What happens when we die? It’s a question as old as thought. One I have spent many a panicked night contemplating; staring up at the ceiling in anxious, uneven breaths, using whatever mental gymnastics I can to convince myself there is something more than just the atheists version of nothing. Trying as hard as I can to ignore how long eternity actually is. Losing sleep to my nightly existential crisis.
It was the morning after one of these sleepless nights that it happened. I had pulled myself out of bed when my alarm had gone off for the third time, fifteen minutes behind schedule. My morning routine was ruined and I knew that if I wanted to eat at all it was going to be on the run.
While the toaster cooked away, I haphazardly dressed and preemptively brushed my teeth to dispel my appalling morning breath. As soon as the toast had popped, I quickly slathered some jam on it and was out the door getting in the car.
Now they don’t recommend eating while driving. It creates a distracted driver, they say. I completely agree, and here’s why:
At some point I dropped my toast on my pants while attempting to hit my indicator. As toast only falls one direction, my crotch was now stained red with sticky strawberry jam. In a moment of exhaustion-induced decision making, I thought it to be a good idea to inspect the damage, taking my eyes off the road for but a second. What followed was a brief moment of excruciating pain followed by complete numbness and then nothing.
It seemed like an eternity of nothing. I had no inner voice, no thoughts of any kind, but somehow I could feel the passage of time. I wasn’t afraid, I couldn’t feel any emotion, I just was.
Slowly a brightness began to envelop me and my voice returned to my mind. I was formless in a land of light, surrounded by other formless beings. I couldn’t feel them as such, more I just knew they were there, and I could hear their thoughts as if they were my own. Most of them were just like me and were experiencing this for the first time. There were others who were always there and they were reassuring us that everything was going to be okay, and that we were exactly where we were meant to be.
We were guided along toward a golden mass of energy. Somehow, in my nonexistence, I could feel its warmth right to the core of my being. It spoke to us and said,
“You are right before the gates of heaven, where you will join those who had come before you for eternity.”
There were some that asked where their loved ones, who had joined them in the end, were, to which the eternal being answered,
“They had not devoted themselves to this end and as such were not pure. They were sent back to the place of pain and despair for trial until they are ready to ascend, just as you were. Come now,” it said. “It is time.”
We were ushered forward as the golden mass changed. It became dark and endless, like a black hole of nothing. As the first of us entered I could feel their panic as their life force was drained away; completely consumed by the void. Fear quickly spread through the rest of us as another was drawn in.
“Do not fear,” said one of the endless. “This is why you were created. This is how you will fulfil your service to us.”
It’s words were practically downed out by the screams of another consciousness being consumed. I wanted so desperately for there to be somewhere to go. Some way of just getting away, but I was no longer in control. My essence, my energy, was being sucked towards the endless being and I had no way of fighting back. All I could do was listen to the screams of the consumed, and feel their energy fade away to nothing, knowing that this was soon to be my own fate. Then there was a brief flash of black as my mind seemed almost to stutter, followed shortly by another longer one. I could feel myself being drawn away from the others. Another stutter, then pain. Real pain.
I awoke in an ambulance with two paramedics standing over me, one holding a defibrillator. They told me I was officially dead for three minutes but that they had managed to get my heart beating again.
While my memories of the pain eventually disappeared, I will never forget what I saw in those brief three minutes. I now have something new to keep me up at night.