Author Information
The End
It all happened so quick. One would think that dying had more theatrics, but it was plain and simple. I do not remember a lot of what happened before I lost consciousness. I remember how beautiful the sky looked through the window of my car. I don’t even remember the car hitting the passenger side, or my car wrapping itself around a tree. I remember the sharp pain in my spine and thinking I was not going to get through that. I remember my last shallow breath and hoping for heaven.
However, there was no heaven, no hell, no purgatory to greet me. It was the life I left behind. My birth, my childhood, my teenage years, my twenties, the beginning of my thirties. I was 32 years old the day I died, and every single moment I lived, I revisited. One billion seconds. That’s all my life amounted to. I didn’t do anything amazing with the years I lived, I thought I had more time. I did what any average person did, nothing spectacular, but I lived a good, comfortable life. I loved and was loved. I experienced a lot of the things the world had to offer. I regretted the things I didn’t do, but never the things I did do. My life was good, I didn’t understand why it had to end so quick. The images of my life stopped, and nothing happened.
I could see no color, hear no sound, and feel no sensation. I do not remember how long I was in that state of nothingness. It could have been seconds, hours, or years. However, as time passed, or didn’t pass, I started to forget. The image of my own face was the first thing to go. All of a sudden, my memories were disappearing. The time I got punched for accidentally stepping on someone’s foot, erased, the day I got my first car, deleted. I no longer remembered the faces I loved. I stopped remembering the lyrics of my favorite song. I forgot how to dance, how food tasted in my mouth, how to walk. Sounds and colors were no longer part of my memory. I forgot everything and became nothing.
Suddenly, everything started washing over me. Breath filled my lungs, light hurt my closed eyes, and cold ripped through my body. I cried out. I felt something wet and then scratchy touch my body. I felt uncomfortable, everything was a new experience. Memories flooded my brain of the life I left behind. I cried even more, until I was enveloped in an embrace, so warm and loving, I felt at peace. As I got used to the light, I slowly opened my eyes, and although my vision was blurry, I saw my mother. Not the one I remembered, but my mother nonetheless. In that moment I realized I was reborn. I tried to cry out that I had found out what happens after death, but I could not form the words before I truly started to forget.
