to sleep, perchance to dream
i haven’t thought about shakespeare for a long, long time now, although his works were one of my favorite parts of high school literature.
but mortality issues always call to mind shakespeare, and hamlet in particular. that famous soliloquy of his… i have a love-hate relationship with it, both repulsed and annoyed (just make up your mind and do it already!), yet impressed by all the conflicting thoughts he had – things we all think about, doubtless, but are unable to put into words (no less a speech).
the fact is, i have just heard about someone’s demise - a person i know nothing of except through certain remarks made in passing by mutual friends. a good musician, a nice person with no airs, an only child, just a little younger than i am… gone. just like that. deaths that happen close to home always get me in the guts – i feel as if i did know him, and i cannot grapple with the enormity of it. it just makes me… sad… and scared. my mind keeps returning to my dream of death, and i feel horribly, horribly scared. death smacks of never – a word brutal in its certainty and finality. at 28, it is rather difficult to face never. i cannot yet find peace in the idea of an eternal sleep.
for in that sleep of death what dreams may come…
in a desperate attempt to take my mind off the morbidity… i had a most ridiculous dream last night. i saw myself preparing the music studios for the music exams, as always, and some really adorable little girl whom i had been playing with (she couldn’t have been older than four) suddenly decided to call me names. as i put chairs in place, she ran circles around me and started chanting bui-bui! bui-bui! that, in fact, is the hokkien equivalent of fatty! fatty! i don’t remember being awfully angry with her because she sounded endearing even as she insulted (what a gift, isn’t it?) but i woke up and squirmed in mortification.
oh, the world of dreams… the fears you confront when you least expect to…
Filed under: reflections | Leave a Comment
Tags: death, dreams, shakespeare
No Responses Yet to “to sleep, perchance to dream”