It
was a most terrifying storm.
In
the middle of nowhere, between the turbulent sky and the tumultuous
ocean, I was a small, helpless, and insignificant little creature. I
was alone in a hostile and alien world, a place I didn't belong to, a
place where I wasn't supposed to be.
Nature
itself was furious at me for that unforgivable trespassing. The sky
incessantly roared with its thunders, menacing me, yelling at me with
ferocity. The sea, with its giant waves, was a gargantuan beast,
shaking its body with an increasing frenzy, desperately trying to get
rid of the annoying pest.
There
were no signs of civilizations for as far as my eyes could see, not a
single trace of humanity. No one could reach me, no one could help
me. It was just me against the rage of the elements.
Rain
poured on me mercilessly, draining my life force with each drop.
Water from above, water below, I was completely surrounded.
That
day I understood how does it feel to stand before the creatures from
the Cthulhu mythos, the unspeakable horror that they represent. I was
at the mercy of forces that I couldn't even be compared with, forces
that could not understand me, forces that I could not negotiate with,
shapeless and yet gigantic beyond human comprehension. All that I
could fathom was that they desired my death, my total annihilation.
The mere thought of those boundless masses engulfing me was enough to
erase from my mind any traces of rationality and self identity. I
couldn't help but thinking how meaningless and inconsequential was my
existence when compared to them. I was nothing, absolutely nothing.
Just a dot in the universe. No, even less than that, not even a dot,
something smaller than that. I was smaller than the very concept of a
geometrical point. When compared to infinity even the thought of
being something, no matter how puny, is a heresy.
But
while my fear was great, more than I ever experienced before, in my
heart there was acceptance. It was fine, I had gone there by my own
free will. This is the story of Erika Furudo that everyone knows. On
that day, October 4th 1986, I boarded a pleasure boat and sailed to
the open sea. Of course, I was fully aware of the incoming typhoon,
there was no way I couldn't have known. That led most to conclude
that Erika Furudo on that day planned her own death, however some
were still left with doubts. Aren't there easier and faster ways to
end one's life? Why wasn't any message left to testify the suicidal
will?
As
of today the world still doesn't know the answers to those questions.
That is only natural, they would need to know exactly what was on my
mind that day, they would need to know my heart. But only Erika
Furudo knows, and since I am Erika Furudo, I know.
In
the midst of the twisting despair, on the shaking vessel unsteadily I
stood. Raising my arms and head to the roaring sky I prayed:
"Take
me. Take me away to a world of nether. Drag me down into the abyss of
oblivion."
That
was my only wish, my only hope left: disappear, completely.
A
thunder answered my call, and simultaneously a giant wave pushed me
up closer to the ominous sky. But the boat still floated, and my
hands, defying my will, were holding fast onto the railing.
Surprised, I realized that I still had lingering attachments to that
shadow of a life. Even after I went that far, even after I had
already crossed the point of no return, somehow I still wanted to
live. I loathed myself for my own weakness, I despised my lack of
resolution at that crucial moment. I had to embarrass myself right at
the time of my death. So pitiful.
And
yet my fear had grown stronger. It was so fast, sudden, and
overwhelming, that everything else faded in its darkness. None of my
afflictions mattered anymore, and all that I knew was that I wanted
to live.
Like
I child I helplessly cried for help:
"Someone,
somewhere, no matter who, no matter how, may it be a god, an angel,
or a demon, please... Please! I beg of you! Save me!"
My
true wish became apparent, but I was alone in the middle of a raging
sea. Nobody could hear me, nobody could see me. Nobody even knew that
I was there, and even if they did, even if they wanted, they couldn't
have possibly helped me. The typhoon would have killed them as well,
I was beyond salvation.
And
yet I couldn't stop wishing for the impossible to happen. My mind
just refused to accept reality, my heart didn't want to listen to
reason. What I longed for couldn't possibly exist in the real world.
What I longed for... was a miracle.
