The inevitable End

Obscure feelings are becoming clearer. The birds by the hill are singing of a new day, the world is spinning with a new light. Like a spark, thought is born. Thoughts rise and fall and from it a man is born. A man of experience, of virtue, of misdeeds and of a life lived. A simple life of a man, a cliche even with billions of inhabitants on the land. But nobody really talks about the simple things. They just die out, they’re never shared, just kept within. How does one even start talking about these feelings that rupture the soul and sear the life out of a man?

Agony is a terrible feeling. The man felt it all the time. Let’s give him a name, Shelley. Shelley was highly experienced with agony. He felt it all his life up until his death. There was no escape for him. Why do humans behave like they have a choice in the matter?

Things change, one grows up, the season changes too, and so did Shelley’s thoughts about all the things he did. But, agony never changed in his heart. Each thought presented the same agony, which made him heavier than ever, his soul was crumbled a long ago. There was nothing or no one to save him.

The pressure he wanted to lose is a childish notion. Like a child gripping a balloon, the balloon always wants to leave the land and find the sky. Once it does pull a trick on a child, which is very easy, it goes up and up. The balloon doesn’t realise the end. But Shelley wasn’t a balloon, he was the child. He would weep for losing the most beautiful invention created by humanity. He wanted to keep hold of the things he loved, but agony had made it poisonous. He kept the thought of the balloon at all times, the poisonous agony that somehow managed to slither into his life. One of the lightest things gave him the heaviest burden.

Shelley smiled, nevertheless.

He stood on the edge of the boat looking out into the silent water. The boat steadily moved towards its destination. The darkness and a soft glimmering of the moon on the water made Shelley choose his destination. He knew his destination was different from the boat. The plank of wood he stood on would be the last thing connecting him to humanity, his love for his wife and children and his personal agony. The connection he had with the world was already a thin thread. He didn’t glance back into the world and took a plunge into the deep.

Shelley could hear a few cries coming from the boat. But the safety in darkness and his willingness to end the agony was stronger.

The crew searched the water with their flashlights. But the water was quicker.

It took Shelley to his final destination.

Shelley’s life might have ended but his story remained with the kings of subterfuge: humanity.

After a man was seen jump from the boat, there was a commotion on the boat. Troy, the captain, asked the crew to search the boat for any remains of the unidentified man. A heavy bag was brought forth the captain. Troy was sickened by the act of taking one’s own life, he was angry. But, it was the disappointment he tried to hide. For thirty years, Troy travelled by the sea. It was his home, and never had he lost a single soul to it. He ordered the crew to find a body. But the dark sea remained motionless with no contour of a body nearby. The flashlights couldn’t find what was hidden by the sea. Troy also asked the crew to get rid of the wooden plank where the man jumped from.

Troy looked at the bag. It was a suitcase, it was a luggage carried by someone who had no care for the open water. He opened it up. There were mostly clothes, a book, some dental appliance, a big maroon notebook and a few scarps of paper. If he was travelling by the water, the content of his bag would be very different. He decided to keep the notebook and the papers with him until they reached the land and hand it to the man’s family.

He opened the notebook to check for names. Shelley was his name. A young man of twenty-six. He didn’t want to intrude the dead man’s personal thoughts so he closed the notebook.

A few days later, Troy was seated on a chair looking at the horizon and the slow setting of the sun. In the corner of his eyes, he could see a man in the water. He stood up and went to the edge to check. There was nobody there. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he saw the shadow of the dead man floating in the glimmering water.

Troy made his way to the office and opened up the notebook.

The notebook described in detail about the end of Shelley’s life. Other than that, it didn’t have a proper flow of his thoughts. There wasn’t much about his childhood or about the marriage. It began much later. It started with agony and ended with a goodbye to it. The last words written by the dead wasn’t for his family but for the agony he had within him.

Troy decide to keep the notebook to himself. He contemplated that seeing such thoughts would bring pain to the family. Further reading made him realise that even if it would be painful, his family had the right to know what Shelley felt and why he ended his life. He wondered if giving the notebook would be a good thing. What if the agony would just be transferred from Shelley to his family?

Sitting on his usual spot near the edge, he thought of Shelley. A young man who lived within himself. He lived too dearly. He hung to his thoughts for so long, it had become his life. He sat and ate with his wife. He made love to her. He even had a few good memories they shared, but in the end he felt alive only with his thoughts. Agony kept him moving, it made him come back to the reality. The agony was a call to life which Shelley failed to see.

Troy shuddered and felt a chill, he couldn’t judge a man by reading a few pages on the notebook. He decided to read the whole thing, and see how Shelley’s death unraveled.

