Watching

What’s it like to watch someone die? No, not to watch a literal shift from life to death. Not to watch someone with a pulse fall pulseless but still lay with their eyes open, as if they still see the world around them. No, nothing like that.
What I mean is…Have you ever watched someone, so full of life, maybe free-spirited or intelligent, talented or moral, or all of the above, slowly falling apart piece by piece until the only remaining thing that keeps them still living is the base that held each trait they once had, like a flower plucked of its petals and left only exposing its bare center? Have you ever watched a person go from human to merely flesh, blood, bones, and all of which composes their body? Have you ever seen them, creaking around like a robot, taking the commands of any who find themselves worthy to command it?
What is it like? What is it like to watch it happen? To watch a soul fly from a body and only leave a dummy in its place?
I’ll tell you what it’s like. When you first know them, it’s like standing on top of a beautiful peak overlooking marvelously green hills. These green hills are decorated with fluorescent colors that go beyond the spectrum, and you’re listening to the music of the wind and the birds chirping from the hollows in the trees. It’s like smelling the smooth, rich scents of lavender and rose and green, green grass and feeling the sunshine warm on the front of your face and letting it weave its way around you to match the curves of your body. And then something happens. Something happens that begins to murder them inside. And when that thing happens, that’s when on top of this peak, your foot catches a branch, and you fall.
Then, when you wonder why you haven’t hit the ground, you realize something. You’re still falling. And suddenly the music has faded. The colors have gone and all that surrounds you is an eerie blur of black and white, atleast as well as you can guess; any colors might have been made out if not for the speed and the shock. There’s a sense of hopelessness. Almost as if you’re reaching out for something to grasp but you can’t. You’re so lost in the rapid pace of everything that is happening that you can’t even think. You can’t even let yourself believe the truth. You can’t believe that you’ll be gone soon. That’s what it feels like when they’re dying. And you can’t believe they’ll be gone soon.
I’d like to think it would be easy to predict the last part of it, but it isn’t. You know how sometimes, when you’re sleeping, you start to dream about falling, but before you hit the ground you’re staring at your bedroom ceiling again? That’s sort of what that last part is like. Because every time you think you’ve lost them they haven’t died yet. It’s like thinking you should have hit the ground by now but you’re still falling. Almost like there’s still some hope for your survival. There’s still some hope that you’ll grab hold of something solid and you’ll lift yourself up to safety. This part goes on for a long time. And then, three things can happen.
One, you hit the ground. They’re gone. They’re body remains but they’re mind is nonexistent; they’re a puppet to something. But either way, they’re gone. You’ve lost them.
Two, you keep falling. Maybe they just keep becoming less and less like themselves. You feel like one day they’ll be a robot, but at that same time, maybe they’re changing. You can’t know. There isn’t any way to.
Three, you survive. You do, indeed, grab hold of something solid and pull yourself to safety. They come back to you. Perhaps out of some sort of solid depression or drug addiction. But either way, their soul is there.
As hair-raising as an unknown whisper in your ear, and as horrendous as the blood curdling scream of a terrified child, watching someone die is a deep cut that bleeds forevermore all about you. It is impossible to forget. But the worst part, the little fragment of the entire process that shreds your heart and pulls from you a newfound grimace in pain is that you can’t help them. No matter what you do, if someone wants to die, they are going to die. As sure as gravity will pull you from a peak to the ground, they will. And you can never, ever change it. What hurts the worst? Trying to.