Date: April 28, 2025
Author: Marcus D. Hall
I never used to think about it. Death, I mean. It was one of those things that felt so distant, so abstract, that it didn’t feel real at all. I went about my life like most people, not worrying too much about the end. Sure, I had my moments of quiet reflection, the occasional thought that we don’t live forever, but it didn’t stick. But now, it’s different.
Lately, as I lie in bed at night, trying to fall asleep, this overwhelming fear grips me. It starts with just a fleeting thought, a whisper in the back of my mind. And then, before I can stop it, I find myself thinking about death for hours, running through all the possibilities of what happens after we’re gone. It’s like a loop that I can’t escape.
It’s not just the idea of dying that gets to me. It’s the uncertainty. The fear of what if. What if it’s all meaningless? What if I’ve spent my life following a set of rules, living a certain way, praying every day, and it was all for nothing? What if I’ve believed in something that’s just a comforting lie? What if there’s no afterlife at all? No heaven, no hell, just an endless void of nothingness, where I disappear into darkness without a thought, without a feeling.
Sometimes, when I’m in a car, I’ll catch myself imagining what it would feel like if another car suddenly veered into ours. The thought of a crash, a split-second of chaos, and then… nothing. It’s unsettling, this constant fear that I’m walking around with an invisible target on my back.
Even when I’m in public, it’s there. The thought that something could happen. A shooting, an accident, anything. It’s like I’m constantly bracing for something I can’t control. The weight of it is exhausting, and it’s been getting worse. It’s as if I can’t escape this constant, nagging fear that everything I do, everything I’ve believed in, might mean nothing in the end.
And then there’s the flip side of it. What if there is a God? What if there’s something after this life? The idea of facing some higher power, of answering for everything I’ve done or haven’t done, terrifies me just as much. I want to believe, I really do. But this uncertainty… it feels like it’s slowly suffocating me.
I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know how to make the fear go away. But it’s there, every day, waiting for me to acknowledge it. And every time I try to push it aside, it comes back stronger.
Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe I’m just looking for something to hold onto in a world that feels so unpredictable. But right now, this fear is the only thing that feels real.
