I found a snake wriggling for its life. It
wriggled this way and that and I found it fascinating. Then mum hit it with a
shovel and there were two pieces of long wriggly bodies. Apparently it was
poisonous and I was very close to it. I shook my head and sighed because she
always did this. Always changed everything according to her own fears... NOT
anyone else’s.
There was also that time where I was
happily staring at a red frog that I was attempting to touch but it kept
hopping away over here and there. She surprised me by suffocating it with a
plastic bag right in front of my eyes, because it could’ve killed me. I used to
think this was melodramatic.
I have come to realise the weirdness of
mum’s worry was actually due to my proneness to fall into slightly increased
accidental dangers. My life seems to be in more danger than I ever realised. Especially
with my dangerous record. Only today there was a crocodile in someone’s
backyard and I was about to sit on it when someone shouted and I turned away to
see that someone was being mugged.
It really was quite interesting. I almost
sat down on the crocodile thinking it was a log. It opened its big teeth filled
log-like mouth and looked like it was yawning at me. I told it not to harm
anyone else and then I left it trusting it to listen to me. Later I found out
someone else had sat on it and it grabbed that person’s leg and yanked it right
off. Poor guy.
I don’t really understand why these things
happen, but I guess no one does. Life is just one big blur of life then death
and no one knows after that I suppose. Not really anyway. God believers think
one thing while the rest of us accept the inevitability of a nonexistence. It
may be morbid but we are pessimists.
I am surprisingly optimistic for a
pessimist. Cats like to meow at me sometimes and I at them. Sometimes we have
conversations until the cat gets tired of me and walks away. Those are the
peaceful times. Today I am making a milkshake with apples and ice cream and
milk. I realise it isn’t a normal combination but neither is strawberries and
cream and that is basically the same thing.
I sometimes feel like no one will remember
me at the end and I will die with no one to hear the last words I ever mutter.
So I have written it down and will keep it with me at all times just in case. I
hope someone will find my last words and be affected by them. I’m not wise
enough to write good words so I just use my own experiences of life and
summarise them in one sentence. Every year it changes except for the three
years in a row where it stayed the same. That was when my view was so narrow
minded that I was too stubborn to know that I was wrong.
So, stories usually have dynamics but I
have decided to tell you something not in chronological order because that is
how our memories work. They are never in chronological order and are in fact
brought about by other instances that remind us of something else. I sometimes
wonder that if I can’t remember my childhood very well, how will I remember my
teenage years. Remembering 20 years of life seems like a lot of information.
Remembering 40years of life sounds hard so I take pictures and write down
things more often than not. It captures the moment of how I feel about whatever
at that moment and at least it will not disappear like memories. Unfortunately
the brain isn’t full proof. I lost my memory once. But I only forgot about 3
days because I was unconscious for most of it. It all seemed a dream. I thought
I would die then with the words Living is
to die for in my pocket. That was the last year I had those words. Those
words had stayed with me for 3 years in the ups and downs and the rain and the sunshine.
It stayed constant in my ever-changing life.
Change is a bad thing when you’re a kid. My
parents told me they were getting divorced when I was 8 years old and I didn’t
understand the point when they were still together. Then one of them left but
they always came back. It was as if they were still together because I saw them
both equally as much as if I saw them before they were ‘divorced’. The logic of
parents was ridiculous to me at that time but I went along with it and I wasn’t
troubled or bad. I got A’s and B’s but I found out later they were marking me a
lot easier because I was going through my parent’s divorce. They were actually meant
to be B’s and C’s. It was the first time I had gotten an A so when I found out
it wasn’t really because my work was outstanding I finally cried like everyone
had expected I would. There were hugs and humour to try to get me to stop but
they didn’t really understand why I was upset so I just went along with it and
attempted a smile.
Smiling was hard for a time. I was in my
20’s and I had just realised that I need to start my own life. It was a time
for first jobs and no one ever wanted to hire me. So I stayed solemn and faked
smiles to employers for the one off interviews. I finally got a job at a fast
food restaurant and dreaded the days I had to go to work. But I needed money so
I kept applying for jobs and worked there as well. It wasn’t until I was 22
that I finally got a boring office job that required no experience. It was
thrilling at first, but then I found out what I had to do and how much I would
get paid. It was a little better though because there were fewer customers
whose tempers were volatile. I had a lot of time to philosophise while I
inputted data that numbed my brain. This is when I started writing my last
words and putting them in my pocket. I had a lot of scrunched up paper in my
wastepaper basket. Finally I found the right words. It was a miracle at the
time but when I was that age, exaggeration was my thing.
Idiosyncrasies were unfortunately too
frequent and annoyed even myself. If I heard myself say the same thing
automatically a few times I would involuntarily shout in my mind. Sometimes the
shouts were squeaks and then would turn into a cacophony of animals but most of
the time it was angry and a little scary. I scared myself sometimes.
My sister would always scare me around
corners and hiding in the dark. She was the master of making me jump
spontaneously. She thought it was hilarious every time I did. She gave me the
only thrills I ever got in life. Jumping off aeroplanes for fun and bungee
jumping off bridges were all very well but I would never try it myself. I was
too afraid of dying and that I would lose my last words and then I would affect
no one.
I have travelled overseas but always to
safe places. So India was definitely off the table. The army was something of a
myth to me. Exercise and fighting were hardly ever involved in my life. I was
very safe and checked both ways twice before I crossed the road. It was simple
and easy and I was content with it.
I did always find birds trying to make
their way into my house and I am still not sure why but I have nursed numerous
pigeons, lorikeets, and minor birds from injuries they sustained crashing into
my glass door. It was scary at first not knowing what to do with them and
hoping you weren’t injuring them while you were trying to help them but in the
end I just did it and they survived and never came back.
My girlfriend never came back. She was my
first and my only girlfriend. She had the cutest smile and somehow always found
me funny. We were together for 5 months. She wasn’t a looker but she wasn’t
ugly. She was normal and liked me and that was a rare occasion so I took the
chance and I fell in love. She did not and she left without a note. I knew she
was unhappy for a few days but I never really thought she’d leave without
saying goodbye.
That was a hard time in my life and it
reminded me of when I couldn’t breathe under the sea and I don’t think I’m
supposed to remember it but it was peaceful. It was a perfect combination of
yin and yang. I felt desperate and peaceful and it was the first time I
understood some poems I had read as a teenager.
A beautiful woman who looked like an angel
rescued me. I asked her if she was an angel and she laughed and shook her head.
I turned my head and coughed more water out and she was gone. I often
fantasized about her in my daydreams but was always interrupted when things got
good.
At the moment I blink a lot and sometimes
mutter to myself unintentionally making people look sideways at me. I always
feel weird when this happens and I go silent immediately. I decided to get a
bird and surround myself with walls instead so my pet wouldn’t look sideways at
me. Petrie my bird didn’t understand humans enough to know that what I was
doing was weird. It was comforting being surrounded by no judgemental minds.
I recently decided to change my words to Life is worth living but then scribbled
it out because I didn’t feel sincere knowing that I was not living the way
people might think I meant the words to mean. So right now I am thinking of
some new words and I think it will hopefully be original instead of corny.
