By ALEX WOMACK
→ This is the last page. After this, I’ll have nowhere to write. Excuse the formatting, dear reader.
→ Part of me wonders if the only reason I’ve hung on this long was to keep writing. Filling more and more of these pages with any old thought or memory, or complaining about my boring life – you must find me a bit unhinged. It’s either write, sleep, feel myself starve, or succumb by stepping out into the snow. I’ve clung to the first two as often as I can.
→ I know rescue isn’t coming. And I’m sure you already know the same. The chances of that miracle have diminished in my mind each day. After sixte seventeen, I’ve stopped hoping.
→ Each day has felt like a struggle to not lose myself. But am “I” worth s
→ I dreamt for the first time in a while last night. Instead of the cavern, I was at the very peak, seeing the divine view that I had expected to see weeks ago. Looking out at the pristine nature was the most serene I ever felt.
→ And then I took flight, soaring above the cloudline until I was over my home. I saw my parents talking in the kitchen, my brother typing in his cubicle, my friends at the cafe. I watched it all with detached, elevated eyes, and the exhilarating horrible part was that I couldn’t feel anything. I passed over them, not even thinking of stopping or calling out. The only comfort I felt was in feeling the cold air of the deep sky.
→ It has to mean something. Do you know what that kind of dream means? Maybe it’s comforting that even if I don’t know what this says about me, you will.
→ This notebook is bursting with my thoughts because they’re the only things here that have changed. These stone walls, for one, never change. And then the outside. Every day, I’ve sat at the entrance and looked out onto the snow, losing hope hoping. But the snow, the wind, the green of the pines: all of it was constant. I’ve experienced mirages — my mind desperately wishes someone to appear, and so I’d see a humanoid figure on the horizon, be so sure that someone was coming — but it would just be a shadow, or swirling snowflakes, and would dissipate in the next instant, leaving me betrayed.
→ Hours of staring at the snow hurt physically, but the stagnation of it was infinitely more troubling. It weighed so maddeningly on me that I was afraid to write about it. Instead, I’ve been pushing it all away with what I can remember: school days, family, friends. For some reason, it feels more freeing doesn’t weigh as much on me today. Maybe that’s why I’m finally writing it.
→ I’m ashamed. This is my final testament and everything up until now has been a distraction.
→ I’ve heard that humans are the only animals who are proven to have committed suicide. Animals sometimes grieve to the point of death, but there’s no proof that anyone but humans actively choose to die when healthy. Our mental issues get in the way of our natural living, and we cut ourselves off prematurely.
→ But don’t you also think it goes the other way around as well?
→ So often, humans cling to morals and ideals when any other creature would know their place. We so often hear of uplifting stories where unyielding perseverance and hope leads to miracles. But that’s just a minority, a list of edge cases that are catered to us, to bolster us. Because what happens so much more often to people who try as much as they can, who have hope as long as they’re able, is nothing. They are never rewarded for it. When it comes to that point, continuing to hope against reality, tricking yourself into delusion, is a form of torture. But what do you think an animal would do?
→ When a cat senses that it’s going to die soon, they don’t stubbornly attempt to outlive their lifespan, or continue trying to find the answer in a blank sea of monotony. They retreat into a secluded corner, where their death hurts no one, and let themself die in peace.
→ You really must find me unhinged. Does that impression strengthen when I admit I don’t particularly care anymore? Even if I have gone mad, I don’t think it makes what I’m feeling any less exhilarating. That isn’t the important part.
→ What’s important is that animals don’t let emotions cloud their thoughts, not nearly as much as humans do. An animal never loses sight of rationality, of moving towards pleasure and away from pain. The concrete jungle takes less lives, but on some level is even less forgiving than the real jungle. In a real jungle, everyone is free.
→ At this point, I can freely admit it. It took seventeen days to reconcile myself to it, but here I am. This freedom of choice was something that I needed to experience. How much longer would I have lived in ignorance if I continued to live normally? How much longer would I have pretended that the same torture would one day, miraculously, end?
→ It is no longer my place to have that kind of hope. And losing that hope means losing the accompanying fear, as well.
→ So, reader, forget any of your hopes to find and save me. I’ll have already found my corner of the world to curl up and die in. And in that moment between life and death, I will be the most content I have ever felt.
→ I have nothing more to say. This is the last line.
Writer | Alex Womack ’27 | awomack27@amherst.edu
Editor | Mike Rosenthal ’27 | jrosenthal27@amherst.edu