The searing white light woke me up from my uneasy slumber. It’s difficult, perhaps, to know for certain what’s going on around me, when I experienced indescribable pain as soon I opened my eyelids. Minutes later, I manages to pry them open, and instantly wish I didn’t.
It’s interesting to see my loved ones around me, partly blinded by this white light, almost like they’re obscured by heavy fog. They move in and out of focus, alternately seeming visible and depressing the hell out of me with their downcast, whining expressions; or agitating me when they move out of focus. This must mean someone’s doing the groundwork for slipping from one realm of existence to another - interesting to think how a lifetime of pushing papers makes me think life and death are purely bureaucratic affairs.
My family’s slipped into oblivion. All I can see for now is a rapidly approaching white gateway. The gateway’s disappeared now, and I’m getting this whole array of psychedelic colors, accompanied by white noise. But I keep moving. Traveling at a breakneck pace, while my body remains static, is unnerving, to say the least.
Is this really the gateway between life and death? If it is, I can’t understand how people call this blissful. It’s horrifyingly impossible to cope with this barrage of speeding suction, while the environment around you is practically noiseless. Like a nightmare image in a movie from the 60’s. I’m starting to see images - decapitated heads of rhinos, bulls and anacondas fly overhead, while the skeletons of primeval creatures snap at them. A rotting corpse plays a violin with no strings(no sound, of course), while a gasping, retching person inside a pot of boiling oil conducts the corpse into playing. I see writhing little legless lambs, looking at the sky, opening and closing their mouths in implausible agony, as a bunch of trees choose to direct their growing roots through their supple little bodies.
Then I woke up.
I found myself in darkness. I tried to move around, and discovered being enclosed in something… wooden. Wooden? This can’t be right. Wait, my cell phone. I manage to fish it out of my pockets, and look around in the darkness.
Shit. I remember now.
As part of a call-in Atheist Radio Show, in which I try to argue people into something sensible, I managed to convert someone. A girl called in yesterday, and asked me a few questions which she had unanswered in the course of her lifetime, because of her abusive, fanatical father. I didn’t have the answers to her questions either, but I did try to convince her that there were better options elsewhere. To my credit, I had a convert. To prove this, she had called earlier today, and explained how she was at an undisclosed location, and was going to start life afresh. I was responsible for liberating one soul. Felt good.
Air is running short. It’s getting hard to not take heavy breaths, as I’m sure it’s only going to ensure I run out of breathable air all the sooner. Although, it’s almost an impossible task, when panic sets in. My knees are getting sore from trying to break the wood, all I think that’s doing is slowly shattering my kneecaps, rather than doing any real damage to the wood. My hands aren’t doing any good either. There’s not much flexibility in this limited space, and in the position I’m in, it’s near to impossible to move at all.
The Girl’s dad tracked me down, I assume. As far as I remember, I walked out of the studio after the show, I remember walking to my car, and then something heavy hitting me across the head. As I woke up, I noticed a rather burly person, drinking beers, while eyeing me carefully. I staggered to my feet, barely able to stop the dizziness.
"Who are you? And what am I doing here?"
No answer, he just kept looking at me. I took a look around, it's a dilapidated graveyard. He finally murmured something under his breath.
"What?"
"You’ve taken my little girl away from me. You’ll pay…"
"What are you talking about? What little girl?"
"I heard you talking to Stacey on the radio…"
"You’re Stacey’s dad?"
"Yes."
"She’s run away from you, for obvious reasons, I think…"
"You had no right. She was mine."
"She isn’t."
"SHE WAS MINE…"
"No. She needed to leave you, to live again. I merely encouraged her towards it, and she’ll have a better life now…"
He points to a gravestone and says, "See this?"
"Yes."
"Read the name."
"John Riley…"
"Is that your name?"
"No, of course it isn’t."
"Well… it’s the name you’ve attained after death."
"What?"
He beats me down to the ground, and puts a tissue over my nose. Then, I remember visions, and now this… He must have buried me alive.
I’m breaking my fingernails, blood seeps through them as I attempt to claw my way out of my wooden prison. My temples are exploding with pain, and I knock my head against the wooden surfaces to stop the pain, somehow. Strange, no gateway to heaven or hell in real life, is there? Noise ceases. White noise pervades. Gasp.
