To Live One Last Time
"Don't go."
"But it's late, I should wake up early tomorrow."
"What if we die tomorrow? If I were you, the last thing I'd want to do is dance. Let sleep be for the dead."
"Okay."
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One week and one day ago, I came home drunk and high.
It was 8 a.m. on a Sunday. An hour earlier, I had just finished having sex with a girl I had started dating a few weeks ago. Afterward, despite my wish to fall asleep cuddled together, she told me she couldn’t sleep in the same bed with another person.
Reluctantly, I accepted her departure that morning. The energy and adrenaline still coursed through my body.
To calm my body and heart, I decided to light up a joint and see what was good on TV.
- Reality shows where 12 adults, driven by hormones, lost their humanity in exchange for sex and parties.
- A Christian pastor preaching that his entire audience had sinned, and that their only salvation from hell was to donate at least $10 to his bank account.
- The news announced that the war in the Middle East had escalated, then showed a video of a puppy playing volleyball.
The same old crap.
I fell asleep in front of the TV.
A couple of hours later, I woke up to the final song of my favorite show:
"A heart that's full up like a landfill
Bruises that won't heal
You look so tired, unhappy
Bring down the government
They don’t, they don’t speak for us
A job that slowly kills you."
When I finished murmuring the tune, a commercial started:
"Do you not know how you’ll die?
Are you afraid to find out?
Be the master of your destiny and decide how, when, and where to spend your last day.
End your time on Earth with dignity, and exactly the way YOU want.
Visit our website and learn more about ‘The Last Goodbye’!"
Some big pharmaceutical company had invented what might be the most important remedy of our century.
For those tired of living.
People who don’t want to experience the emotional ups and downs of humanity again.
For the physically ill.
But also for the souls who can no longer bear the disappointment of unfulfilled fantasies.
For those who experience happiness like a drug, whose side effect is the deepest depression.
For them, who can’t live another day with the uncertainties of life.
For us, this magical remedy to our ills was created.
Not only to end my life.
But also to decide how I’d say goodbye.
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"The Last Goodbye."
I went to the pharmacy to learn more about this definitive treatment.
It’s a pill that, with just one dose, would end the life of whoever took it in exactly one week.
"Once you take this pill, you’ll have exactly 168 hours to settle your affairs, say your goodbyes, and live life to the fullest. As if it were your last farewell, because, in reality, it will be."
The pharmacist who served me said with a certain indifference.
The price seemed low for such a grand effect.
I decided to buy it.
One might think that after acquiring a product with such effects, you’d carefully consider when to take this remedy.
It was 6 p.m. on a Sunday.
The sun was beginning to set behind the mountains.
Like all impulsive decisions, I decided to take the pill with a bottle of wine while sitting at a viewpoint where I could see my city in all its splendor.
I could hear the horns of the cars, driven by people living as if they were going to live forever.
Whose days passed one just like the other, in the routine of work pressures, failed marriages, and the eternal feeling that their lives could’ve been much more.
A certain relief came over me when I thought of them. Because once I ingested the pill of The Last Goodbye, I wouldn’t have to think about tomorrow. I would savor every second of those 168 hours, without restricting my emotions, desires, or spirit.
And my mind and body would live as if it were the last time.
Because it really would be.
The reasons why I made such a drastic decision might seem trivial or even small compared to the greater problems of others.
- Mohamed in Syria didn’t give up on life, despite having lost his home and most of his family.
- Ana in Chile was going through one of her greatest spiritual disappointments after divorcing her husband of 12 years, whom she had found with her best friend in her own bedroom. Yet, her heart knew that loneliness was better than a failed relationship.
- Haruto in Japan had just been fired from the company he had worked at for 20 years. A company for which he had given up vacations and missed watching his three children grow up. Now, this man appreciated time with his loved ones even more, now that he was jobless, and decided to move with them to a South American country where the salary was low but the joy of life seemed infinite despite the circumstances.
And that’s where I admit my own weakness and incapacity.
Somehow, the pile of hopes and disappointments I carried with me became unbearable.
When happiness came into my life, the anxiety of its loss and the fear of depression grew stronger.
Distrust in my fate took over my soul.
There were many occasions when I was fired from my dream jobs.
Exiled from the country where I was born and had fought so hard for its freedom.
