The Gap

If no one alive has ever experienced death before, how do we know we're alive? I'm not talking heart stops, skips and beats and suddenly you've been cpr'd alive again. I mean, how do you know you woke up this morning? Not that your alarm went off. Not that your eyes opened. How do you know you're the same person that opened your eyes this morning as you were when you closed them last night? Can you ever be one hundred percent sure of your own reality? 

I woke up to my alarm this morning, buzzing the sanity out of me. And then I snoozed it. 5 minutes. More buzzing, more sanity lost. Snooze. Repeat. Until I eventually broke the cycle with the lure of hot, smooth caffeine in the form of a delectable home-brewed coffee. I got up, showered, dressed, revelled in the best 5 minutes of my day (my coffee alone time) and headed out the front door.

I check my watch. 7:03. On time. I'm grateful for my alarm. I'd be late for work every day without it. Although 6am me would kill to trade back to a time when I didn't know clocks made noise at all. It roused me from what could have been the dead this morning. Such a deep sleep. 

I follow the road towards the tram station.

I think about how absurd it is that we'll wake up, having slept so deeply that we're not quite sure which way is up when we wake. Or where we are. Or how long we've been asleep. How would you know that the person who woke up is the same person who went to sleep? How different would the alternate perception of the world have to be to notice? You can easily tell yourself your alarm must be broken, it's merely your phone's fault, or you just slept through. But what if the mismatch between realities was bigger? Tangibly noticeable. You know a person's name before you've ever met them. Or perhaps the sun now feels significantly hotter than it used to or you cannot for the life of you remember what you had for dinner yesterday. Gun to your head, no idea. Or what if your consciousness lags between realities and you suddenly have a completely new sense that you never had before, but you can remember both old and new experiences. Both sets of memories, all muddled up. 

I cross a main road, dodging the cars rather than waiting for the man to turn green. A taxi honks at me.

And I'm suddenly hyper aware of the fact that you have no control over your consciousness, your memories, your mind- the thing that determines everything. How you perceive the world. Tells you right from wrong. Captures and stores your memories. Holds onto anything you've ever experienced.

I cross again- a different road, but the same thrum of traffic, same tire screech, same impatient drivers honking their horns.

How can you possibly ever know that your memories are really what you've experienced? Every time I fall asleep, my consciousness stops completely. How can I know that the one that started again was me?

I reach the tram station. And wait two minutes for the tram to arrive.

What if I'm actually still asleep? And this is all one big dream?

The tram arrives, and as I board, I tap my transport card to the machine and watch the balance fall two dollars closer to zero. Two dollars feels extortionate for a single stop tram ride. Or perhaps a nightmare. I don't think dreams have quite so much stress about the current economic climate. That's nightmare material. 

The tram is especially busy this morning. I sit next to an older lady holding on tightly to her coffee.

And what about death? If no one alive has ever experienced death before, how do we know we're alive? 

The tram beeps obnoxiously to announce that the doors are closing and hisses to its departure. 

The noise, the beeping- it reminds me.

I have a memory that's never sat right with me. It always felt odd. One of those life-altering memories that don't quite add up. 

Lying on the hospital bed. Cannula in my arm. Oxygen mask on my face. Man leaning on my oxygen mask. Too forceful. Can't breathe. Heart rate skyrocketing. Machine beeping. Can't breathe. Can't breathe. Can't breathe. Black. 

But then I woke up. 

And tried to sit up. Hospital staff wheeling my bed in their white coats, rolling through the wards, in and out of patients lying on beds like mine and more staff in white coats. 

And everything was loud. Really loud. People were talking to me. I could close my eyes and still hear that people were talking to me. Loudly. 

It was too noisy. Everything was squeaking or clicking. It's like even the lights were buzzing. And the clocks too. It was then that I discovered clocks audibly ticked.

I was told to lie down. To relax. I could see my mum. She was telling me to lie down, to relax. And I could hear her too. I could hear every step she takes for the first time ever, the sound of her shoes squeaking on the shiny floor. And I could hear the sounds of the wheels trundling across the floor, also squeaking. 

I had woken up. But I didn't feel rested at all. I felt groggy. And the cannula in my arm was now bandaged where it wasn't before. And I could hear. Things started making sounds that never did before.

I kept my memories, too, from before the blackout. My memories of a world without noise. Although, how on earth would I know what is before? I will always be subject to the parameters of the consciousness I'm currently in, I guess. If a perfect copy of me woke up with all the same memories, it would remember those things too. Maybe my memories don't ground anything: life, death. Who I've been. Who I will become. If I am alive or not. Is this heaven? Is this hell? Maybe I should start saying how in heaven or hell would I know. Seems more appropriate.

The old lady sitting next to me slurps her coffee. Loudly.

I can hear the sound of people slurping their drinks. I'm pretty sure this is hell. How in hell would I know what my memories mean?

And if no one alive has ever experienced death before, who's to say death isn't a continuation of the same consciousness?

The tram slows and comes to a halt. I hear the chuff. And I remember back to when trams didn't make the chuff sound when they stopped, when tram journeys were silent, and so were clocks and people eating and drinking. 

Am I remembering being deaf, or am I remembering being someone else?

Did my anesthetist suffocate me with the mask so I'll never truly wake up?

And every night I disappear into an abyss, devoid of consciousness. I fall through a gap I don't remember. What if when I close my eyes tonight, I forget everything, everyone. What if when I wake up, I'm a serial killer or a narcissist or some other terrible person?

I can feel the tram slowing down, so I stand ready to deboard. 

Or what if I simply forget everyone? What if people I care about become someone else and forget me?

I tap my card to exit. Beep.

The tram doors open. But something's not right. The doors are opening on the wrong side. This isn't my stop. This isn't where I usually get off. I must have missed it. I've never missed my stop before. Never. Who am I and what have I done with…

Doors closing. Mind the gap.