One More Life

Eight times I’ve survived. That’s eight more than I deserve. I’ve heard about the luck of the Irish, but I’m not Irish. At least, I don’t think I am. Can those such as me be Irish? It’s impossible to tell. Such concepts are beyond my understanding. 

Death doesn’t scare me. Well, it does. But it doesn’t scare me more than anything else. The problem is everything scares me. Death is no more frightful than a car horn or a creaking floorboard in the night. Touching me anywhere, but particularly on my neck or back when I’m asleep provokes a similarly terrified reaction. It’s all scary to me, and death is no different. 

If I think carefully, I really shouldn’t be scared of death at all. I’ve faced it enough times already. I should be used to it by now. I guess nearly dying and actually dying are two very different things. Nearly dying is not close to dying at all. In fact, nearly dying is the opposite of dying. It’s living. Death is binary. Either you are dead, or you are not. I am not. I’ve been close eight times. But I should look at that as the eight times I’ve lived rather than the eight times I’ve nearly died. You could say I’ve had eight instances of bad luck. Instead, I’d say I’ve had eight instances of good luck where I’ve narrowly avoided the bad. 

Each time I’ve survived, it’s felt like I’ve been born again. I feel like in a different time, a different place, I’m dead. Thus, the current me is a new me. This is nonsense, of course. I’m still the same me. But the abstract feeling of resurrection remains. Eight times I’ve been reborn, having never died at all. 

Perhaps you might wonder how this keeps happening to me. Eight near-death experiences is a lot. Allegations of hypochondria aren’t too far away. I can feel it. Allow me to tell you all about my luck and how it’s good. In all the optimism, there’s some worry, but we’ll get to that.

The first incident gave me knowledge of the end. Before, I’d never even considered it. I don’t remember being born. I don’t remember my mother, but I assume I had one. It stands to reason that I had a father as well. I didn’t know him either. It’s unclear how long I was alive before I was adopted. Perhaps, I’ve already been alive forever, and I’m just now becoming conscious of my existence. No one will tell me, will they? If they did tell me, why should I believe them? 

Shortly after I was adopted into this family, I met one of the neighbours through a gap in the fence. He was prickly at first. The first exchange was nothing more than suspicious glances and a few hissed words. Eventually, my charm broke him down, and he told me his name was Sam. 

As soon as it became clear that I wasn’t the unsociable new neighbour there to destroy the peaceful dynamics that had existed years previously, Sam became my friend. Friends are hard to come by when you’re like me. I sleep most of the day, and I don’t like to share. No one ever taught me how to be friendly. Any charm I have is natural, not learned. Teaching oneself the rules of social engagement is almost impossible.

Being friends with Sam took me a long way from the naïve adoptee that I was. We played together. Exploring the area around our adjoining gardens felt like we were discovering whole new swathes of undisturbed turf. He was bold and adventurous, and that made me bold and adventurous too. My natural timidity seemed to disappear when he was around. 

One day, we were climbing trees. Catching squirrels is impossible. But we tried anyway. It’s not about catching them. It’s about scaring them, seeing how fast they run, how easily they can climb. We can climb too but not as far or as fast. Furthermore, they can climb down. We can’t. 

Stuck. We were stuck. It hadn’t seemed so high as we scaled the coarse trunk and onto the branches. Looking down, it felt as if we were above the sky itself. Luckily Sam and I were light, and there was no chance of the branches breaking.

I looked at him and saw a smidge of panic in his wide green eyes. If he was scared, then I should be scared too.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. 

“We are stuck up here. It’s impossible to get down. If no one finds us… we could die?”

“Die?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t understand. So he explained. The concept of non-existence had never occurred to me. The metaphysical world was new to me. Clearly, Sam had faced death before. The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to think about it. I didn’t want to believe it was a possibility. 

My bewilderment swiftly became a kind of rage. Sam had led me here into this dangerous scenario, knowing full well that it might result in death. He had known about death and faced danger anyway. What is the sense in that? We could have been curled up on a sofa cushion listening to the radio. There would’ve been no harm in that at all. I didn’t raise it with Sam. What was the point? If we were to both die, then anything that went said or unsaid would be irrelevant. I just wanted to live. 

Hours passed by. They felt like days. Night time came. We tried to call for help. No one heard. I wondered why no one had come looking for us. Didn’t anyone care? After another few days, actually hours, daylight came. I heard someone calling for Sam, which woke him up with a start. He’d managed to find some sleep on one of the thicker batches. I couldn’t have slept up there. The risk of falling was too great. The worry of death was too much. 

Sam’s mum was the source of the voice. She saw us and laughed, told us how stupid we were. Within a few minutes, she was back with a stepladder, and she helped us down. The ease of our rescue was embarrassing. What had seemed like a leap from space was really just nothing more than a couple of steps on a stepladder. Still, I had learned a valuable lesson. Two, actually. One about not climbing too high. The other about the inevitability of my own demise. 

