My Name is Charlie and I’m Going to Die
You know how sometimes you get a feeling about something and you just can't shake it. That's what this is. I could never get myself to tell anyone what was happening but since I don't have that much time left I wanted to just go ahead and say it.
January 31st, 2021, I will be dead. That'll be it for me.
I'll be pushing up daisies, sleeping with the fishes, six feet under, DEAD. You get the idea.
I've been sitting here for a few hours trying to get myself to write this through sheer force of will but every sentence, every word I type, is pure agony. I'll try to tell the story as best as I can, from the beginning.
I know this might sound awful but the end of 2019 and the first half of 2020 were some of the best months of my life. The world went to shit but I was doing pretty good. I left my hometown in Denver, Colorado to go travel the world on November 15th, after my dad's birthday. I knew I was going to be gone for awhile so I wanted to celebrate and have a good last night with my Pops before I left on my adventure. We were never that close, we didn't talk about much, but when we got to drinking whiskey, that's when our hearts poured open and spilled out into every corner of the room. It was the love only a father and son can understand. All the pent up silence, locked in a cage, waiting to tell each other anything and everything, always came roaring out as soon as we finished our third or fourth drink. I loved hearing stories from his past. Here he was, a man of nearly 70, and everything I had been through or would go through he had probably already lived twice or three times over - heartbreak, unemployment, existential dread, you name it. Well, almost everything. I feel like we never really appreciate our parents as much as we should, it's only until we get older, we start to understand how much they put into raising you, how much they sacrificed. At the end of the night we even got to hugging each other and said goodnight with a heartfelt, "I love you" at the end. A second after he walked into his room, he peered his head out and said through misty eyes, "I'm gonna miss you, buddy".
I left the next afternoon and sped off into the world, ready for whatever lay ahead. I spent the next few months motorbiking around South East Asia, picking fruit in Australia, diving the coral reefs of Indonesia, hiking the Himalayas, and moving on to the next place. I ended up settling in Hanoi in the spring of 2020. I found work fixing up bycicles and bartending mostly. Then the pandemic struck - hard. Luckily, Vietnam, with it's already widely held practice of using face masks, the country handled the virus well. I had money saved up from working and I lived in a nice apartment with great roommates. What else could I have asked for?
On March 2nd, 2020 I fell in love.
A few weeks before, most of my roommates decided to leave Vietnam and go back to their home country. I didn't blame them. If you didn't have money saved you were screwed. One by one they all left until it was just me and Helena. We all got along splendidly but because it was such a small place we all spent our time together. It wasn't until everyone was gone that I really got to know her. You get to know alot about someone by the way they talk to others, their kindness, their temper, but you never know them for who they are until you see them bare and isolated, only then can you look into their soul.
It was the early morning. I fell asleep on the couch in the living room after I drank two bottles of wine the night before. The light was just barely coming in through the window and it smelled heavenly. I was looking for my cigarettes when I saw her. There she was, dancing in the kitchen to the rhythm of her music. She swayed side to side, sweeping her feet, twirling gracefully. I couldn't hear the music but it didn't matter. She was loving life, in that moment, in that ordinary, unimportant, moment. She was just frying bacon and making quesadillas but the way she leaned on the counter, eyes closed feeling every tone of the music, I couldn't help but be utterly entranced by her. I never saw something so beautiful in my life. The sun rising on her back, lighting up the features of her face, her green glowing eyes, that expressive countenance that saves me from ordinary dreams. She burned her hands on the pan and even the way she put her finger to her mouth, soothing the pain, was wonderful. She noticed that I was up.
"Oh hey, I'm making you breakfast"
I could only smile. Once you see someone like that, you can never see them any other way again - ever.
That night we watched movies and drank more wine. In the dark throes of the night, the full moon barely visible through the clouds, the movie ended and I kissed her.
We spent the next months growing more and more in love. You can hardly believe it when someone complements you so well, when in the ordinary and mundane you find light, shining on every part of your life. She was everything I ever needed.
On the 7th of June I had the first dream.
I was in a the foyer of an overbearing house. There was a two headed stairway infront of me and a brilliant chandelier above. The only strange part was that everything - the furniture, the paintings, the floor and ceiling - was painted white. I had no control of myself. I heard a soft whisper
"January", it said.
I saw my legs moving towards the stairs, taking slow, painful, steps, almost levitating .
