"Are you kidding me?"(Kevin Hughes) “I’m dying?”

I had just enough breath to push out the two words. The Paramedic didn’t bother with any of the “Positive reinforcement” she had been taught to deliver during her training. She held my hand…and told the truth.

“Yes. I’m…I…I…m…sorry.”

She squeezed my hand. I squeezed back…but softly. It was just to much effort. My vision narrowed. I saw her eyes were wet. Then it went gray…

*****

“How are you doing?”

I was startled. I wasn’t expecting a voice. I wasn’t expecting anything. So I blurted out the last thing I remembered:

“I’m dying.”

Laughter echoed all around me. It made me smile in spite of my indignation. The next words shocked me into a more sober mood.

“No, you are already dead.”

“What?”

“Dead. Dead. Dead.”

More laughter.

For some reason…I laughed too. Then I opened my eyes. All of them. Not just two. Not even four. Keep guessing, because you will never get the number correct. I had infinite eyes…I saw everything ..everywhere…everywhere. There really aren’t any words. I could hear everything too, not just the other laughter that surrounded my arrival. I could hear the rustle of browning motion as molecules bumped up against each other. I could hear protons smacking into each other with a loud clang, and the hissing sound of an electron or photon shooting off in a straight line to somewhere.

What I couldn’t see, or hear…was my body. In fact, I couldn’t “see” any body, or anybody. My mind, if I still had one, boggled at the implications. I was dead. But more alive than I could have ever imagined. Much harder than explaining calculus to an ant, a rainbow to a blind person, or how much you love someone who is gone. Those were chump change compared to explaining how alive I was now.

A voice asked me a simple question:

“Do you want to go back and live in your body again?”

I “looked” around me. I saw time move, stop, even go backwards. I could feel the Universe around me…welcoming me, loving me, appreciating me…and glad I was here. My thoughts were colored with emotions that would have made me go insane if I was still alive and trapped in a localized pod of carbonated water. How little I knew when I thought I knew. I did not.

I had power now…and more powers. I could flit from one end of the Universe to another…all the time soaking up the beginnings of Life, of growth, of change. I thought I understood evolution…and now, I had evolved. Love…was everywhere…and every when. There was no more pain, doubt, regret…only the joy of discovery…of wonder…and being. I existed, and always. would. Talk about feeling secure. I had no body to take care of, feed, nurture, protect. No drive to make another copy of me. No desire to submit myself to rejection or hurt…just so I wouldn’t be alone.

It isn’t like being alive was a Larval Stage, or even a cocoon. It was simply a chance to live as matter…and make it matter. And now it doesn’t. But the seeds of the real meaning of life were there. When you die…the rest of your life is …gentle. That is the best word I can come up with. You will know when you get here…and because I know that…I have no regrets.

A voice asked if I wanted to go back. It offered me some choices…become a miracle and recover from my injuries…and lose what happens next. Or I could, if I wanted, choose to become a newborn…and live a life over without any memory of the first one. Or…I could stay here…forever.”

Everyone laughed when I answered honestly:

“Go back? Back?... Are you kidding me?"

---