Fear

There are things all of us fear. Like death.

In the Tarot, the Death card has an interesting meaning. It means change from one state to another. An ending and a beginning. A rider on a pale horse bearing a scythe over a field of dead and decaying bodies. Change is to be feared. For few can truly embrace the pale rider.

So, while I am in the frame of mind, because I would word this differently were I to be in any other mood, I will tell you of a fear that has come to me. I do not know if it is the cause or a result of my sorrows - if I may use the word. But when it comes in its full potent force, it is terrifying.

I like to think it elucidated in some part, that in the midst of a particular bad emotional status, I wanted to get away from the cold soulless environment that had become my apartment (and everywhere else for that matter). Caused by a mixture of desire to get away from it all and a cry for attention. I decided to climb a tree at college. It was a rough old tree that I had climbed before. It has always struck me as fascinating how things seemed so much taller once you were on them. So, I climbed to the first large division of its trunk. There was this slight moment when my balanced was compromised and my centre of gravity threatened to tip me over onto the floor. This was only two metres above the ground.

That moment though lasted for a long time for me. A brief experience of vertigo I assume. Weightlessness, loss of balance and a swimming vision. It was in that split second I knew I didn't want to die.

Sitting on that branch, with nothing but wind and rustling leaves for company however, I knew blandness of life was not enough either. So I looked upward. And steeled myself to climb even higher. I was now two stories above the ground. My blood was pumping and my senses were more alive than I have known them to be for a long long time. But I slipped and died yet and I was not happy still. Fey and reckless in mood, I climbed another tier of the tree, where now finally the branches were slimmer than my own body and creaked and waved in the air as I gripped them. Only three stories of the ground. But it felt like more and I knew now for certain that if I fell, death was not an exagerated fear, it was a likely outcome. Or maybe worse than death? Paralysis? I was trembling but I no longer felt the cold. I felt motion though, the swaying branches were like standing on a boat on a rough sea.

It was a coudy, gray day, that in my youth, trying to exude a dark and mysterious character I would have said I loved. But that was a much younger version of me, someone trying to be as menacing as possible in order to protect a physique that seemed small and weak. I still enjoy the ominous presence of such weather or the stillness if can bring to the earth. But now I desired warmth. I wanted sunshine and laughter, life and company, a beach, sand, sea and a plethora of nubile young females in bikinis, friendly and easy to approach. Hah, my personal paradise. I didn't think all that as I stood upon the dark, rough, swaying branches. All I could think of was misery and there had to be some sort of escape.

And then I realised as I looked downwards at the three tiers of the tree I had climbed. If I clambered away from the trunk. About only a metre away from the trunk, I could swing myself down from one extending branch of each tier to the ground. The only thing was, one metre away from the trunk, I did not know if the first branch would hold me. It was only slightly thicker than my thin arms, projected horizontally and seemed to be bending upon its own substantial weight as it could have been five to six metres long. It seemed sturdy enough. But there was no real way to tell - except to swing from it. Maybe I would die.

I stood there clutching to the trunk of the tree. I don't really remember thinking anything except that yes it could be done. I remember that if I didn't want to die, all I had to do was to grasp on to the rough painful branches and be careful. And simply, I shinied out onto the slim branch, turned upside down and released my legs. Dropped to the second tier, climbed out a bit further and dropped to the first tier. Swung from that for a few seconds till I stabilised and fell to the ground.

I was alive. Painfully. Almost regretfully I was alive. And I laughed like a maniac, no longer caring about attention I may have gotten from some passerby. I had done the crazy and felt the adrenaline pumping in every single fibre of my body. I had dared death more than I ever have in my life. I was alive and I was trapped. There was no escape from this skinny, weak body. There was no escape from the gloom in my life. The sands of time were running and I was here and there was nothing I could do about it.

This is my fear. This is what I mourn.

Those older than I tell me I'm young. Those younger than I tell me I'm old. I feel as though I have tried to stretch youth and adolescence as far as I possibly could. Why? Because I feel as though I have not lived it. There are silly things that I shall admit to now before this mood passes and I dare not acknowledge them even to myself. Most of these things concern females - the core of adolescent life. I have never made out with a girl. I have kissed girls - thank God. But I've never had one I was just alone with for more than five minutes, kissing her and holding her. I've never randomly made out with a girl at a club or picked one up. I've never been at peace where I am. I've never had a sense of belonging anywhere.

Now not everyone has done all these things either and they tell me they don't want to. Some people have done all of the above and tell me it is worthless. Others tell me that in time I will experience all those things too.

But this is the difference. As silly as all those things may be. I want them. Whether they are worthless, silly, stupid or not. The difference here is that I desire, so much more strongly than they do and that desire is chewing me from within. But more than that - I'm running out of time. The veil of adolescence is but gossamer to me now. In a year and a half, I will not be Vong, I will be Dr Vong BDSc Melb. The adrenaline, the mystery and the awakening of youth will finally wilt if it is not dead and gone already. I will never have experienced the things that I wanted and I will never experience them the way I want to. Because my world has changed and I did not complete my works in the last world. I rue the words of advise and caution. I rue all the chains all the bonds that were laid on me that quietly I blame for my incapability. I hated this body I was in. Skinny, weak. I hated my face and my untameable hair. I hated the labels I have always acquired all my life. Nerd. Computer geek. I hated my conservativeness. I hated the binds of a religion I had so long and so hard tried to be a part of. A God I tried to appease but never finding a place to rest. And in rage I had torn most of these things away over the period of a year. Some of them I could not. Whatever I did, I would be skinny and have small shoulders. My eyes would remain slanty, my hair messy and my smile muscles a strain to pull. My attitude was dour, my humour cynical and my thoughts morbid. I could not sit with any group still. And I was still a geek. Caged more by these thoughts then more than anything else, I felt as though I began to fade.

I was fading. In this mood I feel as though there are few things that validate my existence. In a group I had little to say. I spend a lot of time, maybe too much time wandering alone, contemplating nothing. Reflecting on my thoughts in these times, it feels like static, or a radio randomly flipping from channel to channel. Nothing of value, nothing coherent. And I know I'm beginning to lose things. I know I'm drifting further and further away from friends and warmth and sunshine.

And it is in this coccoon of depression, I fear death. What is death? Death is meaning. It is the root of meaning. A story has a beginning and it must have an end. A story that has no end unravels itself, twists and drives itself into insanity just like some Marvel superheroes that have just been on the shelves too long. You start the day in the morning with the sunrise and the day ends as it began - in dark sleep. If you do not sleep you will be driven mad. A story with no end. I fear that my story is being written as one of regrets of things not done. Of battles fought only to discover that this isn't a romanticised piece. I am scared that it is not a story of victory. More than that, it is not the story of bravery and a man who stood against the impossible. Those are stories of heroes. A hero is a seven foot tall character, with rippling abs, deep penetrating eyes, a sombre thoughtful voice, witty, intelligent and courageous. A hero is not a small, skinny nerd, a loser of social status, annoying and self caught up, trapped by delusion, dark and hateful, small and mean. It is not someone who moves in the background and will be forgotten. But this is the realm of adolesence. And my book is closing. It is not even a tragedy. It is a paperback sitting in the recycle trash area waiting.

Because soon I will be an adult. My youth will have died. I mourn it deeply. That is all. You cannot unwrite books and you cannot make them last any longer than the last page. I am undergoing the stages of death - shock, denial, anger, depression and acceptance. But I am loathe to accept it. I do not want to be sad. I do not want to close the book cover and say that is how it ends.

But time waits for no man, and the last grains of sand slip through my fingers already. I fear Death.