What does it mean to live? | Teen Ink

What does it mean to live?

July 21, 2017
By ABlackRaven SILVER, Mason, Texas
ABlackRaven SILVER, Mason, Texas
8 articles 2 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.&quot;<br /> Albert Einstein


A woman sat alone in in a room filled will sunlight. She looked to be about thirty, with a pale face, green eyes, and soft curly brown hair. She wore a yellow sun dress. The sunlight cast over the wall she faces, lighting pictures. So many pictures, some color photos, some black and white, some merely faded sketches. Even these photos, these precious memories, were not immune to the ravages of time.


But I was immune. I was that woman.


And I’d grown tired of living; because I had been living for such a very, very, long time.


I held in my hands another photo. Another photo to add to this endless chaos. I’d known every single one of those people on the wall. I couldn’t even remember most of their names now, it had been so long.
I couldn’t remember a time when I was afraid of death. It had been a long time since those days. The days when I thought my life would be normal. That was so long ago.


But I could remember history. I could remember the last four hundred years. Because I’d lived them.
Yet most of it was a faded blur. That was these photos were; my way to remember. But even that failed. I couldn’t remember these people. There were a few I could remember their names, a few a could even remember the sound of their voices. But there were so very few. It was worse with the sketches. The sketches were so faded…now I could hardly see their faces.


Why did death reject me?


And yet, not only death rejected me, but also life. I was a thing of the past. By this time my bones should have been dust. Yet here I was still thirty.


I felt like a ghost.


All I wanted…was to die. My only wish. Was there a purpose to this? Was I meant to play a part in something? Were there more like me? Did someone have some greater plan for me? Or was this my hell?


It’s a funny feeling, to die, and yet still live. I’d tried killing myself countless times. Nothing. I would just go black, and then open my eyes again in the morning. No disease would touch me. Physical injury failed to incapacitate me.


And I made the same mistakes over and over. There was a period of about fifty years where I didn’t sleep, eat, or drink. I just…found myself a corner of the earth where no one would bother me, and sat there.


I don’t even need to sleep, eat, or drink anymore. And when I do, all food tastes bland. All drink never quenches my thirst, which isn’t a great thirst, but it nags at me constantly. Sleep leaves me tired.


And yet I make the same mistake. I love. I meet beautiful people, and I fall in love. Over and over again, and yet they all pass.


I held up the photo. It was a young girl. Sammy. She’d died of cancer. Is it my imagination? I wondered. Or do the people I love die faster?


Why would anyone want to live forever?


The author's comments:

We often fear death, but I fear the alternative. What would it really be like to live forever? 


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