Gasp. Gasp.
…
END
It’s interesting to see my loved ones around me, partly blinded by this white light, almost like they’re obscured by heavy fog. They move in and out of focus, alternately seeming visible and depressing the hell out of me with their downcast, whining expressions; or agitating me when they move out of focus. This must mean someone’s doing the groundwork for slipping from one realm of existence to another - interesting to think how a lifetime of pushing papers makes me think life and death are purely bureaucratic affairs.
My family’s slipped into oblivion. All I can see for now is a rapidly approaching white gateway. The gateway’s disappeared now, and I’m getting this whole array of psychedelic colors, accompanied by white noise. But I keep moving. Traveling at a breakneck pace, while my body remains static, is unnerving, to say the least.
Is this really the gateway between life and death? If it is, I can’t understand how people call this blissful. It’s horrifyingly impossible to cope with this barrage of speeding suction, while the environment around you is practically noiseless. Like a nightmare image in a movie from the 60’s. I’m starting to see images - decapitated heads of rhinos, bulls and anacondas fly overhead, while the skeletons of primeval creatures snap at them. A rotting corpse plays a violin with no strings(no sound, of course), while a gasping, retching person inside a pot of boiling oil conducts the corpse into playing. I see writhing little legless lambs, looking at the sky, opening and closing their mouths in implausible agony, as a bunch of trees choose to direct their growing roots through their supple little bodies.
Then I woke up.
I found myself in darkness. I tried to move around, and discovered being enclosed in something… wooden. Wooden? This can’t be right. Wait, my cell phone. I manage to fish it out of my pockets, and look around in the darkness.
Shit. I remember now.
As part of a call-in Atheist Radio Show, in which I try to argue people into something sensible, I managed to convert someone. A girl called in yesterday, and asked me a few questions which she had unanswered in the course of her lifetime, because of her abusive, fanatical father. I didn’t have the answers to her questions either, but I did try to convince her that there were better options elsewhere. To my credit, I had a convert. To prove this, she had called earlier today, and explained how she was at an undisclosed location, and was going to start life afresh. I was responsible for liberating one soul. Felt good.
Air is running short. It’s getting hard to not take heavy breaths, as I’m sure it’s only going to ensure I run out of breathable air all the sooner. Although, it’s almost an impossible task, when panic sets in. My knees are getting sore from trying to break the wood, all I think that’s doing is slowly shattering my kneecaps, rather than doing any real damage to the wood. My hands aren’t doing any good either. There’s not much flexibility in this limited space, and in the position I’m in, it’s near to impossible to move at all.
The Girl’s dad tracked me down, I assume. As far as I remember, I walked out of the studio after the show, I remember walking to my car, and then something heavy hitting me across the head. As I woke up, I noticed a rather burly person, drinking beers, while eyeing me carefully. I staggered to my feet, barely able to stop the dizziness.
"Who are you? And what am I doing here?"
No answer, he just kept looking at me. I took a look around, it's a dilapidated graveyard. He finally murmured something under his breath.
"What?"
"You’ve taken my little girl away from me. You’ll pay…"
"What are you talking about? What little girl?"
"I heard you talking to Stacey on the radio…"
"You’re Stacey’s dad?"
"Yes."
"She’s run away from you, for obvious reasons, I think…"
"You had no right. She was mine."
"She isn’t."
"SHE WAS MINE…"
"No. She needed to leave you, to live again. I merely encouraged her towards it, and she’ll have a better life now…"
He points to a gravestone and says, "See this?"
"Yes."
"Read the name."
"John Riley…"
"Is that your name?"
"No, of course it isn’t."
"Well… it’s the name you’ve attained after death."
"What?"
He beats me down to the ground, and puts a tissue over my nose. Then, I remember visions, and now this… He must have buried me alive.
I’m breaking my fingernails, blood seeps through them as I attempt to claw my way out of my wooden prison. My temples are exploding with pain, and I knock my head against the wooden surfaces to stop the pain, somehow. Strange, no gateway to heaven or hell in real life, is there? Noise ceases. White noise pervades. Gasp.
Gasp. Gasp.
…
END
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