‘I Think, Perhaps’ (a short story)

By S. R. Crawford

Attending your own funeral is not only allowed but encouraged. Best to accept one’s death in witnessing those who have come to mourn you. Of course, you mourn yourself, too. All the things you weren’t. All the things you’ll never be, now.

I thought too much. I wished with all my heart and then it fell to nothingness, like ash on the tongue and the eyelashes. Thousands of books could be filled with all the things I wished I could do, see, have, be. A yoga teacher; a traveller; an animal and wildlife conservationist; a bookseller; an author; a therapist; a poet; a professor; a film maker; a film critic; an influencer; a journalist; a chef; a life coach. Maybe this is why I landed on being a writer so young. It’s a way to cheat the system. You get to slide in and out of many lives crafted upon pure curiosity; and lies. For storytellers are the most well-trained liars. We make you believe in something in a small number of words. A magician. A hypnotist. The expert of which will do so so cunningly that you don’t realise you slipped into another world. That you had become a part of the lie.

Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library captured something so innate in all of us; the fear of living the wrong life. That there are choices we make every day, leading us down new paths. For everything we say yes to, we are saying no to everything that isn’t that thing. How terrifying is that? Follow a road long enough and to turn around would mean a head-on collision. Casualties. Deaths. So no, you don’t turn around; you keep going. And going. Making new decisions and hoping the outcome, the new path, is a little less wrong.

Looking down into the coffin, you see, hopefully, an elderly version of you. She’s pretty, even with the wrinkles wrapping tightly around her face. Too much sun, perhaps. Hopefully a lot of laughter. You let your hair go grey; good for you. There are no lies in the coffin. No more stories to tell but one: how you died. No, not what killed you. Instead, how you felt in death. Did you embrace it with open arms or flailing, kicking limbs? Were you ready?

What does it mean to be ready? I think, perhaps, we can’t ever be ready; only not not ready anymore. You know? Like the fear slips slowly from your fingertips and one day you realise it’s not all-consuming anymore. You don’t panic at the idea of getting married, having a baby, buying a house, travelling the world, quitting your job, chasing your dream, or letting go anymore. You greet Death as someone you’ve always known. She’s that quiet girl who sits in the corner of the public library. You think she’s weird, creepy, and unnerving because her quietness is deafeningly loud. But really, she has a lot to offer you. She’s a place of safety. Comfort. Truth. She sees your lies and casts them aside with a lucid smile that is sticky, melted caramel. And you take a taste because you’re not not ready anymore. You realise you can dance with her, and it will be alright.

But what of the people left behind? Those who knew your dreams and your lies. How do they shoulder this weightlessness you’ve left over? A cavern. A pit. An abyss. You hope. The ugly scars on their hearts stretched out onto their skin. Everyone sees their grief, now. And you’re not there to soothe it.

My ghostly hand reaches out and finds no one.

Maybe you should beg for more time. Yes, be that guy. The one who screams and gets on his hands and knees and asks ‘Why, God, why?’ It’s pathetic but maybe we’re all that person. The person who is never truly satisfied with the time they are given. Say we all made it to one hundred years old before we died, we would still complain of how short life is.

Don’t we make it shorter, though? With the fretting and fighting. With the comparison and competition. With the hating and harbouring grudges. With the wishing and wanting. With the more, more, more. We are never satisfied. And stop thinking that one day you will be. This life you’ve chosen to live is a tightrope. An endless tightrope drawn across the world, going around and around and around.

We cannot find land, for there is none.

We cannot stop walking, for we will fall.

Maybe I’m lying again. Oops! Maybe life is abundant, and you will have it all simply because you – you unique, little thing you – you wanted it. You want it? You got it! Maybe you will one day smile at a sunrise and say to yourself, ‘I am happy. I made it. I did it.’ And you’ll stop racing around like a headless puppy. Stop worrying and planning and scrolling. Yes, that sounds nice, doesn’t it?

Believe what you want. We all do. We write our scripts and speak the words and pretend it was someone else who produced it. No. Even though your poor mother bore you; smiled down at you in her arms, then hurt you like you hurt her, it’s still your fault. No, not fault. Responsibility. Yes, that fun word. Your responsibility to stop being a fuck-up. Your responsibility to go, ‘Hang on a minute, I don’t like this narrative,’ and fucking write a new one.

Damn it, take the pen and write a new one.

Your hands can shake and the words may not make sense but we’re all writers, storytellers, liars. Lie until it’s true. Because what is truth, anyway? It doesn’t exist unless you can prove it. So prove it. make me believe it.

When you’re tired of lamenting all the wrong decisions, take a moment to cup your smooth, angelic old face and kiss yourself. Thank yourself for everything. The good, the bad, and the shitty. Well done for living, for it’s a hard thing to do. Well done for loving, for it’s a vulnerable thing to do. Well done for getting up each day and lying to yourself until you were not not ready to die.

Then slip inside the coffin, see how it fits. Wave goodbye to your crowd. You were a great audience! Thank you! Then rest, damn it. Rest. Because you earned it.