Promises of love that turned into strangers, on whom I preferred never to think again.
Even when everything seemed to be going well in my life—love, work, and personal matters—the imminent feeling of sadness and depression overshadowed my perspective and distanced me from everything I had longed for.
And if things appeared to be the start of the stability I’d always sought, the insecurities created by my past experiences made me run away from the very things I had always wanted.
My spirit was sick, and no matter how many different ways I tried, none seemed to be the definitive solution to my madness.
So I decided to live one last time.
My way.
Without fear of the future, because the anxiety of potential failure tomorrow wouldn’t mess up the last days of my existence on this planet.
I would dance like no one was watching.
I would sing like no one was listening.
I would write, as if my spirit no longer felt ashamed of what it felt and how it expressed itself.
I would love, as if that were my only purpose on this planet.
I would live, as if I had no other chance to do so.
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The last hours of that Sunday when I took the pill were spent with a good friend, talking about football and the girls we had met that weekend.
An ordinary Sunday, that now, having taken the pill, I realized I had not appreciated the way I should have.
I didn’t tell anyone about my decision because I didn’t want the pill to be used as an excuse whenever I told my friends and lovers how important they were to me and how special each of them was in their own way.
Without going into too much detail, I’d like to mention the things I did in the last days of my life. Who knows? Maybe this could serve as a guide for someone who, in the future, makes a decision as brave and definitive as mine:
- Monday: I spent this day trying to live my daily routine, savoring those small moments of happiness that are experienced in the mundane. I shared a coffee with my friends before work. I offered the best customer service I could at my office, receiving many compliments from the company's clients. I handed in my resignation letter and thanked the company for their trust, but it was time to "look for something different in other horizons."
- Tuesday: I rested in a park for most of the day. I listened to my favorite artists on my phone and headphones, while smoking a good joint, then eating my favorite pizza and ice cream. I also brought my guitar and started playing my own creations. And although my voice was never as good as my ability with the strings, I sang, imagining myself as Elvis Presley, Sinatra, and all those artists who had brightened my darkest days.
- Wednesday: I left my house at 5 a.m. I reached the base of the highest mountain in my city. I climbed alone to its summit and let out a scream from the top. In my solitude, I began to cry for all the misfortunes that had forced my heart to make such a drastic decision. Then, as if my spirit remembered the opportunity it had to live its last moments intensely, a smile appeared on my face. I began to laugh like a madman because I no longer felt the need to repress, in the silence of decency, what my heart felt.
- Thursday: I visited the homes of every girl I had loved to give them a rose, a kiss, share a coffee, and with some of them, one last moment of lust. When the day ended, I felt fortunate to have had the chance to plant so much love in the time I was alive. Holding their hands, I said "I love you" about nine times that day. Sometimes, they looked at me sadly because they couldn’t say the same. However, others surprised me when they said they felt the same way, but lacked the courage to say it. And I lived the fantasies the heart produces in the mind throughout this Thursday. I loved. I felt loved. It was good to know I would be a beautiful memory for some people on this planet.
- Friday: For many, this day should be planned with greater care. After all, your last Friday in life can't be wasted! However, Fridays had always been the beginning of my greatest emotional imbalances. Despite this, I did what I enjoyed the most on these days: dancing. And while dancing, I met Joelle, a girl I had encountered a few weeks ago at some bar, but whose beauty had intimidated me, preventing me from asking her to dance. But what did it matter now? I invited her to dance, and she, excited, and perhaps under the influence of a bit of tequila and beers, accepted. We danced all night, said goodbye with a kiss, and I returned home happy, with a peaceful heart.
- Saturday: Like the rest of the week, I didn’t have any plans for what would be the last two days of my life. To my surprise, when I woke up at 1 in the afternoon, I had a message from Joelle: "I love your vibe, handsome. Want to go dancing tonight, darling?" We agreed to meet at 10 p.m. at the oldest and most famous bar in my city. I texted my friends about how excited I was for this date, just as I had done many times over the past years, although days or weeks later, I would also text them with a broken heart, telling them how I was in the dumps over the end that I had caused to this potential love. However, I was thrilled to live this last night of love, because this time I would be free from the anxiety of disappointment, as it was my last night on this planet.
