LIFE and DEATH
The fuzzy picture of a memory, a party, slowly rolled over me. We sat alone, empty bottles lying strewn about the abandoned field that kids came to do illegal activities. Sam and I went out there to be bad, we wanted what we didn't have, we wanted to be recognized for once. My thoughts skipped over the rest of the evening to when I slid into the passenger seat of my closest friend's car. And soon we were driving down the darkened road that wound its way through the woods of New England. We were laughing at something, something insignificant, when it happened. Suddenly all I could see was metal and headlights and hear the twisting cries of our small, four-door sedan as the pick-up truck slammed itself into the passenger side door.
I hear screaming now. Sam, I think. I hear my name. Alice! Alice! Wake up, Alice! But, I'm starting to feel quite comfortable, despite the flashing lights and the wail of sirens. Even despite the fact I feel glimmers of pain and my breath flowing in and out with a shallow rapidity.
I notice time is moving at an odd pace, I feel one moment that everything is fast as lightning, and I would miss my whole life in a heartbeat. The moment after, however, time is moving so slow I only long for everything to be done with. Even my body feels weird to me. I can see, feel, smell, and think, but I cannot react to a thing. I am distant, as if I am suspended inside the shell that was once named Alice.
Through narrowed lids I can see the doctors' surgical gloves flitting about me; I can smell the antiseptic, feel the dull press of needles and flesh, but I block it all out. I suddenly feel the odd sensation of my heart stop; can hear the drone of the machine monitoring my life. Slowly, very slowly, darkness sweeps over my vision. Is this what comes after death? I think. Unexpectedly, I become aware that the darkness is not black, but it's colors, colors of every sort, mixing and twirling around me. And then it hits me, Where will I go? I haven't ever truly been a God fearing girl, hell, I never even picked a religion. If there's a God, will he care? Have I even been good enough to be accepted into Heaven? I don't feel deserving of a heaven of any sort.
I think of all the bad things I have done throughout my life and I wonder what hell will be like, if there is a Satan, with little horned demons that will torment my soul for all eternity for my petty crimes. It feels like a mix between centuries and the twinkling of an eye before I was on the brink of insanity, and just before I know I will fall over the edge, I see a light, a blinding light of pure whiteness. In wonderment I think, Maybe I am satisfactory. Perhaps silently hating myself for my actions and the person I had become had been sufficient to redeem me, to save my soul.
All of a sudden I notice the fact that I have a heartbeat, small and timid indeed, but an organ pumping blood through my veins nonetheless. The light moves closer and my heart beats even harder, and then, the process is over. I am inside the light at last, and find that I am looking around with eyes that were mine, yet, not. I feel chills roll over me at the sudden drop in temperature. I take a deep breath, and out of the blue begin to cry with shrill screeching howls that echo through the room. I have no idea what has come over me, but I dislike it. I turn my head: left, then right, try up and down.
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