Annabelle Liu (9) | STAFF REPORTER
The rustle of the paper are the leaves in the wind; flowing freely, before the gust abruptly halts. They flip to a stop, gazing at the sinking of the sun. All that is around me is nothing but tranquility at its finest form—the gentle rush of the waves filling my ears, the soft grains of sand warming my feet, the trills of the birds echoing through the sky.
It is quite picturesque, I realize. If only I could dip a brush into a bucket of paint and lather it onto canvas upon canvas. I could paint hundreds— no, thousands of paintings. I would embed my soul in them. Into the soft, wispy clouds fluttering through the sky, into the gentleness of the waves lapping against the shore. And for centuries, they would be passed down; my soul would be passed down, evoking my same joy in generation after generation. All around me, I am surrounded by nothing but magnificence, such gorgeous views that I would gladly stay in forevermore.
It is the perfect backdrop for my death.
The ticking down of my heartbeat blinds me with a terrifying fervor, scorching me within the depths of my soul. And yet it is relief; such scathing catharsis from the bounds of life that seem to terrorize me so. Every breath, I inhale a foreign air—no longer the terrifying gusts that once blew me around for its own sake. No longer the foul, uncomfortably hot air that once suffocated me.
For it is where sunset sets me alight with a thousand sparks, its golden rays settling warmly on my skin, draping its deep embrace around me. Where the familiarity of these foreign sensations overwhelms me with such delight, bringing that inner, curious child out of me.
That child is no longer suffocated. As now the air runs clear; as her blood runs clear; as her heart beats clear. It is overwhelming clarity, yet everything slips into a haze of drunken stupor: drunk on a new life. It’s truly a shame that this life will be cut so short.
I see double when I gaze up at the sky, at the stars that are just beginning to peek through the last rays of day. The sun is still dipping beneath the rushing waters, slowly but surely sinking under its depths. Becoming nothingness—forgotten, overshadowed by the brilliance of the stars.
And with it, it will bring me along.
A crippling headache pounds at the inside of my skull, crackling and trembling and bleeding out, sending shockwaves throughout my entire body. My heart cries out, ringing in my ears; some unstoppable cacophony of sound clanging against my already aching head. It sobs and sobs and sobs, beating ceaselessly at my already fractured skull.
And as my gaze drifts upwards, I realize—
It is a final sunset.
A final beauty in the world, before I crumble into ashes, into dust, into nonexistence.
Yet this concept of becoming nothingness is strangely freeing. To become untethered to anything ever again—to escape from the earthly plains that dictate all of my life. The beauty of the endless bounds of nothingness enthrall me so.
The weight of the book resting on my thighs is strangely comforting, as if blanketing me from all that awaits, shielding me from whatever horrors I have yet to face, even as I breathe my final breaths. As I neatly slide a bookmark into its pages, I sigh.
It is a dreamy, excited, but inevitably—a tired sigh. A sigh exhausted from all the things the world has brought me, from all that I am sick of. It is a sigh awaiting the sweet clutches of death.
But most of all, a sigh of relief.
The painful shivers that my heart once shot through my chest slow into relaxation. My body no longer trembles with the effort of keeping it beating. It morphs into excitement, fluttering in my chest, eagerly waiting for the next few moments. It nearly feels like love.
As my breaths slow to a stop, and vision blurs into a haze, I am presented with a final beauty. The movement of the air slows to a stop—paused in time, yet still embraces me with its warmth. The waves quiet down, becoming nothing but a moving image in my peripheral. Even the birds slow to a stop, perching on the trees in a lulling silence.
The sunset bleeds into the pages of my novel, its final streaks of red basking it in eternal warmth—
just as my heart bleeds into an end.
