When Death Whispered a Lullaby
How can a man die better than facing fearful odds? — Horatius
9 June 2018
The rain swept earth obscures and offers occasional reflections of the sky in the puddles on either sides of the road. A ghastly sight, given that I have to wade through traffic even on the highway. My forehead is crinkled with an eternal frown and now I just need a good reprieve.
The highway awaits. I slowly move out of the urban mess of a city and make my way home. There is little traffic because of the opportune time of my departure.
I keep riding, steadily picking up speed as the stretches become longer and obstacles become nil. Thoughts surface and plummet in my mind, as my brain goes on autopilot, navigating the bike on its own, executing perfect tilts and flashing lights to fend off opposing vehicles appropriately.
I reach a certain stillness when on a motorcycle. The more still you are in your riding, the farther you go. It’s easy to lose track of time, weather, and light when you ride with a single-minded fervour. And although I observe a brewing storm far on the horizon, it does little to reduce my speed or resolve.
I never stop my motorcycle because of the weather. I have always had enough protective gear to get me through the worst of weathers. Nay, I have also been in bad weather without gear and emerged unscathed — a triumph few people can claim. This one is no different.
As if on cue, rains begin. My mind contemplates the time I will need to spend cleaning up my motorcycle after this journey. Lightning cracks open the sky, illuminating the world into a ghostly white for a split second. Thunder follows as a reminder. Still I ride on.
The stormy weather offers no respite. It is dusk and the transition from the light to the dark is anything but smooth. Rain hammers down my windshield and my helmet visor fogs up. I remove it just enough to hinder the flow of water into my face and to ventilate adequately and aid my vision. All I can see is a furious barrage of droplets creating millions of tiny ripples that illuminate in the glow of my headlamps.
Cars and bikes on the highway pull to either side unable to withstand the barrage. But still I go on. Nothing I haven’t done before. I even muse at the plight of people who rent motorcycles only to park them in the rain. Halfway through, the rains intensify, visibility becomes an issue.
The rain battering my windshield produces a strange racket, muffling out my own engine. My breathing is slightly laboured, and I remember that torrential rains make it difficult to breathe. Tilts are becoming more precarious as the roads have water flowing sideways. My tires are losing traction and I am unable to manage the differential so I cease tilting, slowing down even for the slightest turns or to change lanes.
Lights flash randomly as people pull over to the side without warning. I realise how messed up people’s riding can be. A half hour more and there is no sign of the storm abating. The chilling cold is making my teeth chatter and my fingers numb. The mirrors are quite useless as they simply reflect a blurred sight, the thick curtain of obscurity the rain has formed all around me. Still, the familiarity of the road gives me courage to keep going. I see a car struggling in front of me and I pause, easing down on my accelerator to avoid changing lanes. A goods vehicle picks up my tail. I signal with my hand but I realise its futility in this poor visibility.
Us unlikely trio approach a tri-junction. This is a popular spot which leads to different villages, settlements, and cities in all directions. Our visibility is poor and the opposite side is fully obscured from our view. All of a sudden, a two-wheeler cuts its way to the right.
The car in front of me slams down the brakes. I slam the brakes. The vehicle behind me slams the brakes. Tyres screech, horns blare, the metal of vehicles ‘thunks’ and ‘thuds’, a strange ringing as metal strikes another part of the metal. I get pulled away, pirouetting to the side, my neck involuntarily pulling my whole body, as if to snap away, separate itself from my body. And everything’s a blur. My vision blurs, my ears are ringing, and my heart thud-thuds with a speed I’ve never conceived. I scream.
Two weeks later
A fracture of my mind where thoughts, feelings, and emotions are so disjointed that processing them is impossible. My hands shake involuntarily, I crave more rest as I find myself unable to handle the cognitive load. My sentences are nonlinear and I connect words with thoughts that are in different stages of completion. I make mistakes on my guitar where I could string together coherent melodies without any effort.
My bike is suffering because my perceptions seem to be dulled and I am unable process the idea of one of my friends in a similar condition, all banged up, and there is nothing I can do to alleviate that. But more than the guilt of not helping, I am just unable to divide the attention to so many things at the same time.
I remember being dumbstruck and numb with a mixture of feelings when I emerged from the incident. I remember being completely bewildered because I could not process what had just happened and everything around me seemed unaffected. As if the fabric of time tore open for one single moment and restitched itself. And the memory of what happened lost in the void.
