Death has been written about endlessly, both by writers of fiction and theologians. It seems everyone has an answer as to what happens when you die, yet it’s still considered so mysterious.
But take it from someone who has actually died, it really isn’t all that different from life, what with the politics, red-tape, and waiting in endless - eternally long lines.
(No joke, I once saw a spirit of a man I had reaped decades earlier, still waiting for his judgement. There was really nothing to do once that painfully awkward moment of recognition passed over his face, except nod and get the hell out of there).
Anyways, death isn’t as magical as it’s cracked up to be. Then again, neither is life. I’m obviously a bit cynical, I admit, but I feel like anyone would be after having been alive for over a century.
Yes, I’ve both died, and returned immortal. But not in that... undead, vampire way. More in a, made a hasty deal in a bad moment with the Grim Reaper, sort of way.
You see, I hadn’t expected the bullet that tore through my chest despite my living in constant fear of it. And that’s the thing really, you never expect Death to come for you. Not when you know logically it comes for everyone, and not even when you stare it in the face day in and day out as I had.
“Should we give him some more morphine?”
The fellow medic shrugged his shoulders, defeated. “What would be the point.” He wiped at the mud drying on his face, but it was futile, it was everywhere. Even pooling in the stretcher as it sank with the weight of the now dead soldier. “He’s already gone.”
I would like to point out that I wasn’t actually dead at this point. But it was 1918, and this was all happening right on the battlefield. So I’ve learned to forgive these poor fellows, who never could’ve saved me even if they had known I still had a heartbeat.
He was left there, in the unnatural stillness of no man’s land but for the buzzing of insects. Even wind dare not touch the sickly green/grey air, still smelling of the toxic gas of the last chemical attack. The flattened, dead space had only one visitor that day - a reaper.
Somewhere far from there, in an in-between place, clear of the smell and darkness of the battlefield, the Reaper offered the dead man a proposition. It was no more than a soft hum within him, but he understood every word and quickly accepted. As they all do when given the chance of eternal life while inching closer to the jaws of death.
And just like that, he was once again returned to the blood soaked ground beneath him, his body flooded with a horrendous pain, making him cry out from the joy of it.
As days turned into weeks while recovering at first in a field hospital and then a real one in England, Lieutenant John William Charles Hurst began to think that perhaps it was all a dream. A hallucination of near death. That was a thing... right?
He ignored his lack of taste, and dulled sense of smell. It was from the chemical war, of course. He’d heard all about the awful long-term affects the gases had on survivors.
The deadened colors weren’t so easily explained, but he’d suffered a trauma, not just death but years of war. Surely things were bound to happen and change. After all, he was lucky compared to not only the men around him, but the ones who would never make it back.
He was grateful. He said it over and over again, trying not to think too hard about the pit in his stomach - the feeling that something wasn’t right, something other than the horrors of war that he’d faced.
But soon, his determined chants of gratefulness in his mind began to mix with something else. It was quiet at first. Something wrong with his hearing perhaps? Then it became more insistent, clearer. Names he’d never heard, dates that hadn’t yet come to pass, and places he never knew existed.
It was a constant, never-ending stream. A barrage of noise and information overload that he was sure would drive him mad, if he wasn’t already. This was not a good moment in the life of John William Charles Hurst.
He was sent to a special home for returning soldiers, that weren’t quite ready to return just yet - or ever, he feared.
Then left alone in a room at his own request, something miraculous happened. Control.
He didn’t question how or why, but somehow, someway, he’d gained control of the noise in his mind. It was still there - always there - but now he could process, compartmentalize, and have conversations with others without wanting to smash his head on the nearest hard surface.
He was healing, he was sure.
Until the night he new he’d never be sick again.
Nightmares were a constant occurrence, they came with the territory of surviving war. Some nights he could fall back asleep, others, not so much.
This was one of those “not so much” nights.
Reading not doing the trick, Lieutenant Hurst shuffled into the restroom, knuckles white as he gripped the edges of the sink, he tried to clear his memory of the images of pain, fear, and of death that came so swiftly sometimes you wouldn’t even know it had already come and gone for your comrades, even as you spoke to them.
Once he was truly back home, he was determined to never look death in the face again, having already seen more than his fair share.
He didn’t understand it then, but now he knows why, as he glanced up into the mirror, the reflection was smiling - mocking him. As if it were all some cosmic joke. Pushing back with a startled gasp, John Hurst knew two things to be absolutely true.
His after death experience had been real, and he was not at all alone within his own body.