by Anthology
Hi, Sharon. Did I say this? Did I say this?
Did I say this?
Wow. I never noticed it before, but she looks incredib—
Black.
Bang.
Boom.
Bye.
12.
Ouch.
My head hurts.
I open my eyes, halfway through realizing that I still have eyes. But then the image of my living room ceiling registers and all hopes of understanding the afterlife vanish. Oh, damn. Was the heart attack just another false memory? Did I imagine it all?
What time is it? Maybe it’s still due. Still too groggy to get up, but, looking sideways, I look at the clock. It’s seven and five minutes. But then why am I not dead? Where’s Sharon? Did she go down to call the paramedics? But why would she if I’m fine? Maybe I didn’t take the pills. But then she should be here, we should be here together. Why do all my memories have her coming in at the right time?
I sigh. Whatever the hell this is, it’s reality.
I get up slowly. My body hurts, but it works.
Something catches my eye. Something about this room.
What? It looks exactly as it does in—I look down, and realize I’m not alone. Someone’s lying at my feet.
It takes a second to recognize the face and the body. That’s me! That’s my body!
13.
Well, this is new.
14.
I am—he is—whiter than I’d ever seen me. The back of his—my—head rests on the floor exactly on the spot that hurts me.
I thought the ongoing preposterousness of reality had prepared me for anything. But not for this.
It takes me a minute to get used to the situation. Still, it’s reality. Accept it. What do we have? Okay, here I am standing. Okay, here I am lying down. It seems like the me on the ground is the one who took the medicine. But then where’s Sharon? If I—he—keep/s lying around like this, nobody’s going to resuscitate him—me. I won’t come back to finish my research.
And what am I? A ghost? Am I—is he—already dead? Is this it? Are ghost stories real? Will I haunt my house or something until the end of time? I don’t accept that. I don’t know that I’m a ghost, all I know is that there’s another me lying there on the floor, not breathing.
I bend down and take his pulse—realizing that I’m as tangible as he is. So much for ethereal ghosts. No pulse. I put his—my—hand down. I don’t like this. I refuse to be like everyone else. I refuse to discover the secrets of the other side only after I’m completely dead.
I pick up the phone, and dial 911. I tell them I’m a neighbor. Better than telling them I’m the body. They’re on their way.
I should do CPR. I go down on my knees, turn the head, move it to clear the air passage. Just as I bend down to put my mouth over his, his hand lashes out and grabs my throat.
Before I realize what’s happening, I’m thrust against the floor, and he’s above me, an iron grip around my neck, squeezing, crushing it. I’m already seeing spots, and in between them is my own face, lips locked in malice.
“How do you like being dead,” he says, and his voice is a violent rasp. I have never hated as much as he does. I have never been as strong as him. His weight is on my chest. Can’t think. Have to breathe. Oh, damn, damn, damn. “How would you like to die again?” And he squeezes, and—gack!—I feel and hear my neck pipe snap. My neck explodes with pain and fluids and my lungs feel like—
15.
I open my eyes. People dressed like doctors standing over me. Disgustingly white ceiling. Smells like medicine. The hospital. They’ve brought me back. I’m alive. I’m breathing. I’m exhausted.
“He’ll be all right, now,” a man’s voice says.
Sharon pushes her way to the front.
“Are you all right? Is he all right?” I blink at her in acknowledgement. She hits my arm. “You idiot! You gave me such a scare! You were actually clinically dead for a few seconds!”
“Shh, leave him alone. Let him rest.”
“You were very lucky, sir,” a man’s voice again. “If your friend here had found you a minute later, we wouldn’t have been able to bring you back.”
Gee. What a coincidence.
16.
They put me in what passes for a room in the hospital. I’m supposed to sleep. It’s true that I’m tired and that my body’s exhausted, but I have to gather my thoughts, first, while the memories are still fresh and unclouded. Because this ‘other me’ who was strangling me is only one memory.
I have another.
I was at school again. I was ten years old. Or I was watching myself as a ten-year-old. I’m not sure which. Sometimes it felt like one, sometimes it felt like the other. Sometimes it felt like both.
In any case, it was recess. I was there with Sam, the stupidest kid in our class, who always had bubbles of snot in his left nostril. Thirty-or-so kids surrounded us.
“Lick my shoe,” I told him. And I remember thinking how unlike me this is.
“Come on,” he whined.
“Lick! My!! Shoe!!!”
And I remember thinking, feeling like an outsider for a moment, that I never did such a thing, that this is not a memory. And at the same time I recalled why Sam wasn’t leaving. That he had made a bet with me and promised to humiliate me if I lost, and that he was so certain of the outcome, that, if he lost, he would do anything I said.
Sam rubbed his hands on his pants and looked at me with desperate eyes. “Come on, choose something else,” he said again.
I was getting angry at him. And, yes, I remembered this anger. I remembered it clearly. “Lick. My. Shoe.”
“Please. Come on. Ask something else. Ask something normal.”
“Sam. I’m not forcing you to do anything. You’re the one who wanted to make the bet. You’re the one who said he’d do anything. You’re the one who gave his word. You said you would humiliate me if I lost.”