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- Like the time Jonathan fell in front of the woman he desired so much.
- Or that day when María was selected to work at a super important company, even though she had lied on her résumé. Four years later, she was still working there.
- Or when Jesús won the lottery and lived like a millionaire for a year. Now he was working again as a math professor at the university, without regret, because he knew what it was like to live life to the fullest and, more importantly, the benefits of living an austere and calm life.
I got home at 9 p.m., just in time to get ready for the definitive date.
I dressed in my best outfit.
I wore my best cologne.
I had a date with love and destiny.
I rented a luxury car. I picked Joelle up at her house. I had never seen such a beautiful woman in my life.
We entered the bar and danced to every song that played.
Even the ones we didn’t know how to dance to.
We drank the finest wine available.
A little alcohol spilled on Joelle's clothes, staining her white dress red. She insisted on leaving because she was embarrassed to look messy and dirty in front of the pretentious crowd around us.
"Don't go."
"But it's late, tomorrow I should wake up early to clean the house and prepare for the week."
"And what if we die tomorrow? If it were me, the last thing I’d want to do is dance. Let sleep be for the dead."
"Alright," she said with a mischievous smile that concealed the joy she felt when I subtly admitted with my words that I wanted nothing more in the world than to spend the rest of the night with her—the woman who, to me, was the most beautiful in the world that night.
It was 4 a.m. Holding hands, we entered a very beautiful hotel.
Our room had a pool, a small sauna, and LED lights in the ceiling that would illuminate our space in whatever color we wanted.
But none of that was necessary.
We made love that night as if we had loved each other our whole lives.
As if we weren’t afraid to admit how special our connection was, spontaneous as it was.
For a few hours, the chaos of the world didn’t exist.
The pain of our past was silenced by the peace of two hearts that, in a moment, found peace and calm between strangers who, in that precise moment, felt nothing but safe together.
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The only thing I had always had in mind, even before taking the pill, was how and where I would like to spend the last hours of my life.
At 10 a.m., I decided to leave the hotel and head to the closest beach to my city, about 4 hours away.
Before leaving, I took off one of my bracelets and left it inside a small gift bag with chocolates, a rose, and a note for Joelle. I summarized my last words to her in one sentence:
"You have no idea how happy you’ve made me."
I left without saying goodbye.
I took the bus, and along the way, I admired the beauty of our world.
I thought about the things we take for granted that might be the envy of extraterrestrial life on other planets, lamenting how humanity does everything to destroy the beauty of our world in the name of "progress and development."
I arrived at my destination at 3 p.m., a bit later than expected. In another time, I would have regretted losing an hour on the road. But now I had savored every second on that bus, which had served as a capsule for me to reflect on the beautiful moments I had lived, not just that week, but throughout my entire life.
In this situation, perhaps many would wish there were an antidote to reverse the effects of "The Last Goodbye."
However, I was content with my decision.
The perspective this remedy had given me, knowing this would be the last week of my life, was something I had never been able to achieve, as I had always been clouded by my fears and past traumas.
And I swear to you, I tried.
But that no longer matters because, in retrospect, I could only fully appreciate how happy I had been at times with the idea of the end in my mind.
I paid the man for the boat ride to an island I had always wanted to visit, 30 minutes away. It was 3:30 p.m.
We reached my final destination at 4.
Since it was Sunday, many families were enjoying the only day of respite this materialistic and superficial world offers. On this day, men, women, and children played, ran, and laughed, ignoring school assignments, boss pressures, and the mundane worries of a life that, despite being finite, we live as if we were eternal.
I found a strategic spot to lie down, where my body would slowly fade away as the sun bid farewell to another day for the little ants that live in this world. We, the little ants, who live affected by our emotions—those emotions that make us suffer but also give us a reason to exist. The ones that make us human and that some people know how to handle and even enjoy despite the falls.
Those emotions I could never control.
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It’s 5:50 p.m.
Here, everyone is saying goodbye to the island, worried about the disadvantages of having a tomorrow. Perhaps some are even excited about what the future will bring.
But now, at 5:55 p.m., I just want to feel the cooling sand on my back.
The peace of the waves growing excited for the arrival of the moon.
And the pure air of a world in which we (and I) were lucky enough to live.
Goodbye.
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