My Journal

Every breath I took was agonizing. It felt like amounted to a week's worth of breaths. I knew it would be only in a matter of minutes until I would bleed out. I sat against a old tree taking in cool breaths and releasing warm breaths that were probably the only warmness within thousands of miles. I couldn't tell what type of tree I was leaning up against, it must have only grown in foreign countries. In between breaths, I would apply pressure to my wound with a piece of cloth. All I could think of was that help was hundreds of miles away, I didn't know what to do, I was alone.

I kept telling myself that I didn't want to die leaning up against a tree. What a stupid way to die, just sitting with my back up against a tree waiting to die. That's not how I wanted my life to end. I only wanted to die if I physically could not put anymore effort into it. I only wanted to die going forward. I wanted to use those last minutes of my life doing something, anything, besides sitting around. That was not how my parents raised me.  I willed my self to get up and start going until I couldn't go any further. Until my body gives out and I lose all consciousness.

For the first few minutes, I crawled across the dirt ridden ground, while my abdomen increasingly released sharp pains. Every movement came more and more pain. At the moment I wished I could turn off all the pain. Whatever part in my brain that causes me to feel pain, I wanted it off. Despite my feelings, I kept going.

With my face covered in sweaty dirt, I spotted a clearing a few feet away. I didn't recognize it from walking around earlier. As I for forced my myself to crawl closer and closer, I spotted a large object. From what I could tell it was wooden. "Is that what I think it is?"I thought to myself. With my newly found curiosity, I crawled faster, eager to find out what the object was. As I got closer, my guess was confirmed. It was a piano.

I didn't question what a piano was doing in the middle of nowhere. I honestly didn't care. I stopped crawling when I next to the piano, leaning on it just as I was on the tree. Some part of me wanted to see if the piano worked. After the struggle of puling myself up to the piano, I started pressing a key. That one key's sound was magnified throughout the whole meadow. I might have been imagining it, but it sounded beautiful. I started playing a song that I remembered from my childhood. Somehow the more I played the stronger I felt, the stronger I could stand up. So naturally, I played more and more. I don't know how to describe the feeling I had, but I didn't dare question it. Memories started flowing back in: My teacher and I sitting in my living room smacking my hand with a ruler every time I got a note wrong, my parents with huge smile on their faces while I played a new song I learned, and finally, the exhilaration I felt taking my bow on stage to a crowd of people clapping and praising my piano skills.

I felt something that I hadn't felt in a long time, happiness. I could feel a tear escaping my left eye and roiling down my cheek. All of the sudden, my vision went black. I fell to the ground gasping for air. I couldn't breathe. Unbearable pain was overtaking me. Death was here. I stopped holding back and gave up. I decided that I had enough. It was finally time to let everything go. So I did. The blackness cleared up and there I was, standing on a stage getting ready to perform my first song. A massive smile on my face, not knowing what was to be held in my future. I like to think that the same smile I had on that day was also on my face during death, during the time the light finally enveloped me.