text: It all started when I was 5. My dad was picking up my sister from her preschool and I was coming along. Chopin was playing on the radio and I had a big cheese steak in front of me cut into bite size pieces. We turned the corner and I saw my sister. I waved maniacally to get her attention and she did a dance of recognition. I jumped out of the car and was about to go hug my sister when I felt a strange feeling in my arm. A burning sensation. I looked down and screamed. A wasp 5 times the size of a normal wasp had landed on my arm and began jabbing it repeatedly, lacerating it with skin tears and bathing itself in my blood. It cut a bone deep gash and started peeling off the inner layers of my skin. The weird thing was... I didn’t feel anything except a pleasant tingling. Nothing was hurting. I even laughed and ticked the wasp’s wings, which prompted it to stab my head repeatedly. I didn’t mind. When I was 9 years old, 45 doctors from 14 different countries would examine me daily, and on my 10th birthday, they diagnosed me with chromosome 6 deletion and subsequent nerve damage, described by them as the “Superhero Glitch.” From then on, I never felt pain. I was a playground legend. Day after day, I would slit my fingers with scissors until they turned white. I would purposely fall off monkey bars and rip the skin over my knees. My teacher had no clue because I would never cry, I would never yell. I would just take the hit. Bullies were no problem, neither were broken bones. In Grade 5, I had accumulated 17 doctor visits and feigned pain to get out of school. Life was perfect... until my 12th birthday. I was lying in my bed, devouring multiple slices of chocolate blackberry cheesecake when a thought occurred to me. *What is the pinnacle of pain? How can I test myself to the absolute limit? Or are there no limits?* Day after day, I began... experimenting. It started with a simple concussion. I felt a little dizzy, but still no pain. The next afternoon, I hit my wrist with a brick. Nothing major, just a few metacarpal fractures. For months, I confronted the world’s greatest pains, and each time I came out unscathed and relatively bored. The question had to be asked, and I asked it out loud while standing in the middle of the freeway, looking for snakes. Could I die? *Surely not,* I thought. *Dying is just a lot of pain at once. What if I didn’t? Better yet... what if I did?* The stage was set. I had walked to the nearest train station and waited. I looked at my watch. The express train was arriving in a minute. I took a deep breath. *Whatever happens here, you’ll be free of wondering. Think of all those years you took for granted. Think of all your memories. Think of all the mistakes you’ve made, all the pain you’ve endured for others. Think of how selfish, how self-centered you’ve been. You lived a hero, and now you will die a hero’s death. You won’t have to watch as others die around you. Whatever happens here, you’ll be free.* *I’ll be free.* I stepped forward and bent my head over the tracks. I could hear people screaming. I could hear the train, rushing towards me. But I felt nothing, dropping off onto the tracks. It was painless. I would never be free. Every one of my cells was screaming for death, every one of them slowly dying. And yet, I was still alive. Through all this pain, I would never die. I felt helpless, yet, ironically liberated. Because that day, I finally felt pain. I felt pain in knowing I would see my mother, my father and my little sister grow old around me before death finally took them away and I would watch as they were shackled and lifted to Heaven. I felt pain knowing that this torture would never end, I would grow old but never pass on, I would never die physically, but my soul and will to live would have vanished far before. My mind would be nothing more than an animal sent loose in a fenced paddock, I would never know freedom again. As my family picked me up, as I woke up in a hospital bed with cameras and distressed people all around me, I knew my time had finally come. I felt pain, and so I finally died.