“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.”

- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
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Time is a fickle mistress. She tempts you with the ever hopeful future, luring you with sweet talk of tomorrows and better days, allowing you to lie in perfect, blissful discontent; comforted by halfhearted excuses for putting something off another day. We all suffer this delusion that, because there is that next little box on the calendar, we are somehow guaranteed to be around to see it. Call it a short term immortality sickness and we use it to avoid doing or saying things that might make us uncomfortable, as a shield for our fears and a sister to our lazy inclinations. We are all the walking dead and yet we pretend like this world will never end.

If I had it to do all over again, I would have told him as soon as I came around, as soon as he brought me back, that I loved him, with every single part of my being, every miniscule bit of my soul, that from the moment I first saw him in that cold, sterile cell with my sanity hanging on by a thread, he was the one light in a world drenched in black and to my dying breath, all that I was, was his. Now there’s no more tomorrows, no more “right moment” to wait for. Now there is only the icy tendrils of darkness clutching and clawing as I watch the red river spread and flow beneath me. Nothing left but thoughts of regret and the gnawing truth of dying alone.
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