Epilogue - In a Dream

It was clear to me as a child that life was not worth living if we did not know love. I wish I could say that I came to this realisation as a result of the love I experienced in my life. But it was because of love's absence that made me realise how much it mattered. How painful it was to experience life without feeling love. Love for people, love for this Earth we all belonged to.

All I could register was that my head hurt, and my body was in excruciating pain. Everything seemed to hurt too much. I kept my eyes closed not because I didn't want to see where I was, but because I thought it would hurt too much to open them. The earth appeared to be extremely solid. It was reassuring to know that I had fallen and couldn't fall any further.

The earth beneath me was still warm, a warmth I hadn't felt in a long time. I realised I was crying, but it wasn't because I was sad. I guess I was crying because I had nowhere else to go, no choice but to end my life in this world. Crying because I had no other life to choose. Life is a never-ending cycle of ups and downs.

Because all men are fundamentally alone, man cannot simply erase pain and sadness, because that is the very thing we created. That was the only thing I truly believed in.

I opened my eyes when I registered that someone had slapped my face, above me a man. He looked at me as if our souls were imprinted in the book of life, a sense of sadness in his eyes as he looked over my body as if asking 'Why?'.

Even I had been asking myself the same thing my entire life, trying to find meaning yet nothing. I watched his eyes widen and rim with tears, I watched as his face contorted and he shook his head and wept.

'You're innocent!" He proclaimed, gripping my shirt tightly, the wound on his face opening for each word that left his mouth, "You're not at fault!"

I was confused about who he was, I was confused on why he was injured and I was confused why I wasn't dead, but it felt warm, his tears falling onto my face, rolling down my own cheek and onto the earth.

So warm that I assumed a flower would blossom where his tears had fallen. Outside it was warm and pink and May.

And then all at once I was being embraced by death.