Prompt #33 - In Loving Memory: "The Cloying Nature of Hope"

[ouiouilee]

It's often been discussed amongst my friends - how do you think you'll die and what will your arrangements be? I'm always the non-contributing party gasping at the extreme measures and antics or laughing at the potential wakes and memorials. I can't tell them that I think of it often, as a way to lull me to sleep. I don't know why it's one of the only things that helps me sleep during those difficult nights, even as a small child. I've been maimed in knife-fights in airplane terminals, shot by strangers in schoolrooms, streetcorners, and malls; I've been mistakenly pushed off of cliffs, accidentally tumbled down stairs, and succombed to countless other demands of gravity. I've gotten cancer, I've gotten pnemonia, I've contracted the most severe case of the flu seen since H1N1 (which I really did get).

In all of these scenarios, I notice, the prevailing theme is that I always just keep going on like nothing's happened. I have never cried, never complained - I have never wept for help or for mercy. In these dreams, I am strong. My favorite of all of these deaths is to pass quietly, while the stealthy disease eats at you. I would have months and months to silently wait it out, acting normally and telling my friends and loved ones nothing. The morbid part of me would cherish every moment with them, relish it in a way impossible to fathom by the healthy. Each day would be a bittersweet tango of emotions, savory in their foreign nature and tantilizing in their ephemerality. Once the symptoms became too great to ignore... I would simply disappear. I would leave a note, of course, but I wouldn't want them to see me deteriorate. Particularly given the slick and slimy nature of the disease - remissions and the like. You can appear to be coming around a positive bend... And the next day... Gone.

I'd prefer to save them that, at least. The cloying nature of "hope."

[Firefly]

I know I put the prompt up here and all, but wow--this was really sad and morbid.

I keep trying to think of something else to say, but yeah . . . I'm just stuck on "sad" and "morbid."

Lol

[ouiouilee]

Originally Posted by Firefly

I know I put the prompt up here and all, but wow--this was really sad and morbid.

I keep trying to think of something else to say, but yeah . . . I'm just stuck on "sad" and "morbid."

Lol

lol.... thank you?????

[Teancor]

Originally Posted by ouiouilee

My favorite of all of these deaths is to pass quietly, while the stealthy disease eats at you. I would have months and months to silently wait it out, acting normally and telling my friends and loved ones nothing. The morbid part of me would cherish every moment with them, relish it in a way impossible to fathom by the healthy. Each day would be a bittersweet tango of emotions, savory in their foreign nature and tantilizing in their ephemerality. Once the symptoms became too great to ignore... I would simply disappear. I would leave a note, of course, but I wouldn't want them to see me deteriorate. Particularly given the slick and slimy nature of the disease - remissions and the like. You can appear to be coming around a positive bend... And the next day... Gone.

I'd prefer to save them that, at least. The cloying nature of "hope."

Ouiouilee,
We've all imagined what it would be like to die or which way would be the best way to go. You however, get the gold medal for your time and effort into your imaginings. This piece has to be read a couple of times to really understand it. (... and had to look up cloy/cloying in the dictionary)
While it seems that you honor your friends and family in saving them from the "cloying nature of hope", I say, don't underestimate them, or yourself. I liken it to someone who commits suicide. They are running from reality. They don't face friends or family.
You rob the ones that love you when you leave them out, even in suffering and yes, hoping.
I like your piece. At first I too, thought that it was quite morbid. After re-reading, I realized it was well thought out, and selfless. I especially like your title. I am now going to steal this title and use it to refer to my hope of becoming a great writer.

Teancor

[Mia Theresa]

Honestly there are a number of things about this, from the almost palpable shift in tone to the very eloquent closing line, that I find incredibly interesting. What I find especially interesting is that you call your imaginings "dreams" and not "nightmares". I can't imagine that most people, myself included, would word it that way.

I like it.

Now what's funny is that I just spent the past ten minutes analyzing your piece here, before I realized - that probably isn't the point of this prompt. Haha. The fact that I did so makes me very happy though! It means you got me thinking and that's always nice.

All in all, I'd say you did a great job with this. Its nice to know I'm not the only one who has actually put thought into a topic like this - I feel slightly normal now!

[ouiouilee]

Wow! Thank you for the great comments. I'm really glad that I could help you pass a few moments in time thinking about something in a way that you might not have considered before.

Teancor: average writers borrow, great writers steal. If you can make that phrase yours, own away.

Mia Theresa: I say dreams instead of nightmares because a nightmare is something that you fight; a nightmare is the boogeyman. Dreams... well, you shape dreams. You create goals from dreams, whimsies. In my dreams... I am strong. Because someday, in true life, I might not be. Then life is the nightmare.

Hehe, as for being normal... Poe said, "They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." I'd like to think writers are like this.