It feels as if I survived barely and lost the ability to articulate what that is, not really understanding what is happening. The doctor has classified the occurrence as a Near Death Experience (NDE). It is said the brain functions in strange ways and the type of reactions, thoughts, and inclinations I may have may not fit within the frames of perception with which I have conceived my reality until now.
I don’t understand the concept of a Near Death Experience. How close is near when it comes to death? How is anything a measure of near in case of death? Another reason I dislike the different meanings of the same words. A strange confusion permeates through my thoughts, touching everything that I do, sprinkling itself on everything I have ever known. Would it have been easier if I had just died as opposed to be so confused? I wonder not in a morbid sense but out of genuine curiosity.
Everything seems to be pulling my attention. In so many directions and there seems to be no importance to what I feel and what I think, and no weight to my actions. I wonder if anyone will remember that there existed a sliver in time, which permanently altered an individual like me, disturbed and terrified at the prospects of what transpired but confused if any of them actually occurred the way I remember.
Amidst the lack of explanation for what happened, the confusion infecting every string of my nerves, and the possibility that I could have died, I seem to wade through each day with a sense of detached optimism and a shade of perpetual doubt permeating everything in my life. I don’t know what to say when people ask me how I am and I am infuriated in the midst of the deluge of information I get to read, hear, and see every single day.
I ponder about the many variables of nature, time, and evolution itself. Of the randomness or intelligent design that could have resulted in so many different possibilities to come together, weave themselves together, and culminate in an event that gave me life, and eventually tried to take it back in such a freak mishap.
What would happen if I suddenly vanished from this temporal plane? Or what if everyone else vanished from this temporal plane? What if the fracture of the space-time continuum never healed?
So many questions, so few answers. It’s been several days since the incident as I reminisce the event passively while my active mind brings me back to the highway, where the whooshing wind alerts me to the oncoming storm.
I still wonder how a colleague had called me during the ordeal, on the day of the accident only to ask me how I am doing. It’s serendipitous that they noticed how my voice was a little off. I managed to stave them off only to get an earful the next day, which also felt nice. But I liked the advice to get back on my bike as soon as possible. To not let fear get the better of me. I knew I would have got back to it soon but it was nice to hear an encouragement rather than a rebuttal.
I was back on my motorcycle just three days later. I permitted myself a bit of candid fear of having gone through what I had gone through pushing it by those three days. But strangely when I got back onto it, I felt no fear.
Two weeks on, my hands do not shake as I ride, my brain does not conjure up weird scenarios, nor does it give me doomsday visions. There seems to be an undercurrent of silence in everything that I do. As if, the sound receptors in my body have been numbed and do not wish to process any more sound.
One Year Later
Much time has passed. Some questions still remain unanswered. Some of the questions no longer seem as important given the mind is aware that the danger has passed.
A year down the line should have made me a better person, I suppose. But I do not know if I have. It is strange how there are no objective markers for goodness. Evolution of thought, evolution of ideas, and evolution of ideals are so shifty.
Everyone advised me to get off motorcycle but that has not happened. If anything I have gone on longer trips and more dangerous roads but with a better understanding of how fragile the tipping point is. One small slip, one small nick, a tiny fraction of a second delay in tilting and I could go crashing down.
I remember that my protective gear saving me. But I’ve climbed mountains on my motorcycle where a fall would be far more conclusive than mere wounds. The lessons are not so much a realisation but about exercising more caution.
My hands no longer tremble now and there are no discernible patterns to it. I no longer get stressed about motorcycles. In a way, the gloss and the gleam of new motorcycles have ebbed slightly, knowing that the rider matters the most. No longer am I attracted to glitter and show, but more to steel and grit.
These experiences have certainly shown me what I place my importance on. To reorder my own priorities, to reword my objectives, and to endeavour to slightly better understand my own position in this life with respect to myself and others. To better compartmentalise, to leave specific things at the doorsteps, the joy of wandering around aimlessly within a specific assigned time. To explore everything with a tad bit more openness than before.
No lessons go unlearnt. Thoughts coalesce as I wade through the many streets everyday. It’s still an unfulfilled mystery, what happened, how it happened, and whether it happened exactly the way I remember it happened.
Time will stand witness to my discoveries. For now I ride, another day, another road, another destination unknown.
