The first thing you need to know is this is going to take some time
to read. If you read it, sign the Guestbook. I'm not asking you to believe it; I'm telling you that I do.
I don't like the term, Near Death Experience. I was DEAD.
Near Death means you didn't quite make it...I made it....all the way. It's
cool. Death isn't something to fear, but it's not something
to rush, either.
And this is how it happened. It might
not have happened exactly the same way to you...and it doesn't happen exactly
the same way to everyone. But, it's similar, a Ph.d. at the University
told me so.
'I was laying on my bed in Intensive Care. I'd just had a massive
heart attack and I was pretty much out of it. The machine that goes
"beep"......"Beep"......"Beep" was doing it's thing and I was kind of enjoying
listening to it, and watching the light green line in the oscilloscope
screen go up and down. The notion that your heart is working has
a nice, safe, feeling to it. Suddenly the machine went "Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....the green bumps went flat.
And I'm on the ceiling looking at this poor sap struggling to breathe.
I can see through the walls.. ..sorta. I mean... ..they're
transparent but they have shape and color.. ...green. I looked over
at the nurses station. The intensive care Nurse is looking
up from her paperwork... ..she's Shiny Faced Joan. She's just
starting to react.. ..the paper leaves her hand and starts to fall to the
desk.. ..it's taking a long time.
The hospital I'm at is old. There's a false ceiling and I look
in it. Now I'm in a series of false ceilings going in the general
direction of up. There's five false ceilings... the last one, or
the first one, depending on your point of world view, is that 1890's pressed
tin that looks like fancy plaster. I notice, on the way by, that
they used good lumber for the joists. It looks like it's about 3"x9"
and clear straight grained pine. There's an attic with the electro-shock
therapy equipment stored...it's right over my room because I went right
through it.
I should explain. My friend, Dave, is the admissions officer
on nightshift. After this was all over he told me that no one who
wasn't staff was supposed to know about the shock treatment machines.
They were supposed to have been scrapped years ago because the Disabled
Veterans of America complained about them so long and so often that Congress
made the Veterans Hospitals stop using them. But our staff had decided
since administrations come and go, maybe they'd get to use shock therapy
again. Probably because shrinks are like that. I know that
the machines are there because I could see the big ES oval. And Dave
agreed.
The roof used to be slate. Slate roofs have a peculiar spacing
of underlayment. 1"x2"s or 1"x3"s spaced to give adequate ventilation
are nailed to the roof rafters with the slate nailed directly to the narrow
boards. When the slate started to fall apart, they stripped off the
slate and replaced it with wood shingles. Wood shingles have a different spacing. The roofers had to add boards to fill
the gaps. Because there is still a need for ventilation, the roofers
have to leave smaller gaps. Years later the wood shingles were stripped
and asphalt shingles were used. When the wood shingles were removed
the roofers had to fill in the gaps to make a tight roof. underlayment.
The shingles are nailed to the underlayment. Adding lumber each time
means that the underlayment is different colors; the oldest is darkest.
I noticed the color differences on the way by.
It's 2:00AM in the morning. It's a nice warm August night and
there's a full moon so I can see the trees and buildings. I'm pretty
stoked about all this. I'm still going up, at least I think I'm going
up, it feels like it. I go up for quite a while and it's getting
dark, and there's a light. "Just my luck," I think, "Here comes
a train."
I'm standing on the bank of a river. The grass is cool and green
but I'm not feeling it, so, I got down on my hands and knees and look at
it. The grass is perfect, it's about 3" long and you can tell
it's never been cut, it's pointy. I'm not touching the grass.
My hands and knees are about 1/16th of an inch above the grass and I can't
press it down. "Hmmmm?".
I can see a path on the other side
of the river. Paths are for walking and they usually lead somewhere
so I step on to the river. On to, not into. I had to look. I did the
hands and knees thing again. Nope. I can't get wet.
Now I'm on the path and I start walking. It's uphill. I
walk for hours and hours. I'm walking for days, but I'm not tired
or hungry. The path is made of round stones and they get thinner
and flatter as they slope to the center of the path. In the center the
stones are completely flat and smooth. "This path has
been used before," I think, "and by a bunch of people because they can't
have had any more contact with the path than I do." I do the hands
and knees thing again. No touching the path, no matter how hard I
try. These stones have been worn flat from air friction.
There's not much else to see.
It's sorta plain, not much of anything. It's just a path and
stuff. Bushes, shrubs, you know, stuff.
As I walk I keep looking back to see if there's anyone behind me.
I mean, this path is a well traveled road. There's got to be more
people on it. There's nothing I can see. I am alone. This is
MY experience.
Walking
Walking
Walking
It's getting pretty.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, cool."
Off in the distance I can see the top of a tree. It's so far
away that it looks smooth and perfect. I'm getting excited.
I'm still going up hill, it's been uphill all the way, I should
be tired, or at the very least, hungry, but I'm not.
Walking
Walking
In the distance I can see the tops of other trees. They look
as round and perfect as the first but they're smaller. Now I can
see that the BIG tree is in the middle and there's six smaller trees around
it. They look like perfect mushrooms. The smaller trees are
centered on the line that would fall to the ground if one were to hang
a plumb bob from the outside edge of the end of the branches of the bigger
tree.
Six small trees around one big one, perfectly spaced, and green
and smooth and, "Holy Shit!!! They're HUGE!!!" The big one
in the center is thousands of feet tall and the ones around the
outside are bigger than any Redwood ever thought of growing. I mean,
HUGE!!!
Walking
Walking
Walking
I break over a divide and start downhill.
I'm getting close. I can see ants at the base of the trees.
Walking
Walking
Walking
Whoops!!! Not ants, people.
There's people in the shade of the trees. They're milling around
and talking to each other.
I can almost pick out faces I can feel the people look up the slope at me. I can feel the
GLAD
.
It's radiating from them and covers me like a warm fuzzy blanket.
These people, and some other things too, are really glad to see me.
I'm home. I know it. This is what I've been waiting for.
This is it. There's nothing else, No more trials, no more struggle,
no more nothing. I made it!!! And I'm so happy.
And this guy taps me on the shoulder. I don't know where he came
from, there's been no one behind me, I checked. Often. He's
wearing 501's, a tyedye, and Berks with no socks. He's got a straggly
beard, blue eyes and shoulder length, dirty blond, hair. And a sad look.
The GLAD embrace that I've been feeling from the masses of people just
STOPS!!! He taps me on the shoulder and I feel it. He
looks me right in the eye and says, "I'm sorry, Dave, you've got to go
back. They're not done with you yet."
I shrug my shoulders, turn around and start up the hill to the ridge.
I'm on the side of the river.
I walk across.
I'm on the grass.
I'm in the tunnel, racing the train.
I'm speeding down through the
roof, the ES machine, all five ceilings and rush back into my body just
as Shiny Face Joan pulls the paddles off my chest and I HURT!!! Oh,
I hurt. My chest is on fire. My eyes feel like someone wearing
dirty, gritty, oily gloves just pushed them back into the sockets.
All my muscles are cramped and I generally feel like shit. I reach
up and grab Joan's shirt and jerk her down to my face.
"YOU BITCH!!!" I scream. "I was DEAD!!! I was done
with all this!!! Why did you bring me back?!?!?!"
She reached up with one finger, broke my hold on her collar and smiled,
" But Dave, We're not done with you, yet."
I collapsed back on the bed, panting and peeing, and said," That's
what he said." She gives me that nurses smile and I fell asleep.'
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