Hereafter

Comatose

  I opened my eyes to find myself sitting on a bar stool facing a panoramic window. It is dark outside with lamps lighting the parking lot and road outside. I sit and watch as the traffic lights at the intersection of two roads, across the small parking lot, cycle through. There is no traffic; it must either very late or very early.

I don't know which bar this is or how I got here.

I turn to look for someone to ask where I am. I take to be the bartender talking with another person right next to me. Funny thing is I cannot hear them, not at all. It's like I'm deaf.

I say "excuse me" to try to draw their attention with no results. I reach over to shake the other patron's arm in a bid for their attention and can barely shift their clothing slightly.

Panicking I look around noticing many more people talking, soundlessly, around me. I stick the pinkie of my right hand into my right ear, moving it in a short burst, to try to dislodge whatever must be messing with my hearing.

It doesn't work.

I try to recall when, where and how I would have lost my hearing and just happen to notice the traffic lights change from red to green and I suddenly recall the impact. I must have lost my hearing then. It doesn't make sense though. What happened right after the impact? How can I all of a sudden become conscious of my surroundings in a bar? For the love of all that is holy why can't I or won't anybody interact with me? I remember books written by people who claimed to have had some form or another of a near-death experience.

"Am I dead? Am I dying? Am I in Limbo, awaiting judgement? Am I going to move on from this life?"

I had not yet lived life to my satisfaction. I had not done or seen all I wished to do or see. I did not accept that premature end. I felt desperate a burning desire to not be dead to be alive. I had made no impact on the world; the people I had known would barely know that I was gone. No-one apart from my family would remember me.

I saw it then. The bar disappeared to be replaced a wash of colours and I was one of them. They were all vibrating and so was I. The colours stretched up and I followed each where they, we, all merged into one like the fingers merge into the palm of a hand.

I wanted to be alive still to help the people I knew and would know.

I was resolute and the space around me vibrated and there was darkness.