The World on a String

I’m only 22 and it feels like my world is hanging by a string. This rough edged string tightly wrapped around my pinky finger, swinging around in dizzying motion as my pinky aches and aches with the yanking pressure. With each swing, the pressure increases and my finger grows swollen, threatening to cut off my circulation. At points I almost wish the string would hurry up and fray, releasing me from my misery.  

The future feels like a big tidal wave of tsunami height, looming ever closer. I can see it coming for me, but I’m not allowed to run the other direction, towards safety. I’m only allowed to move toward the oppressive wave. I move as slow as I possibly can, looking fondly and hungrily towards the things behind me, but it’s no use. My feet move forward, as if not of their own accord. I spend minutes turned completely around, walking backwards even though I trip over my steps. 

I struggle to look side to side at the other people walking forward beside me. Their different heights, affects. The long-haired, bald, spiked, shaved, colored. Green ball cap, sandals, a magazine in one hand, braids, a stroller. I keep thinking to myself : why isn’t anyone running away? Screaming? Can’t they see the wave about to destroy us? 

The sterile calm around me frightens and irks as much as it impresses a sense of alone-ness. So I look behind me, expecting to see more people sprinting away in terror, but I see a shallow pool behind me, a shallow pool where I can briefly see myself reflected in its clear but ever-murkening water. There’s no solace here, only glimmers of things, regrets and bitterness and nostalgia, all of it, condensed, fading fast. So I breathe deeply and I turn my body. I see the wave. I gulp in and out trying to breathe as panic sets in. This is it. It’s coming and I am about to be swept away. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m scared. Another deep breath. Oh God Oh God I really can’t breathe. A nervous glance at my left and right, at the others. Both older, seemingly nonchalant about the imminent danger. I shake my head silently. They must be crazy. or blind. or suicidal. What can I do? I feel so helpless. Every time I try to run I can’t move. Why? All I can see is a blank wall of blue, dark, depthless, pregnant with uncertainty. 

I look to my right again, at a woman old enough to be my grandmother. She’s smiling, actually smiling, as she surveils the wave before her. 

What the fuck. 

Ok she’s seriously deranged - or…I look more closely. 

Clearing my throat I mutter, “Excuse me, ma’am why are you smiling?” 

No answer. Speaking louder, “Aren’t you afraid?”. 

The woman finally looks over at me, still smiling softly. “Why would I be afraid?” 

I notice an Asian accent tinged with a hopeful certainty, neither familiar to me. Irritated, I gesture emphatically toward the oncoming wave, “Uh, the huge tsunami headed towards us perhaps?” 

Her eyes still trained on me, she smiles big again, wrinkling her eyes almost closed. She walks towards me and I almost gasp. I didn’t think to try walking to the side! The woman lays her hands flat and upward in the air as she approaches me, her short height barely reaching my shoulders.

“Can I show you what I see?” My head falls back slightly in surprise. “What do you mean see what you see? I can see perfectly fine,” I said, glancing down suspiciously at her round, wire-trimmed glasses. She stays smiling, and nods her head towards her outstretched hands. Ok, I think, This is weird. But I’m about to die so I have nothing to lose…so I guess here goes? I take a deep breath and place my hands slowly over hers. As our hands touch, she squeezes them maternally and laughs at my overall apprehensive attitude. “Ok, close your eyes. Yep, all the way shut.” As my eyes shut, I welcome the familiar darkness, tired as I am by my other visual options. “Good,” she says. “Now, what do you hear?”. 

What do I hear? This lady is seriously odd. 

“Umm I don’t hear anything?

“Try to listen. What do you hear when you listen?” 

I try to humor her, letting my mind go quiet. I hear a static sound, almost like a buzzing but in a softer tone filling the back of my skull. I hear air lightly moving, wind off the seashore, the light chirping of birds, maybe even some laughs in the distance? 

Sounds of splashing in the ocea— Oh god Oh God the fucking wave. My eyes shoot open.

