I remember being told once that after death, the human brain continues to function for seven minutes. The idea being that the shutdown process takes more time than the death itself, as chemicals are still firing and all motor functions slowly come to a stop for good. Some, more religious people, would say these seven minutes are how long it takes the soul to go to its final resting place or that the soul may even stick around for as long as a couple days or so. Scientific minds may say it’s the innate fighting nature of all living creatures, an instinct which has existed since life began, the desire to live. All of that; is a lie.
Last week, I was murdered. It’s a bummer I know. No need to offer condolences or anything like that. I’m not sure it’s much of a loss. It’s not like I was a saint or anything. Besides, I hadn’t spoken to my friends in years and all of my closest relatives have long since passed away themselves. To be honest, part of me was expecting to see them again some day in the afterlife or whatever. But I guess that’s probably a lie too. For the most part, I feel like I’ve come to terms with the whole being murdered thing.
I was drunkenly walking home one night after closing out my local bar, and a stranger pulled up to ask if I needed a ride. Everything is a bit of a blur after that. Memories have been harder to access these days. I remember a rag over my mouth, a dark forest off some back road, a dark gravely laugh, the sound of a zipper, rope around my neck…an ice pick in my lung, in my heart, against my ribs…pain, white and hot…
After I stopped breathing I thought that would be the end of it. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel or just impending blackness, or some bullshit in that vein. And yet, when the dawn came, my hazy glazed over eyes stared above at a clear blue sky. Trees cast shade over me and the sounds of birds and such floated into my muffled ears. And that’s where I had been ever since.
Minutes continued to pass, then hours. One week, slowly turned into months. And I laid there, trapped inside my own rotting corpse, watching the world around me continue to spin. Life went on. Just, for everyone else. I could no longer participate.
For a while, it was pretty boring. That is, until two horrifying realizations dawned on me. One was that I could still feel everything. Who’s to say if my brain was actually still processing signals sent by my dead nerve endings or if it was some sort of phantom feeling born out of habit or expectation. The second realization was that I was being eaten.
I may have been dead, but the bugs, the rodents, the birds, and more…they were still very much alive. And I was the prime meal of choice. I felt every tingling, wriggling sensation on my skin. I felt it in my stinging stab wounds, in my guts. And the pain. The burning, gnawing pain at every single part of my being, my former shell. I longed to scream. To fill my lungs with air and shout, I wanted to jump up and brush them off me. I wanted the bugs out of me. But I could not. I was dead. And I felt each minute of my decomposition.
I don’t know how long it was, maybe another week, perhaps longer before I heard my first signs of civilization again. Two teenage boys crunched their way through my little neck of the woods, stumbling across my body while they were busy sneaking a drink and joking around with each other. Their chaotic footsteps came to an abrupt stop and there was a long moment of stunned silence as they stared at me.
“Holy shit!” One said. “It’s a fuckin dead guy. Check this shit out!” He called, running closer to me. “Gross.” He said. God, I couldn’t even imagine what I must’ve looked like at this point.
“That’s sick. Oh my god.” Another said. His voice was muffled, like he was covering his mouth with a hand or an arm.
“Fuuuuck. Poor bastard. How long do you think he’s been here?” The first one questioned.
“Who knows, dude? Let’s get out of here. He’s disgusting. Besides, what if cops show up looking for him? I don’t want to get in trouble or anything, my dad would kill me.” His friend urged.
“Chill dude. Look at him. You think cops are going out of their way to find this guy?” He replied. That jab felt a little harsh to me.
The first kid took a few steps closer. I felt the ground beside me compress down as he approached. He leaned over me and stared down, giving me a good look at him for the first time. He eyed me with hazel colored eyes, his black hair greasy from days of not being washed, pimples riddled his pasty cheeks, and piercings graced his lips and nose.
“Jesus he fuckin stinks.” He said to my face. Now he was just being rude. It’s not like he was some adonis. And it’s not like I could smell him, but I doubted it would be a pleasant experience.
“Come on Jack, I can’t do this. He looks–uh–and that…smell–uh. I think I’m gonna–” Jack’s friend said before he collapsed to the floor and vomited. Thankfully he was far enough away that none of it got on me. That was the last thing I needed at this point. “Fuck. Come on.” He croaked. Jack continued to stare, snorting loudly before spitting a large loogie onto my forehead. What a charmer.
“Yeah, let’s go.” Jack said, slipping out of my line of sight. “We gotta grab the guys and show them this shit.” And with that, I was left alone with the bugs once again.
Their feast continued. Flys, born of the maggots from my liver, landed on my eyes. I felt their legs crawl across my corneas, examining me with hungry curiosity. And then I got to see what flies’ mouths looked like. Up close and personal. When they finally satiated their appetites, I was left with nothing but darkness, deep and vast. All I could do was listen to the world around me.
Without my sight, I lost track of the days as they went. My existence became little more than sounds and pain. The sound of chirping, critters crawling, and wood settling. The pain of squirrels chewing at my legs, the foxes fighting over my fingers.
Soon buzzing filled my right ear as did a familiar gnawing and then, silence. The movement continued as they burrowed through and began to slowly fill my skull, slurping up all of the nutrients that was left inside. Things began to get fuzzy after that.
Then, out of my left ear, I heard the boys from earlier return with a group of their friends. They came to see the show.
“Come on, check this shit out, man!” Jack’s familiar voice reached me somewhere in the back of my mind. I could barely make any sense of anything that was going on. A roar of disgust and excitement, as well as more vomiting, filled the air.
“Jesus Christ.”
“You weren’t kidding bro. That’s fuckin sick.”
“Grooooss. His eyes have been eaten. Holy shit.”
“Mark, get over here! Don’t be such a pussy.”
“I told you!”
“No way dude… I can’t believe no one else has found him yet. Guy must’ve been some loser that nobody missed.” Well, they weren’t wrong, I thought.
Their jeers and jokes continued for a while. Hours, days, I couldn’t really follow time anymore. At some point they took off and in the silence, my mind began to drift.
How long had it been, now? How long would I be here? God I felt so tired. I just wanted to sleep. I guess that old saying, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” was a lie as well. Figures. I just wanted to die…oops too late. The brain continues to function for seven minutes after death, my ass! I thought bitterly, as newborn maggots continued chomping down my brain.
At this point…I don’t even remember what it was like to be alive. This darkness, this muffled silence as all the sound that still reached me all melded together into white noise that faded into the background. This was all I knew. This was my existence. Nothingness.
I was pulled from my thoughts by a new sound. A heavy sniffing in my ear. At first the thought crossed my mind that it was probably another fox, come to eat the maggots out of my skull. But then a voice reached me.
“What is it girl? What did you find?” The dog owner questioned. And then, a loud shriek pierced the air and leaves scrambled about. “Get away from that! No! Don’t touch that. Come on, we’re calling the police. Come on. Come!” They yelled.
How about that? Someone was actually going to find my body. I wondered how long it finally took. I must’ve been waiting for a while. What was even left of me? The wriggling in my skull turned to buzzing. It sounded like what was left of my brain was finally going.
The sounds of several footsteps registered somewhere in the back of my mind. The buzzing in my skull grew.
“Poor bastard.” I heard. I felt light headed…pun not intended.
“Well at least he’s in a better place right? He doesn’t have to hurt anymore.”
Haha, I thought. If only they knew. The buzzing in my head began to fade. There was nothing left to eat I guess. I wonder if