I was left alone without anyone. Without anything.
One after the other, I saw my achievements being made a mockery of.
One after the other, my aspirations turned to mercury: unattainable, and poisonous. Intoxicating my spirit in the process.
I tried my best and thought it was enough, but that night I got the painful, subliminal message from the void, camouflaged, hidden in the empty space between each of my thoughts: 'It didn't really matter if I did my best, it won't ever matter.'
I went to brush my teeth when I found the razor on the sink. An image of me lying, motionless on the bathroom floor, drenched in my own blood flashed so vividly before me, but I dismissed it.
It was unthinkable.
It was chilly January, and my bedroom window was open, and instead of closing it, I found myself wondering: Why is this window opened in this freezing weather?
And instead of doing anything about it, I just went to bed.
I flipped through the channels of the TV, but nothing interesting. I tried to read a book, but, still nothing.
Nothing was either interesting enough for me to follow, or boring enough to send me into the realm of the unconscious.
I decided to go old school, so I got up, reached out behind my wardrobe, and pulled a huge painting, put it on a chair beside my bed, and kept staring at it.
What seemed like countless sheep.
But why not a sip of wine as well?
A sip followed the other, and one bottle later, the cold wind raging into my room from the bedroom window didn't feel cold at all. I kicked the cover off my weak body and tried to concentrate, for what felt like a millionth time, on the sheep, but they seemed restless, just like me.
One after the other, I saw them depart the boundaries of the painting.
One after the other they started roaming my room.
And one after the other they decided that they want out.
Out of the room, out of the window, out to the-
They probably didn't know out to the what exactly, and normally sheep can't fly, but they were brave enough to take the leap.
'I too, shall take the leap!'
***
I woke up feeling lighter than air with no hangover. Suits me just fine!
But the room looked different, it actually wasn't my room. Only my bed, in a yellow endless room, and two doors: a big white one, and a wooden trap door.
I found myself reaching into my pocket. I took out a card that read:
'Want to read more? Reach into your pocket again.'
I reached in, took another one out, it read:
'Curious? Look behind you.'
I looked behind me and saw a mirror, I wasn't in the mirror. Nothing was in the mirror. Then I saw people in black, some crying, some holding their silence. I looked behind me and there was no one. Back in the mirror, I saw a vault being buried. I saw the tombstone, with my name on it. To my shock, I wasn't shocked by the scene. It was as if I was watching a movie I had seen before, not very long ago. Guilty pleasure struck me: I was actually happy to see people crying for me.
The people disappeared, and words appeared on the mirror:
'Do you wish for it to end this way?'
Before I got to shake my head, the words changed into:
'If you're given a chance, would you change it? Or do you want to leave and call it a life?'
I only thought of the answer, but I didn't know whether to say it or write it. The mirror read:
'You don't have to say/write it. You will be given a chance, and it's either we meet again very soon, or we don't ever again. Open the trapdoor...'
I automatically obeyed, beneath the trapdoor were wooden steps that seemed endless. They were very old, and worm eaten. The place got tighter the more I proceeded.
'I hope I didn't make the wrong choi-'
I tripped over nothing. I kept falling for what seemed like a couple of minutes, yet landed very gently on the floor of my room. I was never so happy to see my bedroom. This was it. This was my second chance.
I got up with a terrible headache, and I started to lose my balance. I walked to the nearest chair and sat down. I started feeling better when all of a sudden the door opened, and I came in.
'WHAT?' I cried, but nothing came out. I was confused, and didn't know what to do. I remembered a wise friend of mine who once told me that when I don't know what to do, I should do nothing. And nothing I did.
I watched me walk in with what looked the like the weight of the world on my shoulders. I looked at the window, and I knew what I thought: Why is this window opened in this freezing weather?
Not much to my surprise, I ignored it and went to bed. A while later, I got the sheep painting, and started drinking. I started looking around me -- I was looking at the virtual flying sheep -- I knew what was going in my head at that moment, and it dawned on me that this is where the change should happen. This is when I should do something, I just didn't know what to do. It was all in my head. I looked at me as I started getting out of bed, and following the sheep.
'Damn it! Those sheep, if they'd just stay away from the window-'
Then, I knew what to do. I hurled towards the window and sealed it well. I also ran to the door and locked it. If the sheep don't fly out, then there is no reason drunk-me should follow them.
A while later, I found me walking to the bed, and covering myself up. At this moment, I realized that it only took one small right thing to do, not a lot of hard unnecessary things. All I had to do was close the window. I didn't have to work myself to the point of insanity, I didn't have to treat myself like a cog in a machine that doesn't pause for a rest. I also realized that it wasn't that I did my best and it wasn't enough, I was only trying to do like the sheep: they tried to fly, and sheep can't fly. They ended up somewhere they don't belong, and so did I. I was sleeping, safe and sound, and again when I thought I didn't know what to do next, I found myself reaching into my pocket for another card, one that read:
'Well done.'
It, then all disappeared.
And now,
I: an old lady who started living her life to the fullest for real after the first three decades of her life - sit here, trying to write down the experience of a lifetime. That other night passed, and I woke up, and I remembered the yellow room, the mirror, and the trapdoor. I still have the cards as a constant reminder of the one right choice I made: going for the trapdoor.
I don't know when I'll die, but I know that if this happens I wish it won't be before tonight, for my granddaughter's 6th birthday party is today, and I hope to be around for it.
She didn't feel like she was closing a phase of her life as she closed the notebook in which she wrote her story, but she felt calm and serene. She reached for her cane and walked with steady footsteps out to the garden where her granddaughter was having her sixth birthday party. And as the day passed by, she felt herself getting closer...
It was nightfall when the last guest had left. She took her grandkid to bed, and tucked her in, and as she walked to her bedroom, she didn't feel depressed, or alone, or finished. She had a feeling that could be easily mistaken for any of the former feelings, though. She walked into her room with a sense of completion.
She sat on her bed and looked at the closed notebook, and had a sudden urge to reopen it and change the ending.
And so she did...
"Epilogue:
Humans are said to be constantly chasing a dream, or that they're always wishing for more. But is what humans are said to be always right? Isn't the human psyche unpredictable? Isn't every single human being an exception to at least one rule?
Well, my granddaughter's birthday passed. And I want nothing more. Nothing whatsoever.
Of all the ordeals I've been through in my life, the yellow room ordeal has been the most enlightening and the most spiritual, I can never be grateful enough for it, not by words, not by action, but this time I didn't let knowing that nothing I'll do would be enough stop me. I tried.
I tried my best."
Again she closed the notebook, but this time she felt something different.
She had given herself closure.
Before taking off the robe, she was stricken by a feeling, one she recognized so well even though years had passed. She found herself reaching into her pocket. Her hands felt a small rectangular, hard piece of paper. It was another card.
She tried to reckon what to expect, but she looked into the card and read what it said:
'You did your best, there's nothing more you could do. Now close your eyes in peace.'
A single tear trickled down her wrinkled face.
I'm going to miss them, she thought. But that tear wasn't because she was going to miss her beloved ones, but because she felt so blessed to have been given a second chance to make things right. Such a chance that changed who she is as a person, and changed her destiny in life, and what's beyond it.
Both tired and excited, she covered herself up, and put her head gently on the pillow for the last time knowing that her efforts have been acknowledged, and that this time, she really had done her best.