 “The wave —“ I stutter — “It’s going to—“ 

The lady sighs. “Hmm…try something else,” she murmurs. “One more time, close your eyes.” 

My fear too big, I inhale sharply. “I don’t want to die” I yelp, tears springing to my eyes. 

She nods sympathetically, “What do you fear most of death?” 

Gulping again, I rack my brain. “Um - not being here? Not being…” I glance back behind me, at all I’d done. The shallow pool seems smaller than when I last looked. 

My eyes shoot toward her again, “Not knowing? Yeah I think that’s it. I don’t know where I’m going now. What will happen when I die? Where will I go?” 

The woman keeps nodding, closing her eyes softly almost as if in reverence to my words. “Yes, good questions. Human questions. Keep going,” she adds. 

“Well,” I continued, and a flood of words flowed out of my mouth, “Also who I leave behind. And being alone. Ceasing to exist completely. Making a mistake. Leaving behind all that I love. Never experiencing love. Never experiencing better sex than the sex I’ve had. Not achieving my dreams. Dying before I’ve really lived.” I exhale softly, meeting the short woman’s eyes again. 

She smiles at me. “Life goes like this,” she says, taking two fingers and moving them like two feet walking towards the wave. “Always like this.” 

She grasps my hands, raising them up towards my eyes as I began closing them. She places my hands over my eyes, smoothing hers on top. “Let go,” she said, “Let go”. 

Something wave-like passes swiftly over me, a rush of sensations like a strong sense of hope for what’s to come. I open my eyes slowly and gasp softly at what lies before me. No longer a wave threatening to overtake everything I’d ever known, but a series of steps, white and iridescent like pearls. Each step looks plucked from the ocean, like pearly lily pads floating atop a calm sea. As I look ahead, I see the steps fade into a vague light my eyes refuse to focus upon. I can’t make out the images but the act of looking fills me with a sense of calm. Tears spring to my eyes as I look to the side and see the woman’s family sitting at dinner, the coil of her granddaughters curly hair and the sun setting softly through a window overlooking the dining table. Laughter, love. The woman laughs as her children surround her, clapping as the finish the Happy Birthday song. She blows out the candles on the massive cake, pink frosting with different shapes and patterns of candles crammed into every opening. Tears come faster now. My eyes float to the bright sun, orange and potent like a hardened egg yolk floats over the horizon. Something melancholy flits inside me as I look. 

“What happens when the sun sets?”

The woman smiled wistfully. “Then my time here is done”

I look at her, shocked. “Aren’t you scared?”

Her eyes crinkle softly. “Yes, I am scared. Everyone is scared. But I have lived. I have lived a life I am proud to leave behind. And this pride is so much bigger than my fear. When death comes I will welcome it, because I am so thankful for the precious time I’ve had here. I have loved, and cried and cared too deeply. Felt joy so deep and fear like a whale ready to swallow me up. I have felt loss, and learned from it. I have lived. And you will too. Just not forever. The brevity of life makes us all the same in our terror and joy at the beginnings and ends of life. Knowing something will end makes you more grateful for the time you’ve been blessed with”

I nodded, feeling sad but finally understanding. 

“So if everyone is afraid why aren’t they seeing the wave like I am?”

“Everyone sees the wave at different points in their life. But most don’t talk about it because fear is weakness to them. Fear isolates us. But we all feel it. Especially fear of death. The people you see around you have worlds inside their minds, just as you do. Many are focusing on the here and now. Here and now is the key to the end of suffering. Take it in, the here and now.” 

She grasps my hand with a motherly warmth. “You are ready now to walk forward on your own.”

My head swivels to hers. “Are you sure? But—“

“You are ready. Always remember you are never alone in your fear.” 

Tears swell once again. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

She smiles, wiping a tear before it touches my cheek. “When the time is right you can tell someone what I have told you. Greet the wave together. Show them a new way of looking at it.”

I nod, watching as she walks toward her joyous family, all the while waving at me. 

I take a deep breath and start to walk forward, one step at a time.