Over the years, I’ve either tried very hard or been conditioned very strictly not to think about certain things. I don’t sit here pondering how strange and unique is this feeling of consciousness. It’s better that way. But I can’t control my thoughts right as I’m waking up.
Once in a while, I wake up puzzled by my self-awareness. How can it be, and why am I living out the vanishingly-small chance of experiencing it? How can this possibly be me? Why, what is me or I or any of this, it doesn’t make sense!
It takes on whole new meaning to say “therefore I am”. I exist! And it’s so singular, this existing, that the force of existing and the possession of it crash down into a single moment: terror chasing the awe by a heartbeat. I don’t want to go back to the dust. I never want to give it back. I exist; this is my mind and my self and my entity, and I’m not giving it back!
And all in the same moment, I couldn’t think nor do anything. There is nothing else I’ve ever known that feels quite like existential crisis. Everything comes rushing up, and it’s a climax fiercer than orgasm! But a terrible one where I’d scream and scream if I could move at all. I don’t know how I’ll go on living in the shadow of death. All the thoughts, even the ones that are just impressions of emotions, frozen.
The heart of light, the silence.
It all passes in a handful of seconds. I jump out of bed, whispering “I don’t want to die” for no one to hear, I run down the hall, and the fear is gone, leaving just an impression of unease behind. I’m all too grateful that the moment is again locked away, to be unleashed no more than once in a few months.
The last time I remember it happening was a year ago, and then nearly two years before that. When I was seven, it would happen every night. I’ve lost that capacity to marvel at my existence on demand, but in exchange I can have many days at a time without visit from the fear. It is the most terrible thing I have felt in my lifetime. As long as death awaits, there can be no peace.
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