The notebook had many self-prophecy. Shelley thought it was agony that told him to do things. Find a woman, build a family, be a family man and love them dearly. He did do all this and even loved doing it. But with the agony’s presence in his each thought and step, he felt agony was the villain that came to ruin his life. He never had true and original feeling. It was always reactionary. He was always pushed by this fear so he found distractions. Some were healthy and some disturbingly unhealthy.

Troy thought that if he knew the man and known all these things, he could guide the lost man. It was his deep-rooted humanity speaking. A man so lost could be helped so easily. Alas, the man would never be saved.

Troy called in his crew and said, ‘A young man jumped off the boat a few days ago. He wanted to take his life and so he did. He felt trapped and found no escape anywhere but the arms of death. His family shouldn’t know of this tragedy. Tell them it was a mishap, an accident, he fell off. An unfortunate accident. Give the bag to his wife and let her know how truly sorry we are for her loss.’ Troy felt the notebook in his pocket as he said the words.

The notebook wasn’t date-stamped. It was written haphazardly, as if the author was in some kind of hurry. There were a few excerpts of Shelley’s wife. There were no names involved.’ Her hair hides her neck. She is moving with determination. She is just cooking lunch for us, her steady hands are well-coordinated with her eyes. She chops the onion and fries it in the pan. Every now and then, she looks at me staring at her. Our eyes meet and we both smile. Does she not have agony in her heart? Can she see my soul being ripped apart?’ Shelley had a way of seeing things different than Troy. Troy continued reading, ‘If I had to wish for anything, it would be that she should never face the agony. Bring me more agony, engulf me in flames of pain but never to her. She is precious, she is honey mixed with milk.’

Other excerpts involved Shelley questioning his marriage. She was very organised as if she knew it all, as if everything was going according to her plan. Shelley couldn’t talk to her about his muddling life, he could tell her about his agony. There was no common ground to start the conversation. He didn’t want to bring her pain by sharing his. The way she smiled, he didn’t want it to stop.

Troy kept the notebook aside and contemplated his life. All his life he had spent in the water. He didn’t have a wife or a family. The ocean was his wife and the sailors, his family. The sturdy boat was his home. He didn’t go beyond to live a normal life. But if normal meant a life like Shelley’s, he was glad not to be a part of it. A well-balanced life was not good for him and even for Shelley as a matter of fact.

Troy asked himself if he was happy being alone. There was no answer. he decided then and there, he would go beyond the water and see if he can find something that would make him happy and continued reading the notebook.

There were some intelligent aphorisms in the notebook too. Shelley wrote about romance, sex, death and morality. Troy felt that Shelley was well-read, being anguished by the agony he at least looked for answers. In case of morality, he questioned the genealogy of it. ‘If we didn’t know what right was, we would never comes to see the wrongs.’ About sex he wrote, ‘ Addictive, even when there’s none. the mind runs to get the pleasure and there is no escape but to go with it. You can try to control it, but you fail. There is a pang of pain after the incident as well, rather than feeling content, it empties you whole. All you have left is the flaccid and shrunk state of atmosphere in your body and mind. There is nothing healthy about my mind, so I muddle through every concept that is practical or philosophical.’

Shelley also wrote about revenge. ‘It feels as though I have this rage to get back at the world for my dismal life. Why was I chosen for this dread? If everything in the world is random, then I was chosen randomly to feel all the pain? No, it can’t be. I will take revenge. But on who? My wife? Or my children? No, on myself. It might have been a random choice to bring me misery but I can make my own choice. I have let this go too far. I will take revenge on myself to show the agony who is more powerful.’

It was almost midnight when Troy stopped reading the notebook. He didn’t want to read further. He felt pity for Shelley but soon it turned into anger and then into fiery rage. He left his room with the notebook. He walked to the spot where Shelley had jumped from. Troy with a fiery look scream at the water as if Shelley were standing there,’ All your life you blamed the agony, the pain, the wrongs, whatever you dumbass felt to be true but you never had the guts to take on responsibility for your own life. This notebook doesn’t deserve to exist. Tomorrow your new of death will reach your family. They will never know about your cowardice towards life. They will think of you as someone who was lovable and hardworking. Ha! But we know the truth, don’t we?’

Troy using all his might threw the notebook into the sea. Taking a deep breath he laughed maniacally. He wanted Shelley to hear him laugh and see how wrong his thoughts on life were. It was good that a person like that isn’t in the world anymore. In a flash of a moment, Troy took a step forward thinking there would be a wooden plank, but there was nothing. He plunged into the water. He tried to swim, but his thoughts kept haunting him. Shelley had a family who would remember him even if he was a coward. But, I have no one who will remember me. I am not a coward but my death will be as meaningless as the coward. The water finally took his last breath and Troy saw the moon for the last time.