Ashes and Dust

Death always comes too early or too late.


I wanted to write a review castigating movie critics but that can wait. This is something more important.

Today the football was a bit stale. Towards the end of our game one guy called for everybody to gather. At first we thought the guys outside the court were up to some bullshit but what followed reduced everybody to speechlessness.

With the gang sitting on the floor, the guy softly announced that X had passed away. His body was cremated on Wednesday. His death was unnatural. X’s brother said he was coping but it was just the pride talking. He wanted us not to message, call or send him condolences on MSN and Facebook. All the poor thing needs now is some time to himself. He also wanted us not to “broadcast” it, don’t tell anybody or write about it on our blogs. (That is why I am not using any real names here.)

He then went on to say that the suddenness of his demise caught everybody by surprise. We started to talk about it, to find out what happened but it was more conjecture than anything else. A Said that X looked very downcast when he came for football last week. Then the last week became “past weeks”, and how he had been very quiet. What problems did X run into? Did he break up with his girlfriend? Then B said X had quit poly, albeit unofficially. He had not been attending classes for the past few weeks prior to that fateful day. A said X hated the thought of serving the army. He tried to get a deferral but they didn’t approve it. He was so desperate he even contemplated joining the police force. A said that there was no need for X to fear going to the army so much – every guy in this country has to go through it.

The announcer guy then said that there we should not assume or presume the exact circumstances surrounding X’s demise. When the time comes, X’s brother would talk about it, should he feel like it. He then went on to say that we play football in SP every Saturday because we are like one big family. We could have just played at the void decks but football gives the gang a chance to get together. Many of us may only see one another on Saturday but that does not mean we are not friends on the other six days of the week. Right now, we should contribute to X’s family, see what help they require and give it.

Then someone said X’s brother is a xtian. X wasn’t. I hope the former’s priest and church members would not be so dim-witted and insensitive, making comments about the destination of X’s soul. (By the way, where was Gawd? Taking a shit and watching child porn when It could have saved a life?)

C said that X had a tendency to bottle up his feelings. If he didn’t say anything how could anyone had done anything about it? What happened must have been a kick in the teeth for his brother. Everybody is carrying a bit of guilt about it. If only I had done something, if only I had done more. One can imagine how the family must be beating themselves over it.

It is irrational, but I think on some level we have all failed X. Talking to X about football and shooting shit about stuff are all well and good, but it was a shame that few of us (to the best of my knowledge) talked to him much about the things that matter. We are all guilty of it, I suspect, whether with X or with our other friends. We simply don’t bother enough. I think being friends with someone carries some obligations. You expect something but you also give him or her something in return. It is a reciprocal relationship, based not on monetary values, leverages and advantages, but out from the heart. I don’t bother enough, and if you are reading this, chances are you are just like me.

I remember one of my lecturers, himself a retiree and having “seen it all” , said that one can have many friends. These friends are nothing compared to the rare few who will stick with you through thick and thin. I think he has a point, but unfortunately how many of us actually have even one friend like this in the first place? I am not talking about the kind of friend who will make dramatic sacrifices for you like in the movies, taking a bullet for you or donating his entire fortunes to save you. I am talking about realism, and often realism is very simple. I am referring to the kind who will bother to talk to you, to listen, to find time for you, and try to help you when you have a problem. The kind who actually bother.

Some people will think that suicides are stupid. What do people off themselves when the solution to their problems can be found? These people don’t deserve anybody’s pity. They should be castigated for being weak and by their inconsiderate action brought pain to the people who loved them. Well, I got news for you, you vindictive whoresons. People do not off themselves because they cannot find a way out of their problems. They off themselves because the pain is too fucking much to bear. It is not about finding answers like life is some fucking maths problem but dealing with debilitating pain.

Suicide is not a conscious and clear-headed choice, much like it is impossible not to feel pain when you are ravaged by cancer or tore apart by hounds. Everybody has difference tolerances and a pain threshold for each of these. Some can take lots of physical punishment but are emotionally fragile. Some are stone-hearted but cannot walk up a flight of stairs without gasping like if it’s his last breath. Different people, different tolerances, different thresholds for different tolerances. I have a friend who was a nurse. She told me that when you are depressed, you cannot function at all. It is not a simple thing of “snapping out of it”. You just cannot function. Full stop. Without help you are pretty much fucked. A suicide does not just “cannot function”; he wants to cease to function.

People who simply dismiss suicides as “losers” are more often than not popcorn-munching armchair commentators whose thinking is so magical they do not see the absurdity of complaining about trivial things in their carefree existences while seeing nothing wrong about telling people who are in worse straits how to cope with their fucking lives. I wonder if these insensitive and high-priced twats would have contemplated death if they were gang-raped and at the same time forced to watch the gang rapes of the female family members and the beheading of their male kin. This is an extreme example, but it is a bloody good one. It is a bloody good one because it happened during the war, when the goddamn Japs subjected the Chinese to unspeakable brutalities. What would these callous bastards say to the people who off-ed themselves after suffering shit like this? You are so stooopid?

What happened to X might not be as tragic-dramatic as my example, but it is not us to perceive what is truly horrendous and what is not. What X, or any would-be suicide perceive in his mind really matters. The rest of the world can just fuck off. It could be a relatively insignificant thing like relationship problems, but if the person attaches very great importance to it, then that is what it is: fucking important and a case for great fucking despair. The feelings of other people, and subjective/objective reality and all that claptrap are worthless. When next time somebody you know offs himself/herself, please remember what I said – or will you continue to cry stooopid? Goddamn nimrods.