I’ve been having the same reoccurring nightmare since I was a kid. Some guy in a bath robe floats above my bed and talks to himself. Nothing too scary, just all about me and my family, like he’s watching. Like he’s been watching us for a long time. No matter where we moved, it was always the same. It finally went away once I moved out and got married. Well it happened a lot less often. A couple times a year I would have the same dream. He always talked about my life like he was some spectator.
Well one night I was having a particularly vivid dream- the kind where you know you’re not awake and you’re in complete control of the whole dream and suddenly I’m in my bed and this bathrobe guy shows up again. He starts talking to himself about what my next chapter in life is going to be so I surprise him and start telling him all my plans. It gives him a good scare and he runs away. The weirdest part is I don’t see him again until all my kids are grown up and I have a couple grandkids of my own.
This time he’s speaking directly to me. He seems different. Serious. He’s been visiting every night for the past 10 years and tells me the same story ver batim. His story. I’ve heard it so many times, I’ve decided to write it down and immortalize it here. Seems appropriate since I have lost a lot of sleep myself listening to him go on and on. Maybe once I tell him I put his story out there he’ll leave me alone. I feel sorry for the guy.
Anyways heres what he tells me every night:
“On my 8th birthday, I became obsessed with the concept of death. When I say obsessed, I don’t mean like my older sister was obsessed with academia or like my older brother was obsessed with his own face. When I say obsessed, I mean like the people who wash their hands hundreds of times a day- till they’re dry and cracked and bleeding in fear of bacteria. I mean like the people who spend an extra hour checking and rechecking the lock on their door is working properly any time they leave the house. My young and anxious mind latched onto the concept of death and couldn’t be convinced to let go. I was utterly, deeply, completely terrified. No amount of pondering could ease it: no distraction could pacify it. Death was inescapable and one day, regardless of how I felt about it, I would face it.
“I have never believed in an afterlife despite a very religious upbringing. I was always taught in Sunday School that life goes on- that death is not the end but a new beginning. I parroted these beliefs to my parents and teachers but was never truly convinced. Maybe the constant discussion of the afterlife is what made me this way. Maybe, like all humans, I’m just desperate to blame something for the way that I am. In any case, ever since my 8th birthday, I have only seen the world as a collection of things that will all die and turn to dust and it all but paralyzed me for my entire life.
“My 8th birthday was perfect. After all the festivities, my friends and I set out to catch a lizard as we had done countless times before. In our mad dash, we managed to chase it up a tree higher than any one of us could reach. I came up with the brilliant idea of throwing rocks at the spot above it to scare it downwards. All my friends tossed pebbles and hit their mark but I opted for a larger stone and fell short of where I aimed. I crushed the lizard’s head and it fell at our feet in a curled up twitching heap; blood leaked from one eye. A terrible silence took all of us as we stared down at the quivering thing. The merciful thing would have been to ensure it could no longer suffer but none of us knew anything about that.
“So we stared.
“One by one, my friends ran off elsewhere and began a new game but I lingered there with the pit in my stomach. The lizard shook slower and slower until it lay there as still as the rock that struck it. I recall wondering how something so full of life with such a strong will to live and outrun us all only moments ago could now be reduced to a mere inanimate object- a husk. I watched until all my friends had gone. I watched until the ants came. I watched until my sweet mother had the sense to cover it with a pile of dirt and a pretty rock for a headstone- the same rock that killed it. But I could still see it. Even after I went inside; even after I had dinner; even after a month; even now I still see the ants, and the bloody eye socket and the rock that felt so heavy in my right hand. I had taken the life right out of it, never to be put back in.
“When people talk about the fear of death they always focus on the events immediately leading up to it and the exact moment itself. We talk about the manner in which death finds us and compare which is worse and which is preferable. We talk about the state of mind one finds oneself in as their time concludes and we philosophize how to make our deaths meaningful. What people don’t mention as often is the part that terrified me- the part that kept me up every night since I turned 8: what comes after.
“I mentioned my crippling fear of death but, to be entirely accurate, my true fear has always been The Void. Oblivion. The complete nothingness that awaits us all. Have you ever been somewhere so completely dark that you could put your hand right in front of your face and not see it? I have. Only, in death, you don’t have any hands. You don’t have any eyes. You have nothing. You are nothing. You are surrounded by nothing. You cease to exist. Like the lizard, one moment, you’re full of life with such a strong will to live and outrun all things that would end you and the next moment, you are an inanimate object- a husk. Only you’re not the husk. The husk is what you leave behind. You disappear. You enter a never ending pit and plummet for the rest of eternity with an infinite nothingness surrounding you. My vivid childhood imagination conjured life-like nightmares of that void. Floating. Falling. Unable to scream.
“It wasn’t until my twenties that I finally found a foothold of solace. A close friend of mine that indulged my macabre obsession with a defiant grin remarked that if I truly cease to exist after I died, then I wouldn’t even be able to experience this void anyways. If I could no longer see or hear or think because my brain stopped working, then I couldn’t reasonably expect to hear or see or feel any of the darkness I expected to experience after dying. I could breathe again. This beautiful human had pointed out what was right in front of me all along. The void had lost its hold on me. I clung to my witty savior and they clung to me and we built a beautiful life together for 15 years until the first time I died.