“Don’t make me.”
“You know what,” I raised my arms in acquiescence. “I won’t make you. Let’s take this out of my hands. Let’s make this democratic. Let’s vote.” I waved at the crowd as I turned to face them. “What do you say?” And as I spoke, I turned back to him, and faced the crowd. “Those who think he should lick my shoe, raise your hands.” And I felt joy and satisfaction at the storm of hands were raised. “Okay,” I motioned them to lower their hands. “Now. Whoever thinks he shouldn’t lick my boots, raise your hands.” I looked around. Not one hand was raised.
I turned around and looked at Sam. “Lick my shoe,” I said simply.
“Please, please,” he whispered.
“The people have spoken,” I gestured helplessly. “Do it now.”
Sam, a tear in his eye, fell to his knees in front of me. He looked up. “Please.”
“Do it.”
And he did it. I watched from the side with disgust, as he the child licked my shoe. This is not me. I am not like that.
Sam stopped and looked up.
“Okay?” He asked.
“Part of it is still dirty,” I told him. “Do it again.”
And then I was in the hospital again, brought back from the dead, looking up at the doctors hovering over me. Back from the dead. Or whatever that was.
17.
I have another memory, a third memory.
I was with Sharon. The both of us looked slightly older. It was probably two or three years from now. We were at my house, sitting on the floor, half our clothes off. Sharon was holding an open pistol in one hand, and a bullet in the other.
Sharon looked at me and said, “One bullet.” She dropped it into the cylinder.
“Now spin it.” I told her. She put the cylinder in place, then spun it. “Point it at me,” I said. She hesitated, then pointed it roughly at me, hand off the trigger. I put my hands around hers, and pointed the barrel at my chest.
“Finger on the trigger,” I told her.
She did as she was told.
“Fire,” I sa
id.
She looked at me. “Are you sure?” She was scared, but she liked it. There was excitement in her eyes.
I touched her knee without moving my chest. “Do it. Do it.” She shut her eyes. “Open your eyes, and do it.”
She pressed the trigger. My heart rate skyrocketed, but the pistol did not fire. She sighed. We kissed. The most passionate kiss I’ve ever known. For a moment I thought, wait, am I the one watching or am I the one being watched?
I took the pistol into my hand, and spun the cylinder. For a long time, she looked at it, and said nothing.
“Tell me,” I said. “This doesn’t work unless you tell me.”
She stared into my eyes for a long time. “Aim it at me,” she finally said.
I aimed it at her chest. She held the barrel in her hand, and slowly moved it down, so that it pointed at her upper thigh.
“Finger on the trigger,” she said.
I put my finger on the trigger.
Neither of us breathed. “Are you sure?” I asked.
There was a tear in her eye. I swear, she almost said ‘no’. But she said, “Do it.”
“Are you sure?”
With more force: “Do it!”
I pressed the trigger, and her leg exploded before me. Her scream was blood curdling. I should have aimed it at her chest. I should have aimed it at her chest! She was still screaming, writhing on the rug, when suddenly she was gone, replaced by the sterility of the hospital. I was back from the dead. Whereever that had been.
18.
Here’s my problem.
My memories always diverge. Which is why they’re not reliable. But it always turns out that at least one of them is supported by the facts. At least one is always ‘true’ by everyone else’s standards.
But I’m faced with three memories, none of which can be real. Another me that rose from the dead and wanted to kill me after I was already dead. A memory of an incident that never happened. A memory from the future that I know will never happen.
Somewhere in there lies the truth. Somewhere in there is the answer to the question ‘What happens after we die?’ All I have to do is find it.
If I die again—I could compare these three memories to the next three memories. If a couple match—if there is continuity—I’ll know that’s the one.
19.
A day and a half later, the doctors release me. Sharon takes me home.
“Sit down,” She says once we’re in.
I sit down.
“You had this planned, didn’t you?” She points at me. “You took some drug or something. You planned it down to the second, didn’t you? You planned to be dead by the time I got here, and made sure I got here on the second, with enough time to save you. That’s why you made sure I wouldn’t come even one minute later. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” I tell her quietly.
She shuts her eyes, and holds them with her fingers. “Why,” she says. “Why would you do that?”
I take her hand in mine. “There’s something on the other side, Sharon. I know it.”
She opens her eyes, the pain gone in the confusion. “What?!”
“There’s something after death. It’s not heaven, it’s not hell, it’s not ghosts, and it isn’t a white light, either. It isn’t any of that. But it isn’t blackness and nothingness. I know it.”
She shakes her head. “What are you talking about?”
“My fascination with death is scientific. I want to understand what it is. I want to finally pin this phenomenon down.”
“So you want to die?”
I look into her eyes. “Yes.”
She puts her hand on her mouth. I wait, but she says nothing. “Death is death,” she says finally. “It’s nothing. It’s less than nothing. When we die, we stop. That’s all there is to it, Joel. That’s all.”
“It isn’t,” my voice remains soft. “It is something we know nothing about, but it is something. I saw things.” And I see in her face a look I’ve seen in others, but had hoped never to see on hers. She’s trying not to say it, but I can see she’s thinking it: ‘You’re crazy.’ “Sharon, I died once. Before this. I was clinically dead. I had an out-of-body experience.”
