Last Will and Testament

A friend's father passed away a few days ago. It was very sudden and no one was prepared for what was to come after. And it got me thinking: everyone important in my life, the kind of important that would mean they're in charge of my affairs after I'm gone ("my affairs," ha - it makes me sound so important) -- do they know of my wishes? Do they know how I'd like them to proceed? 

Let me first say that I'm not afraid of death. Why should I, why should anyone? After all, you will be dead. You won't care. It's the thought of the cause that frightens me. I don't want a long illness; nothing drawn out, please. I'd prefer it to be painless, obviously. But if there was to be any pain involved, I'd rather it was something so severe that death would be instant. It's pain I'm scared of.

Anyway, whatever the cause, when it's all done and some doctor in the ER or OR (if it's the kind where I'm taken to a hospital) has called time of death, know this: I don't want to be buried. I want to be cremated.

First, tell the doctors that I've donated my eyes and organs. They can take whatever they need. I do hope that someone gets my heart, though. I have this romanticized notion that if my heart goes to someone else, I'll live on somehow because a part of me, literally, will still remain after the rest turns into ashes.

After the doctors have done their job and sewn me back up, take me to a crematorium and burn my body. I'm Muslim by inheritance, so there may some dispute about this amongst family (or not; maybe no one will care). But this I insist: you must cremate me. I do not want to be buried. I don't want to take up space when I don't have to. Plus, if I'm cremated, I can be returned to the earth or the seas, which I think is ideal for someone who is pagan by belief.

My possessions, if I have any, you may dispose of as you please. My family can decide. As long as they are given away to people who will take care of and make use of them, it doesn't matter to me so much who gets what. Just keep using whatever it is that you get; don't let it sit in your house -- on your bedside table, in your living room cabinet shelf -- and just be there until it has lost all purpose and is nothing more than ornamental or commemorative.

Finally, hold a little... Wake, I guess? But wakes are usually so sober and serious. I'd like mine to be more light-hearted. Try and remember the good times we had, as clichéd as that sounds. Remember that no matter what the circumstances, if I'm dead, it was meant to happen. And most important: play all the music I cherished. I want everyone to groove and, if they're sad, be distracted for some time. It would be nice, to have the Chili Peppers be the soundtrack for my wake. Maybe Venice Queen. I have loved that song since the moment I first heard it, and have always thought it was one of the best tributes I have ever heard. That would make my day, to pretend that I'm who they're saying farewell to. 

I've discovered that my habits and tendencies as a reader have changed over the last three or four years. I used to be more patient. I used to be more persistent with a book that I set out to read but then couldn't get through as easily as I expected to. I think this has to do with the end of the Harry Potter series. I devoured those seven books like a starved infant, and I'm quite sure that they also spoiled me. Since The Deathly Hallows, I've very rarely felt a sense of urgency with any book, that need to ignore sleep and meals until I know what happens next.

Wait. There was Gone Girl. Which reminds me: if you haven't read it already, do. You must.

If a book was turning out to be more laborious than I had expected, I used to be able to persevere. I didn't, and still don't think that it's right to abandon any book mid-read. If you start reading it, you must finish. It's disrespectful not to. When I was younger, there was only one that I abandoned -- and didn't feel the least bit guilty about it -- Chetan Bhagat's Five Point Someone. I tried to get through it twice, but I found it to be so stupendously boring that I simply couldn't find the will to keep going.

I still read, but not as feverishly as I used to. Everything I've read in the last couple of years, I've read slowly. And it wasn't because I wanted to take my time with it; process whatever I had read, mull it over and then resume reading. I simply don't think my attention span is what it used to be. It worries me. I used to be able to trudge through. I did that with The Fellowship of the Ring, when I realized that I was taking many, many days to get through the first 50 pages. I kept going, and it eventually became one of the books I've most enjoyed. I did that with One Hundred Years of Solitude. Most Marquez books take a while to get through, anyway.

