Sparklehorse
It's A Wonderful Life

THE REVIEW

Here they open, I can't see anything yet, but I can hear the voices, distant voices, filtered voices, voices that scare me. No, I can't still be here, I don't want to still be here … fog now, just fog. I try to touch myself, but I am blocked, tied, forced and fixed to a bed that is not mine. My limbs do not move, they give me that soft tingling sensation, it's as if millions of spiders were tracing their path on my inert body, still young and inexperienced upon awakening. I want to scream, but I can't because... because... why can't I?

The smell that comes to me reeks of mold, clear, stagnant air, still and static, gives me no escape. I try to move in vain, a strong nausea assails me, I try to fight it, but I can't. Memories resurface … gradually coming to the surface, catapulting me to a past and improbable time, when those voices were stronger, more real, and they spoke to me about time, about time attacking people, making them all equal in the face of that inevitable truth of death, of end, of non-life. With my fingers, I can feel the rough sheets, the sense of touch becomes more assured, and my breathing more linear, calm, more serene … now the first lights, the first shapes are drawn in front of me. Familiar faces that look at me and wait for a sign from me, a simple gesture that, however, is slow to arrive.

I am alive … I rethink that vial that just a few days ago I had emptied in silence in my room, consumed. I never thought of death as a horrible truth, but pausing now, I think of this strange, unconscious, and wonderful sensation that is life.