“The mind playing tricks,” she hisses.
“That’s what I thought it was. But ... What I’d seen, it was something from my future. And seven years later, it happened. It happened, Sharon, just the way I’d seen. To the last detail. And it wasn’t my imagination. I want to explore death. I need to explore it. I want to die and be the first man to come back and report after having explored the phenomenon. This is a scientific experiment.”
“So you plan to die again?”
“Yes.”
“And again?”
“Yes. And again. Until I know what’s on the other side. And once I have all the information, I’ll decide whether I want to stay there permanently now, or whether I should wait a while.”
She shakes her head. “I ... I ... I can’t handle this.”
I sit down, tired. “I can’t help that.”
“Joel,” she says, “I can handle all the rest. All the crazy stuff. I love it, I really do. It’s—” She trails off for a minute. “I can deal with the rest. But not this. This is too much.”
“This is the rest, Sharon. It’s not a game. It was never a game. Dying is what everything else is all about.”
She shuts her eyes again, trying to control her emotions. A tear falls, despite her efforts. “Look. If you had an accident or something and you died—it happens. We all live with this. But knowing you’re going to die—that there’s no doubt about it?—walking into this with my eyes open? No. I can’t handle that.”
“Sharon ... “ This hurts. “I can’t help you.”
“Please ... “ she says slowly, and looks deep into my eyes. “Don’t ... die.”
I look away. “I can’t help you.”
“Please.”
I shut my eyes. “I can’t.”
There’s a long silence. Then steps growing distant. The door opens and closes.
I open my eyes. As always, I’m alone. Only I hurt.
I hope this never happened.
20.
I write all three memories of my death in a notebook, with as much detail as possible. I even record every thought I remember passed through my mind.
It would have been nice if I could have had a subject to perform these experiments on. Scientists would not treat my observations as reliable. But, odd as it sounds, there’s no one else whose observations I would trust more than mine. I may have too many memories, but once I die again, the memories that repeat will be, in my eyes, the true memories.
I’ll just have to wait a few more weeks before I’m well enough to commit suicide again.
In the meantime, all I can do is think about what I’ve seen.
21.
I wake up in the middle of the night, soaked with sweat. Another dream about Sam. I’ve been dreaming about him every night. About how I used to bully people. And my dreams have helped me remember. I don’t know why I thought it wasn’t like me to do things like that. I’ve obviously done a lot of them. I know a large part of me keeps shouting: ‘No, this didn’t happen. It isn’t like me!’ But it is. I know that it is. I remember it well.
I even remember my first death better. The memory is much more intense. I remember my mother telling me about my father’s death. I remember now how I felt betrayed at his having abandoned me. I remember how hard it was to cope without him. I remember how my mother couldn’t cope.
But that can’t be true; he’s still alive. No, how can he be? I remember his death like it was yesterday!
To make sure, I call him up. He answers his phone. He’s groggy, it’s the middle of the night. But he’s still alive. He never abandoned me! He’s still alive!
22.
I wake up in the middle of the night.
No! It couldn’t be!
That face, that woman’s face that I’d seen in t
he window when my mother told me the bad news—it was Sharon’s face!
But that can’t be. My memory’s inventing this. Sharon today is a few years younger than me, and the woman in the window looks the way Sharon looks now. That could definitely not have been reality.
Unless ...
Unless that part of my memory was a sight of the future, too. Had I seen Sharon’s face? Had I seen that part of my life that long ago? Or am I making it up now?
There’s no way to know. This isn’t as easy as looking up a license plate number. For this, I have to trust what I remember. And that’s the one thing I can’t do.
23.
Three weeks have passed since I died. Two-and-a-half nightmare-filled weeks since Sharon left me—there are no new notes pinned to the board. I still keep it up there. To assure myself that she was real.
Physically, I’m still recovering. Body’s still weak. It’ll probably be another month or so before I’m healthy enough to commit suicide again. Meanwhile, I’m burning time watching television. There’s a documentary now about maggots. I swear I’ve seen it before, but I don’t remember when. Still, I’ve already heard every word and seen every image. Oh, well. It will come to me.
Suddenly there’s a rustling behind me. I turn around. It’s the sound of a key in the lock. Panic. Quickly, I think, who has a key? Has anyone called? No one ever comes.
The lock turns. I get up. I’m not strong enough to fight a burglar—I almost gasp. It’s Sharon. Wearing a suit and carrying a suitcase. She must have come here right from work.
She puts her suitcase on the floor, comes into the living room, and sits beside me. I look at her. She looks at the television. I sit back down.
“What are we watching?” She says.
“A documentary.”
“What’s it about?”
“Maggots.”
“Cool.”
24.
She goes to sleep in my bed, cuddling up beside me.
Halfway through the night, I feel her hand making its way across my chest. I feel it going down, and up, going all over me. I respond in kind.
An hour later, we’re into the best sex I’ve ever had, and although not a word has been exchanged, I know what’s going through her mind. She is just as scared of my death as she was when she stormed out of here. But she’s also turned on by it. Death excites her.