I couldn't do it with One Thousand Chestnut Trees by Mira Stout, which I tried to read recently. I had never read a novel about Korea, and when it was gifted to me I was quite interested in sinking my teeth into it. And while the stories had a great deal of depth and the history that was being presented to me was fascinating, I found the subject matter to be too intense and simply wasn't interested in reading it every night before bed. Korea's history is tragic, and I found that despite how much I was learning as a reader and as a citizen of the world, I simply didn't want to read a book with such upsetting subject matter. So I abandoned it at the halfway point. I've since loaned it to my sister, and I doubt I'll pick it back up again anytime soon.

And yet, I recently finished reading Dan Brown's Inferno in a matter of days. I'm not a fan of the author; I find his writing inconsistent and, sometimes, annoying. But as someone who studied a portion of The Divine Comedy in college and who's generally interested in Dante, I dove into the novel and read all 461 pages in a matter of days.

I read The Cuckoo's Calling with no trouble at all. But then, that was written by J.K. Rowling. Again... I've been ruined.

Next on the list is all five parts of The Hitchhiker's Guide. Wish me luck.

On a Sunday evening, I sat by the window of a pub on the fifth floor and stared at the sky as it transformed over the course of three hours. It turned from patches of vibrant pink and blue into a dark and gloomy gray. Clouds gathered to signal the coming of rains that everyone had been hoping for for weeks. And most obvious of all, lightning flashed across the sky. They weren't overpowering flashes; simply bright enough to be unavoidable. Enough to announce its presence politely but firmly, and nothing more. The quiet confidence of a thing that knows that everyone knows that it has arrived.

My friends and I heeded the warning. We packed up and headed home. And for a while during our journey, the skies were kind to us and it only drizzled. Everyone was relieved that it was finally raining; perhaps that would help reduce the levels of humidity that we had been suffering for the last few weeks. But no, it only drizzled for a couple of hours, nothing else.

I got home, I ate dinner with my mother, washed up and shut the house down, and settled into my armchair for a movie. And of course, the heavens opened up. It rained...and then some. But the surprise was that it wasn't just the first rains of the summer; it was a thunderstorm. It was as unexpected as they come. The lightning turned angry and unavoidable, like the gods had found the flash button on a new camera and were insisting on trying it out with every photograph. The thunder was deafening; so loud that you couldn't sleep. Just when you were beginning to doze off, came a sound that felt like a slap in your face to jolt you awake.

I woke up the next morning, looked around and saw the aftermath. And it didn't frighten me. It reaffirmed my faith as a pagan.

This is what I believe in: the power of the soil, the water, the wind, the sun, the moon. When I was born, the religion I inherited was Islam. But as an adult, this is my true faith: my belief in the forces of nature. It is the only thing that makes sense to me. It is the only faith that rings true. I can see their power all around me. I can see the damage we do every day, and I mean all of us. I could sense their fury in the scorching heat that came too early,  their anger burning down on us. I could sense their wrath during the thunderstorm, their retaliation. I can sense the exhaustion they feel, the resigned sorrow. And I can feel them gathering their fading strength, their rampant anger, to punish us one final time so they can save themselves. I fear that inevitable day, but all the same, I know we deserve it.

I've been trying to write, I really have. I observe every day, and I want to share. I feel love and joy at a level of intensity that continues to amaze me, and I want to be self-consciously eloquent about it. I feel fear and panic during new experiences, about wading through waters that feel much deeper than they really are, and I want to share, for the relief of catharsis. But I'm unable to put pen to paper; to place fingers on keys. Lately, whenever I have felt like writing, you have taken over and occupied my entire mind.

It's quite frustrating, really. I think I've made progress, which I actually have, in many healthy ways. But when I peel off the layers and examine the wound, I see it's still a little pink, exposing itself to you and your absence, your presence. I want to ignore it so that it can scab over in its own time and protect my skin. But as always, time moves as slowly as I wish it wouldn't.

And so I try, which, it seems, is all I can do. And I hope that eventually, you'll leave.