The Final Masquerade

Chester Bennington, the lead singer of Linkin Park committed suicide on the 20th of July 2017. I don't want to post an Instagram post or a Facebook post for him because it doesn't matter now. I'll do what I do best; I'll write a letter to him. 

Dear Chester,

I was once very close friends with a boy of my age. He was my classmate and we had to complete an assignment together. So he had come over to my house and all the while he kept talking about a new song, 'Numb' by Linkin Park. I didn't have a taste for rock back then in 7th grade, so I had cringed my forehead at the idea of screaming singers and blaring drums. He was adamant that I listen to the song and at the very end of our assignment, I finally hit it up on my YouTube. Honestly, I hated it. 

A few days later, going through my YouTube account, I saw Numb being recommended alongside Leave Out All The Rest. I decided to give it a shot. I loved it. Those lyrics got printed on my mind then and there and I started browsing through all your songs. My next favourite was In Pieces. Then I repalyed Numb, this time taking efforts to understand what it was about; taking efforts to understand how you could describe numbness as a feeling. 

At that age, I was astonished that someone could be numb and feel a turmoil of emotions all at once. I understood that bad things happen all the time in this world and sometimes we fail to deal with it. I often listened to your songs after that. Not just when things got bad, but also when everything was okay. I downloaded all your albums. I started memorizing the details of your music. 

Then years passed. I would play your music seldom now. Then came Castle of Glass. Again the craze of Linkin Park filled the air. I still remember frantically asking people to send the audio file of the song via Whatsapp because I couldn't download it. Then again, years passed. 

Then released the movie Need for Speed. As the movie began to end, I heard an old memory sing. I had no clue that it was Linkin Park's Roads Untravelled. I sat up on my seat as your voice took up the dying moments of the movie, trying to recognize the voice of a long forgotten companion, till it hit me; of course, Linkin Park. 

Your demise, without a sliver of doubt came as a terrifying shock, because me, alongwith everyone else, kept, and still unknowingly keep expecting you to drop amazing new singles now and then and remind us again of the world where we grew up in. Reading about your suicide, I found out that dear depression had taken out yet another light, permanently. I guess you didn't have any other alternative to this action and therefore you took the highway that only went up. But I being who I am, still don't support suicide. Never have. Never will. It takes courage to take one's life, but an even greater deal of that fucking courage to face life with all its shortcomings.

I get it that your closest friend had set the footprints in the world of suicide a couple of months before. I get it that you felt brutally cheated, not just by your friend, but by your entire life. I get it that your world had turned topsy turvy, but trust me, it would've healed. We can never ever be absolutely irreversibly broken. It's okay to not be okay. It's okay to give up on people. Even the people nearest to your now cold heart. That's your choice. I know that it's your life and it's up to you to do what you want with it. But you have the right to take it away, do you? It was given to you. Therefore it only makes sense that when time permits, it will be taken back again. 

But there's no point in pointing this out to you now, is there? It's done and dusted, and you are gone now. Far, far away. Days before your death, I had scribbled the lyrics of one of your songs on a spare bit of paper and signed LP beneath it. I don't know where I lost it in the chain of events of everyday life, just like I've lost you. Most of my notebook's back pages in secondary and higher secondary classes were embellished with your songs, and in our friend circle, we spent a good amount of time drawing the logo of Linkin Park on our hands. That circle has dispersed now, as has the ink washed away, and the notebooks have been given away, just like you decided to move away. Yet your albums remain on my laptop. One day, they too will be gone. You're immortal now, you'll be forgotten tomorrow, but for the time being, we're united as one by music. So rest in peace Chester. See you on the other side. 

Thank you. 

One of your million.