Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
The first time I thought about death was when I was 8. It was a cold morning and I sat in the kitchen looking out through the frosty glass. There was no prompt. No TV blearing death statistics or the death of an aging uncle. Not even a mangled pet dog on the side of the road. I just stared out into the mist and knew that one day I would die. It was not a negative thought, there was no self-pity. Simply an awareness that it was inevitable that one day I would look back on this day from the moment of my death. It would be a sunny afternoon I decided, and I’d be under a tree with dappled light, looking up at the sky and I would remember my 8 year old self.
It was awkward explaining my fascination with death to my parents. An 8 year old fascinated with death? There must be something wrong with her. Look at her arms. Has she been self-harming? Showing signs of social anxiety? Fear of the dark? ADHD, bipolar, gender dysphoria, prepubescent post-traumatic stress related anorexia?
Next minute was a thought that came and went. One minute I was staring out a misty window. The next minute was life and the minute after that was death.
It was the wrong door or perhaps the wrong moment in time. “Watch out!” the tradie yelled meaninglessly as I stepped through the large grey door on the 5th floor of number 8 Pitchfork Drive. I had been through that door a hundred times but this time the outside metal staircase was gone. In that second I realised what the orange ribbon across the door had meant. How could I not see it?
Next minute I was on the ground looking up at the sky, every part of my body broken. How did I never notice how beautiful the clouds are on a sunny afternoon? No fear, no pain, no sound. Just deep blue never ending nothingness.
“Sorry, What?” I heard an angry voice yell. Terrified faces above me, blocking the sun. “I’m sorry sir, they can’t get an ambulance out here for another 15 minutes. The terrorist attack on Eighth Avenue has taken all the resources”. “She could be dead by then”. It suddenly occurred to me that I was probably dying. Is this what death was like? From nowhere came a frosted window. A young girl was smiling and waving at me, a long orange ribbon in her hair.