Questions

(trigger warning for suicidal ideation)

I decide to play in the snow one day. There’s a twinge of embarrassment in just the

thought of it, but I wanted to be better than my insecurities. I dress warmly and head out a little

later than planned, but I press on, determined to live out this urge for the fantasy of nostalgia.

Fresh snowfall crunches underneath my feet as I breathe in the beautifully unfamiliar fresh air.

It smells like freedom. The sky is dusty and vague and I know I won’t have long before night

falls and I can’t see beyond my fingers.

Unrelenting cold pierced its way through my body. I stood on top of a sheet of

dangerously slippery ice, raising my arms until they no longer aided my balance.

Unintentionally, dreams of emptiness come forward again; I close my eyes. I breathe in. I

cherish the invigorating air like I want it to be the last I will ever inhale. As I step off the ice, I

ponder as I make my way to snow-covered grass.

Why are people so insistent on living? Why is it regarded as some quest to vanquish

when it is truly just a life long suffering, a constant struggle for a shred of tranquility? We are

but specks in the eye of the sky, stories for the immortal clouds to tell as their rain falls and

rises for eternity - at least, until they too are swallowed by the inevitable. Nothing I do or

accomplish will change my novel’s ending. It seems I am simply here to die.

I take another breath reluctantly. A streak of light passes in the darkening sky. Out of

childlike instinct, I close my eyes to wish on it, only to open them again as I hear the gentle

hum of an engine interrupt my plea for peace. I sit down in the snow, then lay down, splaying

my arms to the side like an angel, and absorbing the silence.

 I wish I could just be happy. What would I need to be at peace? A new car, a new life, a

new perspective? What can I do to make living feel like life again? Why should I do anything

at all if we’re all doomed to die in the end?

But what if that inevitable fate was not a prison sentence, but a guaranteed reprieve? Is

there some sort of comfort in the ultimate nothingness of it all? If I say that nothing matters

because we all cease to exist in the end, isn’t life just an opportunity to do as much as possible?

If nothing I do truly matters, why not do what I want? Why not live like there’s no tomorrow,

because one day, there won’t be?

I sit up and breathe in once again. Clarity would have to wait. The plane coasting

through the sky left remnants of sound in the air. Too scared to take fate into my own hands and

too tired to go back to safety, I simply remained, and continued to ponder. I closed my eyes

once again. I hope that one day, I will no longer have to wish on shooting stars.