What I longed for... was a miracle.
When
we are born into this world, we know nothing. We can see, we can
touch, we can hear, we can taste... We use our senses to learn about
our surroundings. We assimilate all those inputs and then use that
information to create our world. Then we learn even more complex
concepts and facts from our parents, our friends, our teachers. How
we act and how we make decisions is determined by what we know. All
that we do, all that we believe in is shaped by what we trust to be
true. In a way, our very self, our very identity, depend on what we
have learned through the course of our existence.
But
do we actually possess the truth? Is it something that we grasp with
certainty?
It
is a terrifying though the idea that all that we always believed to
be correct could be completely wrong. If that happened to be 'true',
then we would have to admit that everything that we did in the past
was the consequence of an error. Could it even be said that our
choices were truly ours if they were based on false information? That
would be the same as to realize that we never truly lived, it would
be as if we just acted a part scripted by someone else.
That
alone would be enough to drag even the stoutest man into an
existential crisis, but at least it would be a revelation. I can
think of something worse, for example: the persistent thought that
everything that we know could be wrong, while not having any way to
confirm it or to refute it. Or, again, the realization that we lack
any possible means to know something that is absolutely vital to us.
When
you consider all this, it is not a wonder that people hate to be lied
to. Why? Because in the end living inside a lie is the worst form of
slavery. The realization that someone lied to us, or that someone
withheld important information to us, is degrading, it is
humiliating. And there is an even more dreadful consequence: it robs
us of our trust. And when we start disbelieving, it becomes a
slippery slope. Soon enough we realize that we cannot trust anyone.
Furthermore, it doesn't even take a very high degree of education to
realize that our senses aren't that reliable either.
So
how can we even tell the difference between truths and lies? What is
true, what is false? No, the question is even more fundamental than
that. What is the meaning of 'truth' in the first place? How can one
even define it? And even if he did, how could he even know whether
his definition was the 'true' one?
I
suppose that most people simply do not think about these
philosophical matters, or, rather, they avoid them the same way they
avoid thinking about unpleasant memories. I despise that attitude,
but at the same time it's not like I don't understand it. It is a lot
more alluring to simply pretend to know what you do not, than
accepting that in fact you know nothing for certain.
But
I didn't quite have that option, not since the day that I asked that
fateful question:
"Do
you love me?"
His
answer was predictable, but I didn't like it one bit. It didn't ring
'true' to my ears, and so I demanded proofs.
"Prove
it! If you love me, then prove it! Show me something that can confirm
beyond any doubts that your feelings are true! Show me something as
much as solid as that long hair that I found on your shirt, or the
expensive cologne you still smell of, or the receipts in your pocket!
Can you prove your love with something equally evident? You can't,
right? There's no way you can! And yet you keep denying the truth!
You still deny it! No matter how many evidences I bring up, you still
say that I'm just being paranoid! You still dare to claim that you
love me! Ah, of course! I'm the one at fault here! Figures! I must be
crazy, I guess! No matter what, you can't even give me a proper
closure, can't you? You must making me live with this doubt for the
rest of my life, that's just how narcissistic you are! What does it
mean that we're through?! You still didn't show me the proof that I
wanted! You still haven't admitted the truth! I'm not crying! No, I
won't stop shouting! I don't care! I don't care! I don't care
anymore!"
After
that, it was just a long descent into the realm of pure paranoia. I
had just realized how fragile that assortment of facts that I called
reality was. In the end, when confronted with the task of proving
which was true or false, I was completely powerless. So I started to
wonder just how much of what I was told could be trusted. What if all
those crazy conspiracy theories were true? I was amazed to learn how
many of those exist and the number of people that believe them to be
real. For example it could as well be true that Neil Armstrong never
landed on the Moon, perhaps it was just a hoax as some claims. Who am
I to deny that? I wasn't there on that floating rock when it
happened, I wasn't even born. There's then some who claim that the
HIV virus is just a blatant invention. The whole world was fooled by
pharmaceutical companies so that they could sell their costly
medicines to treat a syndrome that doesn't even exist. Whatever can I
say? I can't possibly see viruses, they might as well not exist.
