Would You Rather...?

    (this entry contains discussions of suicide)

    Let me paint a scenario in your head.

    You wake up in bed. Your house, clothes, body, and mind are all as they should be, and nothing strikes you as odd.

    Nothing but the unfathomable figure looming by your bedframe.

    Fear claws at you. Your body jolts. Sheets and pillows tear as you flail.

    Before you do more damage, the figures waves what you understand as a hand, and all your tension fizzles away. You feel calm. Safe.

    They use this display to tell you they are a god. Maybe one that aligns with your religion, maybe not. Maybe they are the one god of this world, maybe not. None of that matters.

    But there is something that does.

    Darkness. Your room, your vision, your self, they plunge in an instant. All is quiet but the soft murmurs of your new god.

    Stars pop into your vision. Shimmering beautifully against this primordial nothingness, they waltz together to form constellations. Little by little, you make sense of this cosmic light show, and you see yourself, surrounded by everything you've longed for. Every pipe dream, and every aspiration. A celestial paper crane, folded from your childish cravings and your fleeting fancies.

    It's not perfect. Nothing is. Your spangled self weeps stardust, aches from collapse. The luminous bodies you look to still dwindle away.

    But it's you and yours. And it's gorgeous.

    That voice blossoms in you again. It promises all of this and more.

    (You're in your room again.)

    But you have to kill yourself.

    You straighten your back (when did you sag onto them like this?) and try and simmer down, but their warmth will not stop peeling into you.

    They tell you this world will keep going. The wondrous things you've built here will not be forgotten, nor lost.

    Only mourned.

    They give you a day to decide.

    And vanish into starways beyond mortal eyes.

    Do you discuss this with someone close? Or is speaking of suicide to people in your life too much, too dangerous?

    Do you take this god at their kind, potent, oh-so soothing word? Or do you dismiss their promise as paltry, pie-in-the-sky, plasticine?

    Do you seize the day, daring this existence to lunge at and embrace you, lest you slip through its hollowed cracks? Or secluded, deep in thought, using the mind that birthed that new world to appraise this old one?

    Do you find comfort knowing you'd bring a piece of friends and family with you, since you cannot envision a world of love wihout them? Or does the thought of replacing them leave a bitter, pungent taste in your mouth?

    A day has passed.

    The figure extends what you understand as a hand towards you.

    Do you take it?