pain created by the outside, both pushing on her harder and harder while she endured. It seems that perhaps she knew nothing else.

But there is something she did know. Everyone knows it. Time and death have an odd way of making their presence known, when they at last converge upon a person, creating a presence that cannot be ignored and warns the person of what is soon to pass. The churchbells had rang and the sun long passed its apex when Sandra felt something inside, other than the pain and the thoughts and the Time, something much more powerful and compelling. At first she was afraid, but upon realizing what it was, could not help but wonder whether she should truly embrace what she felt or rather change her mind and run, as so many others before tried to do, even though failure was certain.

She decided not to run, and instead lay out and watched the sky fade from the light of the sun to the indigo blanket of the night, dotted with the stars. She felt it come closer and closer, and for the first time in a long while, a smile crossed her face. A shooting star began in the sky, but soon the entire world grew brighter to her. She would not go out in the blaze in this world, as did the star, but in her mind which had endured so much the light would be just as brilliant. The smile only grew, even though she knew not what was happening. The only thought that could fill her mind beside the light was is this truly what I have sought for so long.

With that thought, she passed on from the world, Time taking her as its own, and death finishing little more than a duty which is placed upon it by every human being. All that remained was the smile on her face, and the single thought that gave her away to Time, the thing which she had thought upon for so long, and death which she had dreamed about for even longer.