If I Had To Die, This Is How I’d Want It To Happen

Death is imminent. What a downer thing to say. How and when we die is completely dependent on your life path, God, nature, whatever you want to believe. If you were told you had a terminal illness what would you do? Would you wait until your last painful breath, in a stark, sterile hospital room, surrounded by monitors to let go? Or would you take control of your unfortunate situation and live your last few minutes exactly how you wanted to live them?

I think anyone’s ideal way to die is when they’re in a peaceful slumber at the age of one-hundred and two, or death by torrid lovemaking, achieving enough orgasms to pass out and never wake up again… what a way to go. Sometimes however, life can be a real bitch and you’re dealt a bad hand of cards. If I was dying of an incurable disease, I would take control, make life my bitch and go out with a bang… quite literally. In my last hours, I would paste photos of my loved ones on my windscreen, strap myself into my car and speed off a cliff, while blaring Oasis’ Champagne Supernova and using what energy I had left to scream it at the top of my lungs. Now that’s a way to go!

I had never really thought much about this morbid topic until I was lying in my bed, eyes closed and listening to Oasis’ 1995 hit. It has to be one of the most audibly pleasing songs I’ve heard in my nineteen years of living. There are multiple tiers of guitar that are played simultaneously, each adding a new complex to the listening experience, and you have to take a moment to gather your wits. The riffs that progress through the song are plentiful, sharp, and can be felt running rampant within you. It’s like medicine for your auditory receptors and serotonin for your brain. It’s a masterpiece that you can reflect back on your life too. Whilst listening, I see my childhood, my teenage years, my heartbreaks and drunken nights, the happiest moments of my life and the people who I love more than anything. I see my future family, my husband and my little boy. The visions are so vivid, it’s almost like I’m watching home video reruns on my television.

The song takes you on a journey, usually not the type of journey where you eventually plummet to your death, but a journey of emotion. I would just plummet after the emotional journey. But isn’t that how most people die anyway? You see reflections on the life you’ve experienced before you fall into the black hole that is unconsciousness? Everyone falls eventually… does it have to be conventional?

When my eyes are closed I see myself speeding through a desert, in my gleaming, black, convertible Mercury Comet. The dust would trail behind me, and in that dust I would leave the mistakes, bad memories and hurt behind. Only feelings of happiness and contentment would be left. That very thought is exhilarating. My hair would be blowing in the wind and I would dare myself to push the accelerator further, making the adrenalin course through me in abandon. I think it would be hard to focus on the low points of my life, as Champagne Supernova only brings out the finest and most vital memories that I can relish. The song makes me feel like a teenager. Let me explain that statement further, as I am actually classed as one. I have never really felt like a teenager. I spent most of these seven years reading, writing and listening to music. I’ve been advising people on life ever since I can remember, and saving people from suicide has become a specialty of mine. Sleeping around confused me, sneaking out scared me, and the big parties after the annual school versus school football game repulsed me. I have rarely felt my age, but Champagne Supernova makes me feel young like everyone else my age does. As I get older I know that this song will provoke these same feelings for me, but it will be greater as I’ll have the additional memories of my life as I matured into old age.

As the cliff advances towards me at a rapid pace, I would turn the song up further; a sense of invincibility would overcome me, which of course would completely counteract the whole reality of the process that’s about to happen.

I would race off the ledge, like Thelma and Louise, and fly, consumed by memories of what once were, emotions of blissful serenity and a sense of complete empowerment by taking control of my ill-fated situation. In my last dying minutes, I would feel young again and happy for the last time, and like Champagne Supernova itself, those emotions to me are timeless.