The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

陈路 高三（8）班

We living beings are always curious about death,which may be able to account for the popularity of the issues of the death.Death is always the biggest adventure in life,unpredictable and horrible.

Bauby Domynick,a man in his thirties,was a famous journalist in Paris and the primary editor for ELLE.A tremendous tragedy came to this man who was on the crest of his career—He was attacked by a rare and incuriable disease， called Locked-in Syndrome,and from then on he became paralysed.Although having a healthy brain,he couldn’t control any part of his muscle except left eye.

In the last two years of his life,he “wrote” a short memoir.The process was done in this way:a recorder read an alphabet slowly for him,and he blinked when the letter he was going to write was pronunciated.It took most time of his last life to finish this short novel,and Domynick blinked several handreds millions times.Two years later, Domynick left the world forever.

Then I thought about ourselves.As we hold the deepest and inmost terror toward death,we are actually wasting our life,harassing ourselves with petty trivial and affairs,just like a set of rotating gears.Only when the gears break down,we can have the chance to retrospect the days we once possessed and to meditate whether it is something we do desire.For most time,when we open the door of the time,we can only find that the dream once lingered in the childhood has been discarded for a long time.

The Almighty God played a bad trick on Bauby,depriving of his frame leaving the soul. The disease killed him gradually and confined him in his soft body.Nevertheless,Bauby left his immured frame, soaring above in the world and observing the world in a outsider’s perspective and an attached attitude.He began to cherish the thing that had been neglected in his heathy days,and every kiss,every hug,the warm of an egg,the coldness of the watermelon,the light in the afternoon,brought him enormous satifaction--The world was magnified in his soul.

“My body is prisoned in the diving bell,but my soul is flying as a butterfly...”

Bauby’s words are unexpectably lissom.Although he was always complaining,not a little pessimism,but a sense of boundless flying could be felt.He sometime wept for his misforture,but immediately turned to talk about the beauty of life,showing the deepest affection.At the end of the book, Bauby wrote:Is there a key to open my diving bell in the universe?Is there a subway without terminal,or a strong current can help me to find the freedom?I should set out to find it.I am going to find it right now.”

New shots will spring up where the leaves fall down,and the bird will go on their voyage year after year.When the philomela is still singing a song minute and every flower in the life?

This French movie told this story in a special way—a world perceived by Bauby’s left eye.It is very quiet,and slow,unlike any artificial Hollywood product.In Search of Lost Time,by Marcel Proust,came to my mind while I was watching the movie.The French movies and novels can always grasp the subtle emotions and trivial sypathy of the human beings,especially the works in stream of consciousness.

Everyone should have a diving bell and a butterfly.

（本文刊于校园杂志《华焰》第一期）