Sam and I remained friends after that, even if I was wounded by his cavalier attitude towards danger. 

“It’s not about avoiding danger and death,” he explained, “it’s about living the best life you can in spite of them.” 

Worlds like that made some sense to me but made little sense overall. Immortality still seemed a better option. Nevertheless, I trusted him, and we carried on our friendly activities. 

Sam was killed by a car two days later. We were together, exploring. We trotted out into a road. It was dark, and normally when it was dark, the cars stayed at home. He was thoughtless and careless as he jumped out into the road. I hung back slightly. The vast black tyre screeched as it tried to stop. It missed me by inches but could not have hit Sam any harder. Gruesome is not a strong enough word. I will never forget that sight. 

Still, now I’d escaped death twice. Perspectives can change, and mine had shifted after each time. Now I saw what Sam felt about it all. How he didn’t want to die but didn’t want to miss the opportunity to live. In his honour, I continued my skittish boldness. 

In that bold outlook, we can find near-death experiences from three to ten. I fell into the local canal. It was stupid. Chasing an empty packet of tortilla chips and falling into the green gungy water would’ve been an embarrassing way to die. I never even got the packet, which was a shame. There’s some consolation in that I was hauled to safety by a passer-by, preventing me from drowning. 

Later on, I was ambushed by a gang. They waited for me to wander past in the dark and jumped on me. Thankfully, I was able to wriggle away and come away with just a few scratches. It took a while for those wounds to recover after I’d licked them clean. I had to stay home, fearing that the gang would still be looking for me. 

Home seems safe, but where do most die? They die in their abodes. My home is a death trap. Anything in there could kill me, I’m sure of it. Although, in this particular instance, perhaps I’m slightly to blame. I was idly daydreaming with a phone charging cable next to me. Unattentively, I put it in my mouth and chewed the wire. I don’t know why I did this. I should have known it was dangerous. My family are always shouting at me when I get too near to the electrical outlets. Anyway, I chewed right through it. I got quite a shock, I can tell you. The shock was shocking, and so shocked was I that I sprinted around the house for a few minutes before settling down again. For the fifth time, I’d cheated death. 

Six, seven and eight all came on the same day. My family have a small room just off their kitchen. It’s like a big fridge or freezer. Really, it’s not more than a cupboard, but it’s still big enough to fit me inside. My mum was cooking, and I slipped in there to look for some treats. I didn’t find any. She didn’t see me go in and swung the door behind me. 

The cold made its way up my legs and through my ears more quickly than I could have imagined. I tried to make noise to let her know I was in there, but I wasn’t heard. I can’t say how long I was in there. I can only say that I was in a state of panic. Panicking changes your perception of time. I could have been in there hours, or it could have been minutes. It was like being stuck in the tree all over again, but this time I didn’t have my Sam to keep me company, and the freezing cold air started to bite into me. 

Eventually, I was rescued by chance. My mum opened the door to get something else. In a frenzy, I sprinted out. Ignoring her completely, I charged off out into the garden. A snarling dog met me there. It turned out Mum was cooking for friends. They’d bought their dog, who quite frankly does not know how to behave. He stood there, growling. He pulled and pulled on the chain that held him to the wall. I could tell he was desperate to break it so he could attack me. 

I was smug. I stood and smirked at him while he lunged with a rageful futility. My cockiness was misplaced. Misplaced cockiness is the worst kind. The chain creaked for a second and then snapped. The dog, not expecting to be released, was thrown forward in a heap. He snarled at the floor, barked at himself, chased his tale briefly, and then regained his composure. He saw me standing there, as if I was in headlights, and began his charge. I turned on my heels and bounded out into the road. That’s the last thing I remember. 

It's hard to tell how long it was before I woke up. I’d been operated on. Bandages that had been white but were now a pinkish colour were on every limb. I felt funny. That was probably the drugs. Somehow, I was alive, even if my wounds were severe enough to kill me. 

I learned later that I’d been hit by a motorcyclist. He’d only brushed me. As I sprinted out into the road, he saw the dog and me and took evasive action. The bike had given way from underneath him. His leather bounced him along the road. 

Thankful is not the word. I owe everything to his reactions. It is quite the thing that I’m alive because of him. I wish I could thank him, cuddle up to him and make sure he knows I appreciate it. 

I can’t do that. I can’t thank him. He, like me, like the dog, sustained injuries in the accident. I recovered from mine. He didn’t recover from his. Neither did the dog. 

They say cats have nine lives. I do. Clearly humans and dogs don’t. I just wish I could have given some of mine away. To the human. To the dog. To Sam. My luck’s running out but it seemed like they had no luck at all. I’ll just have to make my ninth life worth living.