“I didn’t even realize I had died the first time it ever happened. What started as butterflies turned to uncomfortable chest flutters then to cold sweats and shooting pains down my left arm. Most people would say the next thing they remember after losing consciousness is waking up in the hospital but I remember watching my love press on my chest until it cracked without any pain. I remember standing over my pale body in the ambulance as they blew through traffic lights. I remember seeing my body flinch and hearing the punch of 3000 volts enter my body. I remember lying back down as my body regained consciousness. I thought it was all a dream. But I never woke up in my own bed. Days passed and I recovered. Weeks passed and life went back to normal. After a month I finally accepted the fact that I had an actual out of body experience. Did this happen to everyone?
“I spent the better part of a year searching for others like me. I missed work. I stopped sleeping. I kept my love at arms distance. I found a few others who reported floating above their beds or flying off into space but nothing quite like what I had experienced. The implications paralyzed me again. I had no idea what to think. One night, while I was up late typing a letter to a neurologist, inquiring about the brain’s ability to sustain its operations in the loss of blood flow and oxygen, I found the keys would no longer type. The page wouldn’t scroll. I went to the kitchen for a beer and to allow myself a break when I found the fridge door was completely sealed shut. No matter how hard I pulled, I could not get it to budge. In my frustration I returned to my study only to see the silhouette of a man sitting in my chair. My brain flipped a coin for fight or flight and it decided to freeze instead. Finally, I gained the courage to shout at the man. If I woke up my love, they could come assist me but the house stayed still and silent. I cursed the man and threatened him with a rage and determination I didn’t know I possessed but he didn’t move and my love didn’t stir in the next room. In utter disbelief I stomped toward the man and grabbed him by the neck but he did not move- no matter how I squeezed.
“Suddenly, my blood ran chill and frozen lightning crashed in my spine as I recognized the pattern on his bath robe; it was mine. His lifeless face was mine. I clutched at my lifeless body, slumped in my chair. This out of body experience had completely come by surprise. I rushed to the bedroom to call my love to my aid. I leapt on top of them. I screamed and shook them but, just as I couldn’t open the fridge door, I could not reach my love. With wide eyes I saw their chest gently rise and fall and their eyes dashed about behind closed lids- full of life. I sprinted back to my body and tried with every ounce of desperation building in my throat to step back into myself but it was like trying to step through a stone wall. After some time, I stopped and stood above my body wondering what I would do. For what felt like an eternity I stood over my husk. I watched the sunlight slowly fill the room. I watched my love prepare breakfast and coffee for two. I watched them shriek and wail for a time, at my feet. I watched the coroner zip my body into a black bag. I watched my love stare into space for hours- never to be the same again. I couldn’t console them. I couldn’t help them.
“I didn’t go to my funeral.
“I’ve been dead for several decades now. After a week I discovered I could float through the air if I chose to. Gravity has no effect on whatever I am now, though I can’t pass through walls or solid objects. Anyone on the street oblivious of my presence will knock me aside without any resistance at all. For years I followed my love everywhere they went. I fancied myself a guardian angel and believed somewhere, deep inside, they could somehow hear me. That if I shouted loudly enough, I could influence them. I was wrong.
“I shouted so loudly not to drive after drinking so much. Louder than the rev of the engine. Louder than the bumps they put on the side of the road to let distracted drivers know they’ve veered too far. Louder than the blare of the truck’s horn in the oncoming lane. Louder than the crash and the screech of metal as my love’s car was pulled straight underneath the bigger vehicle.
“This tragedy spelled hope for me. I waited to see my love emerge from the pile of twisted metal- not their body but the part of them that was all that’s left of me. I watched and waited. I saw the truck driver step out and clutch at his hair. I saw the crowds of people start to form on the sidewalks. I heard his trembling voice tell them to call 911. I saw them pull the mangled husk of my love out piece by piece. I saw them tow the wreckage and clean the broken glass. I saw the crowds move on and life return to normal. My love never came.
“I spent 10 years drifting to all the national parks in America. For a time I found some solace in the beauty of nature. I began talking to myself about anything and everything. I could speak to no one else. I spent a few dozen years following a particularly busy family with colorful personalities. Their children grew, went to college, started their own families and the parents died. Neither of them joined me. The smallest glimmer of hope came one night as I watched the eldest child asleep with their spouse. As I talked to myself about what I thought might happen next in their life, this child began to answer me in their sleep. I will admit I was frightened. I moved on.
“I spent what I estimate to be 30 years completely and utterly lost. I drifted as high as I dared to go in the sky. I stayed there for days with the clouds and sun. I drifted over the ocean. Eventually I couldn’t see land any more. I lost all sense of direction and spent what felt like years drifting in one direction without ever seeing land. I decided to plunge into the ocean. The blue abyss became blacker and blacker the deeper I went until all around me was nothing. I could hear nothing, see nothing and feel nothing. I knew I hadn’t reached the bottom because I would have felt resistance. I lost sense of what was up and what was down.
“I remembered how I had always feared this. Why had I come here? What was the point? Would I ever see the sun again? I willed so hard that I could stop existing. I tried with every ounce of my being to just fade away.
“I lingered there for an eternity.
“Eventually I felt resistance. I had hit something. Whether it was the bottom of the ocean or the wall of a cliff, I didn’t know but I resigned myself to going in the opposite direction. Black became blue once again. And I finally emerged from my once eternal darkness. I followed a passing cruise ship to somewhere where everyone speaks Spanish. Where once I would have found joy in seeing happy families enjoy a vacation, I now felt nothing.
“One day I will return to my eternal abyss. I will be fully conscious of the black nothingness that will surround me for eternity. But there is one last thing I must do. I must find the one who spoke to me in their sleep. I must have one last real conversation and tell my story. I have to try.”