"January" it whispered again, the voice whispering right into my ear, and I felt the hot breath brush against my neck. I could feel a tremendous weight above me but I could not will myself to turn around. I was no longer in control.
My legs took me to the top of the stairs and calmly I climbed over the railing.
One last time I heard the voice raspier and a only slightly louder, making my skin tingle
"January"
And I leapt. My stomach churning, that falling feeling, and right before I hit the floor I woke up in drenched in sweat, still hearing that fateful voice of January. I managed to get back to sleep but kept playing back the last tones of the voice, this time, drifting into a deep sleep.
It didn't happen again until two weeks later. The dream was the same. The foyer, the chandelier, the stairs, everything painted white but now I was looking at myself. Hovering over my body, going up the stairs, taking every step in writhing agony and again I leapt and woke up.
The next week the dream was the same but when I fell to the ground I did not wake up. I felt the shattering of my legs only for an instant and then got right back up and started walking towards the stars again, ready to put myself into the same gut wrenching feeling of falling and dying.
The dreams became a nightly routine. Every night I dreamt of the white foyer and every time the voice got louder and louder, still only a whisper. Now, as I saw myself, crying, weeping profusely, knowing I had to leap over and over again, feeling that pit of fear in my stomach, the pain my legs, the terror in my heart. It got the point to where the only thing I could hear was the voice repeating itself "January, January, January".
Everynight I dreamt of the white foyer, even during the day I heard the voice echoing in my ears. There was no escaping it, even if I wanted to. Despite Helena's best efforts, I tried everything to rid myself of the dream. I meditated, excercising, made myself so tired hoping I couldn't dream. I told her nothing of it except it was a nightmare. I tried staying up as long as I could. Nothing worked. Months and months the whole time I kept repeating the words myself.
The last dream came sometime in November. I was no longer watching myself but I was me, again. I was crying, I could only hear "January", the mind numbing word, all I wanted was for it to stop. I reached the top of the stairs in that ghostlike fashion and before I leapt I stopped. The voice stopped. Finally, the voice stopped. It was gone. The foyer was still and quiet, I looked down and felt in control of myself. The voice was gone. I was glad for the silence. I looked at the walls of the foyer, the paintings, the chandelier, it was actually quite breathtaking. To think my mind had created this place was astounding. It felt like it had finally come to an end.
Relief turned into horror, the voice had not returned but the walls began crack, the chandelier was shaking, the paintings fell from the walls, the stairs were ripping apart, the entire foyer was trembling and dark red blood was spilling from the ceiling, onto my face until my entire body was covered in red and the blood was rising impossibly fast, flooding the entire place, it was coming from the walls, the cracks in the floor, until the blood was just below my nose. I had to stand on the tip of my toes to stop my nose from being submerged in blood and then right infront of my face, he came. It was like looking into a mirror, except I had never seen my own reflection in a dream before, but there I was, just my face, staring back at me, completely serious, void of emotion, and he spoke.
"It ends in January" he said and then darkness.
...
I spent the next month alone, I wouldn't speak to anyone. The dream was torturing me. After dreaming that same thing, night after night. For months. I knew it was true. It had to be. I was going to die at the end of January. What else could it be?
It's January 1st, 2021. I'm trembling and shaking as I'm writing all of this, drinking tequila straight from the bottle, smoking all the weed and cigarettes I can even though my throat is sore. Happy New Year World.
Helena, this is why I haven't spoken to you, or to hardly anyone last month. I know this isn't an excuse. I know things have been different but I'm hoping when you read this you'll understand. Thank you for being so wonderful.
...
Charlie's writing ends here.
On the afternoon of January 31st, Charlie, completely sure he was going to die. On the 30th he tried to break out of his state of terror and lived as best he could. He made love to his girlfriend, he ate the best finest food in Hanoi, until he could no longer move, he drank and smoked, he went to his favorite spot overlooking the city, and the next day he waited for his death.
He spent the 31st determined to meet his fate with some dignity. He had no idea how it would happen but he would meet death with grace. He lived it like any other day. He put the letter he wrote on his desk at home for his girlfriend to read. He waited all day and nothing happened. He awoke the next morning, February 1st, to 6 missed calls from his father. He tried calling back but didn't get a response. A few hours later he got a call from his uncle that Charlie's father had died sometime in the night. He had crashed into another car on a bridge and fell into the river below.