Watched a man die on Christmas eve from a massive heart attack.
I work at a grocery store, and I was working on christmas eve (because ofc i was) and so I'm walking across the store to my departments area, and theres this dude laying on the floor down the aisle, at this point someone had already called 911, because the fire department (which is right across the street) was just popping into the parking lot. I watched as this guy went from looking like he was basically asleep to looking like the girl who turned into a blueberry from Charlie and the chocolate factory, they tried to resuscitate him for so long and they pulled him out of there after about 5 minutes, still giving him cpr. I've never seen a dead body before, never even been near one (to my knowledge) and it was pretty weird tbh. I mean, I guess I'd thought about how I would feel if i saw someone die before, and i concluded that I would probably be very scared and nervous and shit, but not really. It felt so chill, like there was no loud noises no drama, just one second a guy was there and the next second he is still there. Nothing physical changed, but like i KNOW hes dead, which is weird. I coulda touched his dead/dying body. I guess i've been thinking about it quite a bit actually, somehow my department ended up with his santa hat for a few weeks, and that somehow weighed heavily on me. Like it was just a santa hat, but it was kinda dirty and old, and looks like he wore it a lot, and we just like have it. Like all the things i think of as MY possessions could just like go away one day. The front desk supervisor ended up throwing it away cuz he was cleaning up the lost and found.
Pretty weird still, like it probably sounds like im fucked up from this but im not, im just like thinking about it. Like my life is just chillin as it is rn, could be better, could be worse, but like i could just like die and then its over, my family and friends would care but there will always be some grocery worker who watched me die and writes a post about how little it messed him up, metaphorically. I also work at a reptile store, and have plenty of my own pets. We breed our own mice and rats, and (having pet dogs and rats and snakes myself) its a weird job, but a fun one. But im constantly around death, but in a weird way. I love my rats, they have a lot of personality, and I love my snakes, and i love my dogs, and they all have such a special place in my heart. But theres hundreds of mice behind me in that store and theyre all gonna die, and im gonna sell them, which is weird. Like i dont mind it, i enjoy my job, and im not ethically opposed in any way, but its a weird thought. Sometimes we'll open up the rat cage or mice cage and theres just a rat or mouse that has died/been killed and was being eaten by the other rats/mice and its dead and rotting body is just left there, usually being smooshed up in the same cuddle of rodents that they died in. Idk what the point of that was other than that our ideas and possessions are so personal to us, but at the end of the day what does it matter yk? like that rat probably came from the same breeding pair of rats my pets came from, and it had the same birth and shit, and instead of being my pet, it probably suffocated under the weight of its siblings and was eaten until its just skin, bones, and whatever flesh was left.
I guess in a way the guy and the rats are the same, I mean to the outside observer thats just a rat cage, and thats just a grocery store, but like theres whole lives being lived out in there, in the same way when you look at a city its not just a city, theres lives being lived out there, and yet from the outside you would never be able to tell. You could be watching a city for 2000 years and youd see farms turn into city turn into a nuclear wasteland and youd never know why or who or any of the stories there, and at the end of the day, do you really care? Like sure i watched a man die, he was a husband, and a father (his son was with him when he died) a son to a mother and father, and will be a grandparent one day probably. He lived out like 40 or 50 years of life, full of experiences, he had christmas as a kid, he had a first crush and learned to read and write, but like so what . you could never see any of that and it might as well have not happened. The same for those rats, they were born of rats breeding, and they may breed if someone takes them as pets, or they might not, and honestly i dont care what happens to them, and at the end of the day does it matter? rats, humans, me, you, pets or food, like we just like do our own things and hope to have an impact but the world goes on regardless whether or not we get good grades or make friends or have love or anything.
Which isn't to say life is meaningless, because I'm sure there's a meaning somewhere, but it's probably not like a real meaning. You still have experiences and feelings, and regardless of how little that matters, I know you the reader are still having an experience rn, and youve had thousands before, you've had a crush, you've learned to read and write, you've done all that, and in a way it matters, because you feel it matters, but like eventually all those experiences will be forgotten, just like the billions of people who have lives and died and been forgotten forever, but at the same time their lives still had just as much experience as yours. So idk what im saying, i guess life in and of itself is pointless, but for some reason we still feel like there is a point, I have two jobs, i am a csgo admin, i make maps, i play games, i trade stocks. I do all these things because they make me feel good, like no matter what i say about how little life means that doesnt change the fact that i feel things, and i might as well do things to make those feelings the best they can be. But like at the end of the day if i feel bad nobody cares but me, i guess.
Which is not to say i dont care about life, or that i dont have friends and family who do love me and who do care about how i feel, because i do, frankly i enjoy my life rn, despite being stressed about some stuff, i enjoy myself. Im just thinking about it all.
So i guess the craziest part of this isnt how big death is, but how little death is.