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As his surroundings got exponentially colder each second passed, Curly could see the whole movie his life had been running through his eyes. The milky glass worked as a cinema screen, just as his darkening blurry vision set the silent mood of this simulation. It would have been despairing, if his already stumbling brain weren’t slowly shutting down.
And instead of pain, it focused on any distraction it could bring up. Happy moments with his family came first, followed by his friends and acquaintances that were part of his terrestrial life. Simpler times, where pain was transitory and no bad moments lasted more than one week. In some sights, laughter could be smelled, drunks’ breath heard from a long distance. In others, a faint sound of the warmth coming from the fireplace and the brightness coming from a hot chocolate mug felt by cold hands.
He recalled all those people appearing in his hallucinations, their names, fondnesses and how important they were in his existence. He’d love to laugh once again, savouring for the last time the best memories he had in this short timespan that life is. Their silhouettes melted Curly’s heart in a way he never thought it would be possible. It was almost like everybody was there, hugging him, lending him some pulse for him to stay alive.
Curly couldn’t discern false memories from true ones by now, the small still sane part of his mind noticed it. Every thought was now an amalgam of unreadable words, unrecognizable images.
He felt warm and very loved anyway. He didn’t care anymore and would certainly not care for the next twenty years.
But something suddenly flinched in Curly’s mind and all the good moments were gone, vanished. He felt extremely aware of his surroundings, almost like he wasn’t freezing at that exact moment.
Some indistinguishable noise in the background alongside a high pitched voice echoed in his mind, while he found himself sitting on a hard chair. The ambience was fairly familiar, he couldn’t forget it even if he wanted to.
He was once more in middle school, sharing a joyful moment with friends whilst his teacher tried to present things, new or old, it doesn’t really matter, to them.
[...]
if there were a fire in a museum
which would you save, a Rembrandt painting
or an old woman who hadn't many years left anyhow? [...]
Ethics was a mandatory subject that nobody really cared about. Curly and his classmates used it to take a break from the dull and tiresome classes. What use would they have of it, if most of the problems presented there would never happen in real life? The train dilemma? Creating law problems? What could merely children do about them? Being honest, nothing. Snotty teenagers could do nothing, but the adults they would become maybe could.
“The chances of being killed by a cat are almost null, but never zero.”
For those who had one ear for what the teacher was saying, the painting and the old woman meant nothing to them, and any answer given to her would be good enough. Curly vaguely remembered replying this question, thinking of how he had just solved the problem:
“why not let the old woman decide herself?”
Many agreed, of course. It sounded the perfect solution for an impossible situation. The woman had her free will, she could tell Curly what she would rather, and after listening to her, he would step in and act as she wished.
A disappointed look could be seen behind that blank stare.
[...]
Curly, the teacher would report, eschews
the burdens of responsibility.
[...]
An underestimated class, he could only think right now. These kinds of problems weren’t created for no reason, and he should have paid more attention to them, should have thought about the future and how life wouldn’t always be made of good and calm moments.
One could never know when some disaster would occur, but it doesn’t mean they couldn’t be cautious when the first signs may seem to appear. One couldn’t be aware of these symbolic little acts peeking from the shadows if they weren’t prepared for them.
And he wasn’t prepared.
As a capitan, Curly has faced dilemmas innumerable times, and yet, in every situation, he chose dialogue as his weapon. Confronts are never good, that’s what he has been teached, or, at least, it was what he absorbed from elders’ behaviors. They would only bring a stronger headache, awful solutions and probably many more problems.
He has solved so many issues only using words, why would he change his approach?
Words cannot fix everything.
Precipitated actions also cannot fix everything.
He failed on seeing the issue, and it was probably not the first time doing it. But it would be the last one.
Now, frozen, losing his consciousness, unable to answer the question properly, he could only wait for someone to make the decision for him, and hopefully, the right one.