i died.

i go to bed at 4 am morning of 27th and i get hit by sleep paralysis again. same ol' same ol', except somehow i decide now would be the first time i try snapping out of it by sheer will. of course it doesnt work. i can barely control my breathing, and i cant even tell if what i am seeing is my room's ceiling between the gaps of five-ton eyelids or just a hallucinatory memory of that ceiling. "mind over body" is underexamined and overvalued. i decide to surrender and within what felt like seconds the grip fades and i am re-released into REM; this usually repeats a couple more times but this time this is it--no more random awakenings for now.

how could i be so naive. it cant be that simple. i now enter a dream. in this dream i do something terrible. it is abhorrent. i cannot remember what exactly because i am about to fail at writing this down the second i wake up in the afternoon. i do however remember feeling remorse, but strangely zero regret. maybe it's because in waking life i always try to make unshakeable choices. but in this dream the point is ever so sharp because for whatever i did prior to the last recallable event i am now facing the death penalty for it.and i feel no regret.

i remember now that in this dream i am wearing my saf uniform. maybe there is a connection somewhere. or maybe that's irrelevant. i dont know. i will die soon because of my sentencing and i feel no regret. people are hanged all the time, especially in this country, for questionable but reasonable points that supposedly justify. while on one hand i find it embarrassing that we arent already abolitionist i also accept that we probably never will be. under this realisation i neutrally resign to the fact that in my lifetime we will carry on hanging certain criminals like we take out the garbage. right now i am that trash, and i will be taken out soon, and i am pressed that i am not depressed...

a day or two pass in my dream and they let my family in to see me for the last time. they are sad. they cry for me. they are not ready to let me go and i understand why. people around me have always been more emotional than i, and i, always more rational than they. ive already come to the terms of my impending execution, and to most, it would understandably seem abit too quick. more than a tad disturbing, i admit, but i blink the thought away. after all, i die in the morning. i should probably make the most of my last hours; ive done enough thinking in the latter half of my life.

i dont know or i cant remember what happens between then and now, when i am being led to the white room. it is a lethal injection facility. i know it should be a dark house with a wooden beam and a noose but this is my dream and since ive have been watching too much american tv for the last 7 years, in my dream, singapore carries out capital punishment via lethal injection. and thats final!

at this point standing in the doorway i remember scenes from a movie the green mile in which deathrow inmates struggle from their cell all the way to the kill bed and have to be strongarmed by six full-grown men, lashed down to the gurney with leather straps, and prepared for the needle. again i blink this away: hey, at least i can hold myself together better than that guy can... right?

probably.

i am bound to the gurney but for whatever reason my head isnt (dreams are rarely logical) , so i crane my neck to look down on myself. i realise im not getting out of this one. the technician injects the yellow water into my IV line and i see it flow down the tube towards my arm.

just before the chemical reaches my left median cubital the whole idea of death runs me over. within this last split second all these questions hit me: this would be my final end? no more touch, smell, taste, sight, hearing? no more family? no more friends? no more laughter? no more tears? no more writing? no more typing? no more thoughts? sans everything.

i dont want this! i dont want to die yet! I DO NOT WANT TO DIE. i thought i had come to terms with it. i thought i made myself ready; now i am nothing better than that guy in the movie that i scoffed at! i try to will my arm away from the incoming yellow chemical but its useless--i am completely bound. to fate. the last moment is too extreme even for my subconscious, and i wake,

heart pounding i can feel it in my ears, but undoubtedly it's still beating fine. i am alive.

"fuck, fuck..shit. FUCK!" am i...crying? i breathe some words into the pillow. "Jesus" was one of them. dreams never really affected me that much, except when i dreamt on a couple occasions some person(s) close to me had died. and ive probably died many times in multiple dreams before but today this is different.

this time's is no accident. it's not a trip-and-then-fall-from-15-stories death. it's not a stabbing from a kidnapper that appeared out of nowhere. its not from a car that speeds up from behind me. its not from the fangs of a huge snake that wont refuse to take its eyes off me. its something about being executed by the Law, that your killer is not really your killer, and that the blame for your imminent death can never be placed upon anyone else...except yourself. execution... is like suicide. yes i finally understand now. capital punishment is forcing a man to take his own life. the idea is abominable. after this dream ill never again see the death penalty in the same light. i retract what i said 9 (or 10) paragraphs ago. i cant possibly still be sitting on the fence of compromise for this one.

my heart hasnt slowed, and i feel drained. i feel stupid. did i delude myself into thinking i could be ok with accepting death only to start disintegrating at the last moment? one of my greatest fears is to one day learn that there is no such thing as an unregrettable decision, that careful contemplation is no more superior to spontaneous carpe diem, that in living my life i chose the wrong way. at the moment the only thing i can conceivably fear more than such a revelation would be to continuing walking that same wrong path despite knowing better. i laugh at that man and now i am him, and i change the road sign instead of make a turn. hypocrisy epitomised. i hope i die for real before that day comes.

heart pounding i can still feel it in my ears, but undoubtedly its still beating fine. my eyes have dried. i am alive. thanks for the second chance.