A bit of late-night creative writing
And Counting...
At ten seconds I look to the clock, watching the mechanical tick of its swiftest hand. I have a joyous ten seconds; hell, that’s half a lifetime for some bacteria. They’ll be middle aged by the time I’m done. I suppose it’s always like that, though; the giants whose backs we live on, for whom a billion of us fit on the head of a pin, must think our lives so fleeting. Which leads me to wonder what they’d feel about these ten seconds I am so intent on savoring. Poor bastards probably don’t even have a word for a time so brief, just as I ignore countless nanoseconds a bacteria would savor, given similar circumstances, and of course, a poetic degree of sentience.
At nine seconds I regret all the ten seconds I’ve ever ignored, which is no small feat, given that I’m 37 years old and, with the exception of some orgasms and a few experiences with pharmaceuticals, I’ve not particularly enjoyed any set of ten seconds up until now. But then, who can really live in the moment like that anyway? We all say we’d like to, we all like to imagine ourselves as wholly immersed in every instant of our lives, but honestly, we all love lying to ourselves too, and one of those two seems far more likely to occur. Lying to yourself is an art form far more complex than lying to others; others will believe you, are already prepared to buy into whatever you’re telling them. Actually convincing yourself of the lie, hell, that’s an act of will on some perverse level-doublethink is tragically deficient in the real world.
At eight seconds, I pity the governments of the world, all given the same impossible task of pleasing all the people all the time. The good ones at least allow their idealism to get the best of them, allow themselves to think that if they just try a little harder, the problems will go away. When the government gets as jades as by all rights it should be, that’s when your country’s past it’s prime. I guess people are the same. The child in my heart died young, but I’ve had a long time to mourn for him, and for as tainted as my idealism is by cynicism, it’s still there, under all the tarnish. I think my optimism survived because I’ve just never been all that good at lying to myself-as tempting as it is to think that it’s all hopeless, the harsh reality is that things could be perfect if someone knew how to fix them. I think the really good countries are the worst liars.
At seven seconds, I remember the comedy show I saw last summer, and smile in spite of myself. It’s a shame, that smiling becomes an act of spite as we grow older. I think Huxley was the one who noticed that all children are geniuses until age ten. At age eight, my smile was 200 proof; it was untainted, unadulterated, and in the truest sense, beautiful. By thirteen it was a perverse affair, hidden behind my hand or behind the stoic gaze I found so critical to maintain at all times. Smiling was vapid, vacuous, a sign of weakness or ignorance or, God forbid, genuine happiness. By twenty I realized the only thing foolish was to deny my lips their sway, but by then the smile of my youth had faded, and the grin gracing my face now but echoes its brilliance.
At six seconds I remember all the other lost treasures of youth. I remember curiosity most of all. At five, a glint in the grass was a source of endless wonder-that shine could be ANYTHING, and to not investigate it would be a travesty, a true loss for all of mankind. Mankind was a strange concept when I was that young, one which I don’t think fully registered, and now that I think about it, one I doubt ever fully did. Even now I wonder at the idea of the human race; a single, potentially intelligent species blessed and cursed by intellect, by this childlike curiosity. Its future could hold ANYTHING, and to not investigate those possibilities would be a travesty, a true loss for all of the youths absorbed by shiny bits of lawn.
At five seconds, I smile again-the halfway point met. At the halfway point of my life I was just starting college, thinking of how much better my world would be without the influence of my overbearing parents. It makes me happy to think that I was so foolish once. I think of the distinction between ignorance and mistruth. The problem back then was with me, not with my parents, but I didn’t see this because I didn’t have the perspective necessary to come to such a conclusion. It’s only lying to yourself if you realize on some level that you’re wrong. Perhaps that’s the problem with the really bad countries.
At four seconds I think of all the attempts man has made to improve his situation. It’s a noble goal, really, to try to fix things. I really wish someone would manage it. The absolutely infuriating thing is that there has to be a way it could work, that everyone could be happy, that no one would suffer, that progress was made and people were fed. Like Tantalus, we stand in the water, staring at the fruit inches from our eyes. It’s easy to acquiesce, to admit defeat and go hungry, but it takes a brave soul to realize that even gods make mistakes, and that eventually we could taste that fruit if we only don’t despair.
At three seconds I start to get nervous. It’s the fear of the unknown that strikes a chord in my heart. This chord has reverberated in the hearts of every living soul, has played continuously ever since some monkey not yet human realized there was an unknown worth fearing. I wonder at the ways it’s shaped us, over all these millennia-all the caution and wisdom and folly and torment and anguish and beauty this central, overarching fear has caused us. I think, though, that what we really should fear is comfort. The unknown is strange and foreign and potentially harmful, but the key word is potentially. The known, the comfortable, its potential has long since been spent. Its influence is corrupting and misleading; its temptation is to stagnate, to counter progress with the commonplace. It’s the journey that keeps life worthwhile.
At two seconds it strikes me that there’s a contradiction here. The world will always try to improve its situation and find that elusive utopia, while, at the same time, if such a place were ever found, it would immediately lose its perfection because there would no longer be incentive to keep going. Its Catch 22, and I swear I hear Joseph Heller laughing his ass off in his grave. I think he got the joke; I think a sense of humor is the most important tool for understanding the world around us.
At one second, I find my own sense of humor, and laugh, genuinely laugh. These ten seconds are mine, were mine alone, and I smile again, wider than before, my cheeks alight with the blessed grin of the innocent. Life is fleeting, twisted, impossible, incomprehensible, futile, self-contradicting, fascinating, and most of all, beautiful. Still laughing, I think incredulously that all it took was ten seconds to realize this. At one second, this is what I think, and I couldn’t be happier.
The man in white pushes the syringe into my IV. My skin blanches, my eyes dilate, my heart shudders and stops.
“Time of death, 8:00 AM. Pennsylvania State Correctional Facility, inmate 278.”