According to some sources Paul McCartney died long time ago, the man
that currently claims to be him is just an impostor. Why not? It's
not like I ever met him. The world is actually controlled from behind
the scene by a few selected, powerful men known as the Illuminati. Of
course aliens have already landed on our planet, but the American
government is covering up the whole story. The spaceship and the
alien corpses are held in a secret military base known as Area 51.
Soka Gakkai has already infiltrated several government institutions.
It will soon rule over Japan and then the whole world.
If
only I could find a way to fight back, but I had none. I was
defenseless, helpless. There was no way for me to prove or disprove
anything without trusting a source or the other, and I couldn't trust
anyone anymore. So, I was lost, completely.
I
desperately needed a solid ground, some kind of certainty to base my
beliefs on. I needed a truth that couldn't be denied, I needed an
absolute truth that wouldn't leave any possibility for doubts to
exist. However no matter how hard I searched for it, such truth in
the world of humans doesn't exist. The truth that I was looking for
couldn't possibly exist.
It
hurt. The uncertainty I was living in was nibbling at my soul and my
sanity each passing day. I wasn't even alive. I was essentially a
ghost that roamed in an ethereal world devoid of any substance. And
for all I knew at that time, that could have really been the truth of
my existence. I was angry at the whole world, I hated it for denying
me that simple and yet vital element that I desperately needed in
order to survive. My request was legitimate and the refusal to grant
it was a blatant affront. In the end I couldn't explain that in any
other way if not as a deliberated attack against me.
Yes,
the whole world was my enemy. They all knew the truth, and sneered at
me. They knew everything and behind my back they ridiculed me. They
kept the answers that I sought for themselves so that they could
enjoy watching me crying, struggle and despair. It was all conspiracy
against me. Every single person that surrounded me was part of it. I
could see that through their lies, their fake smiles, and their badly
playacted empty kindness. They planted invisible camera in my room so
that they could always keep me under control. They knew everything
about me, and I knew nothing. At one point they even found a way to
listen to my thoughts. Somehow they could broadcast them so that they
could always know what was going on in my mind. It was terrifying,
but I had no way to deny it, I had not way to prove with absolute
certainty that I wasn't simply imagining it. And then I realized that
if that was true, then they knew that I was suspecting them. I
couldn't even sleep at night anymore, I couldn't even eat without the
fear that my food was poisoned. I had to react, I had to do something
in order to survive. I couldn't stand that situation any longer. I
even thought to fight against the whole world for a while, but soon I
realized how unrealistic that plan was. And then I had an epiphany.
The solution was so simple that I almost couldn't believe my
shortsightedness for not thinking about it before.
What
is murder in the end? It's just a way to erase someone from your
world. Through the act of killing you sever the existence of an
unwanted individual from yours and your world. It is pretty simple.
Once I realized that destroying the whole world was beyond my powers,
I just had to reverse my approach. If I killed myself, I would obtain
the same result, I would permanently sever my connection with all
those people, and perhaps I could finally find peace, I could finally
find the truth that I sought. The more I thought about it, the more I
couldn't find a justification for my prolonged hesitation.
It
was settled, I only needed to decide how, but it wasn't simple. I
couldn't do it in my room or in any other familiar place. I had to do
it somewhere where they couldn't reach me, some place far away where
not even them could follow me to. More importantly I wanted some sort
of revenge. They deprived me of the truth that I desperately needed,
I wanted to do the same to them. I wanted them to forever wonder if I
really decided to kill myself, why, how, and even if I really was
dead or not. Especially that man, I wanted him to live for the rest
of his life with those doubts, just like I did after he broke up with
me.
And
then I found it, the perfect way to forever seal my last moments into
a box that could never be opened. Once again, it was very simple.
