The "Freeola Customer Forum" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
Whenever someone was buried alive, they'd pull the cord. The bell would ring. Sure.
Imagine it. Bam. Maybe you collapsed. Or maybe you just fell asleep.
Then you open your eyes and it's still black. You try to look around, you try to sit up and you find yourself trapped. You're finding it hard to breath.
Of course, in the panic, that's the first thing you look for. Just that little cord they've left inside for you to find.
So you're sweating. You feel like you've got dirt all over your skin and you're sure the coffin is full of insects. You can feel them crawling over your skin. You feel around desperately and you touch worms on the bottom of the coffin. You panic, try and get up, and you feel the earth around you move. Your lips are dry and you've only just noticed. You feel the pressure get worse, your head starts beating, bam, you feel your heart trying to jump out of your chest as you desperately try to suck in whatever air you have left, and you find the cord.
So you pull it and you pull it desperately without hearing a thing, but nobody's watching, so you keep pulling and pulling and you pull it over, the stand snaps and the bell falls to the floor. You scream but it just echoes inside your hole.
The earth collapses around you, you feel mud fall into your mouth so you spit it out with whatever saliva you can manage. Something falls into your eyes and makes the tears run down your face as you desperately try to scream harder.
And at what point do you think you'll give up hope?
Where, buried in darkness, would you stop screaming? Where would you suddenly just think to yourself... what's the point?
Nobody will hear you.
Do you think you'd have the strength to keep shouting until you truly died? Where you simply ran out of energy and collapsed into death?
And maybe you'd get lucky. Maybe the top of the coffin would collapse in, maybe all the air would escape and squash you under the pressure.
Or maybe not.
They don't use bells anymore. Perhaps we've advanced to the point where we're sure when people are dead.
But nobody can pull the bell anymore.
They have to just lie there. Completely encased, waiting for the moment when their air runs out.
Wondering what could have been if they could live one more day.
And in the small moment that you have, forcing yourself to accept one bitter truth.
This is all you have.
You are going to die.
And there's no escape.
And for all those times you were afraid, and all those times you were truly scared that you might have died, you finally see how foolish you were.
You realise that all your problems before you went to sleep yesterday were pointless. All the confusion, all the not having control over your life meant nothing. All the worry, the frustration, the fear and hatred, it was worth nothing.
You can't believe you worried if people loved you or not. You don't care now, you just want to see them. The people you argued with, the people you felt bitter towards yesterday you forgive immedietely and just want to be with them.
You want to kiss the people you love. You want to be on a plane flying towards somewhere new. You wonder why you kept stuck in that job you hated.
Because you're going to die faster than you think.
And you're desperately trying to recall as much as you can because you don't know how many breaths you've got left.
The good times. Friends, lovers, family.
The bad times.
And you twist it all around in your head and you want more.
Can you possibly imagine not fighting?
You can't believe you were suicidal.
You can't believe you were so afraid, you were so upset and dejected that you really wanted it to end.
You can't believe how much fuss you made.
You can't believe every single simple day didn't make you grin with pleasure.
You refuse to believe, as tears are pouring down your eyes and you're fighting the instinct to breath, that you reacted so badly to things that really didn't matter. You can't believe you were so selfish.
You can't believe you lied. That you hurt people.
So many things.
Every breath seems like the last now.
Taking a single breath is dangerous. It strikes fear into you. Your whole body feels weak, pathetic, but still feels so awake.
You keep your eyes open even though you can't see anything but because you just want to see.
Because suddenly... it's a miracle.
The sensations in your body make you feel so amazing.
The fear, the sense, everything.
You're going to die and finally you feel alive.
You breath across your chest and it feels amazing. The air on your skin, you're boiling hot and it's fantastic.
You realise there's no such thing as being pessimistic. Nor optimistic. You're just there. Things happen.
Perhaps you were happy, perhaps you were sad. It was all so beautiful because it was THERE. And maybe the future was hard and maybe it was easy. Maybe a hell of a lot of bad things would happen but maybe there'd be the occasional good thing too.
But they would happen.
And now they won't.
And as you take your final breath, you wonder to yourself...
Why didn't I feel like this when I was alive?
Because you see, you're going to die.
And you don't know when.
It might be next week. It might be three years it might be eighty years. It might be tomorrow.
You can't control it. You have no guarantee that you will survive tomorrow, no matter how safe you feel.
And then...
Poof.
That's it.
Not black.
Nothing.
Isn't it time you faced that?
So for God's sake, ask that girl out. Tell that boy you really like him and you wouldn't mind kissing him.
Tell your friends, your family, how you feel.
Imagine you won't live to tomorrow. What would you tell people?
Imagine you won't live to see four years out. What would you try to accomplish?
Imagine you've got less than ten years. Where would you go, what would you see?
There's nothing brave to it. Would you rather hide it and never know what would have come of it? To have to keep relying on your imagination?
Because tomorrow, you might wake up in a coffin.
And that's really not that easy to imagine, is it?
I used to have dreams about dieing and then waking up to find myself stuck in a coffin, with nobody around to help.
Easy
Maybe if you were buried with a mining bore?
>
> If a knife was buried with you, would you use it? Could you use it?
> Would you want to give yourself that one, final, new experience
> before death, or would you wait, savouring every last moment before
> passing out from oxygen depravation, hoping against hope for a
> miracle that won't happen?
I'd try to cut open the coffin... but thats stupid.
Pssst... Bell
The C.I.A probably taught them in the 80s
If a knife was buried with you, would you use it? Could you use it? Would you want to give yourself that one, final, new experience before death, or would you wait, savouring every last moment before passing out from oxygen depravation, hoping against hope for a miracle that won't happen?
> I wonder how many people in human history have gone through the
> nightmare of being buried alive...
Well that bit describes one of the many punishments in Iraq since Saddam came to power, so the number, given we're currently on an estimated 250000 dead, is going to be pretty high, along with being tied with being tied to a tree with razor wire, naked, and having dogs let loose on people, and having ropes tied to each limb and arm which were then attached to vehicles which drove four different ways, or being put in a barrel, it sealed, and oil poured in....and *continues with a list of an insane amounts of torture used by the regime*
It was in the hall in primary school with those crappy plastic sticks and a puck. I hit it off the side wall and it went in.
If you're keeping count :^)
Excellent topic. While Bell makes good points, we can all certainly do a lot more to stop being lamers who would hold so many regrets were we to survive freezing and autopsy to make it to the coffin alive.