My Descent into Death- A Second Chance at Life Read online

  2

  ___________

  THE DESCENT

  I was standing up. I opened my eyes to see why I was standing up. I was between the two hospital beds in the hospital room. This wasn't right. Why was I alive? I had wanted oblivion, escape from the all-consuming, unbearable pain.

  “Could this be a dream?” I kept thinking. “This has got to be a dream.” But I knew that it wasn't. I was aware that I felt more alert, more aware, and more alive than I had ever felt in my entire life. All my senses were extremely vivid. Everything around and in me was alive. The linoleum tiles on the floor were slick and cool and my bare feet felt moist and clammy against them. The bright light of the room illuminated every detail in crystal clarity. The mix of odors of stale urine, sweat, residue of bleach from the sheets, and enamel paint filled my nostrils. The sounds of my breathing and the blood rushing through my veins hummed in my ears. The surface of my skin tingled with the sensations of air moving across it. My mouth tasted stale and dry. How bizarre to feel all of my senses heightened and alert, as if I had just been born. Thoughts raced through my mind. “This is no dream. I am more alive than I have ever been.”

  This is too real. I squeezed my fists and was amazed how much I was feeling in my hands just by making a fist. I could feel the bones in my hands, the muscles expand and contract, skin pressed against skin. I touched my body with my hands in several places and everything was intact, alive. My head, shoulders, arms, abdomen, and thighs were all intact. I pinched myself and it hurt. I was aware of the problem in my stomach, but it was not as severe as before. It was more of a memory of the pain. I was profoundly aware of my situation and of the necessity of having an operation as soon as possible. In every respect, I was more alive than I had ever been in my life.

  I looked at my roommate, Monsieur Fleurin, and his eyes were half closed. I turned and looked at Beverly sitting in the chair next to my bed. She was motionless, staring at the floor. She looked physically exhausted and emotionally drained. I spoke to her but she didn't seem to hear. She sat absolutely motionless. I gave up trying to talk to her for the moment because something between us caught my attention.

  There was an object in the bed under the sheet. As I bent over to look at the face of the body in the bed, I was horrified to see the resemblance that it had to my own face. It was impossible that that thing could be me because I was standing over it and looking at it. I was looking down at a facsimile of my hands, arms, torso, legs, and feet under the sheet. It looked like my face, but it looked so meaningless, like a husk, empty and lifeless. I was standing there next to the bed and staring at the object in the bed. Everything that was me, my consciousness and physical being, was standing next to the bed. No, it wasn't me lying in the bed, it was just a thing that didn't have any importance to me. It may as well have been a slab of meat in the supermarket.

  The impossibility of the situation set my mind reeling. It occurred to me that I must have gone crazy. Somehow I had split my being into two parts. I was schizophrenic, completely mad, delusional. Yet I had never felt more alert and conscious. I wanted desperately to get through to Beverly, and I started yelling for her to say something, but she remained frozen in the chair next to the bed. I screamed and raged at her, but she just ignored me. No matter how loudly I yelled or cursed at her, there was no reaction. Her eyes didn't even blink. It was impossible that she couldn't hear me screaming.

  I turned around to Monsieur Fleurin in the bed behind me. I bent over him and yelled inches from his face, “Why are you ignoring me?” He looked right through me as though I were not even there. I could see the droplets of spittle hitting his face as I screamed at him. He stared right through me as if I were invisible. Nothing worked the way it was supposed to. I became increasingly upset as anger, fear, and confusion filled me.

  The hospital room was brightly lit. Everything was vividly clear. All of the details of the room were extremely sharp and distinct. Every nuance in the linoleum floor, every bump in the paint on the steel bed was magnified. I had never viewed the world with such clarity and exactness. Everything was in such extreme focus that it was overwhelming. My sense of taste and touch and temperature were exploding. The taste in my mouth was revolting because it was so overpowering. “What's happening to me? This is so real! But how can this be?”

  Maybe, I thought, they had built a wax replica of me while I was unconscious. They could have made a quick-drying mold of my face and put it on a dummy while I was out and put it in the bed. But why would they do that? Is this some kind of test to see how I would react? This doesn't make any sense. How else could this happen?

  Off in the distance, outside the room in the hall, I heard voices calling me. “Howard, Howard,” they were calling. They were pleasant voices, male and female, young and old, calling me in English. None of the hospital staff spoke English so clearly; they couldn't pronounce the name “Howard” very well. I was hopelessly confused. Beverly and Monsieur Fleurin didn't seem to hear them. I asked who they were and what they wanted.

  “Come out here,” they said. “Let's go, hurry up. We've been waiting for you for a long time.”

  “I can't,” I said. “I'm sick. Something's the matter with me; something's wrong in here. I need an operation. I am very sick!”

  “We can get you fixed up,” they said. “If you hurry up. Don't you want to get better? Don't you want help?”

  I was in an unknown hospital in a foreign country, in an extremely bizarre situation, and I was afraid of those people calling me. They were irritated by my questions, which were only attempts to find out who they were. The hallway looked strange as I moved closer to the door. I had a feeling that if I left the room, it might be impossible to get back in. But I couldn't communicate with my wife and I couldn't communicate with my roommate. The voices continued to say, “We can't help you if you don't come out here.” After more unanswered questions, I assumed they must be here to take me to my operation. Who else could they be? I decided to follow them rather than remain in a room where everyone ignored me. After all, I needed surgery.

  I stepped out into the hall, full of anxiety. The area seemed to be light but very hazy, like a television screen with terrible reception. I couldn't make out any details. It was like being in a plane passing through thick clouds. The people were off in the distance and I couldn't see them very clearly. But I could tell that they were male and female, tall and short, old and young adults. Their clothes were gray and they were pale. As I tried to get close to them to identify them, they quickly withdrew deeper into the fog. So I had to follow farther and farther into the thick atmosphere. I could never get closer to them than ten feet. I had lots of questions. Who were they? What did they want? Where did they want me to go? What was the matter with my wife? How could this be real? They wouldn't answer anything. Their only response was to insist that I hurry up and follow them.

  They told me repeatedly that my problems were meaningless and unnecessary. In emotional distress, I followed them, shuffling along in my bare feet with the memory of the pain in my belly, feeling very much alive. I was moist with perspiration, quite confused, but not at all tired. I knew that I had a problem that must be operated on right away. They appeared to be my only hope.

  Every time I hesitated, they demanded that I keep up. They continued to repeat the promise that if I followed them, my troubles would end. We walked on and on, and my repeated inquiries were rebuffed. They insisted on hurrying to get to our destination.

  During the journey, I attempted to count how many of these people there were and figure out something about their individual identities, but I couldn't. The fog thickened as we went on, and it became gradually darker. They moved around me and their numbers seemed to be increasing. I was confused about the direction we were taking. I knew that we had been traveling for miles, but I had the strange ability to occasionally look back and see through the doorway of the hospital room, although the door was getting smaller and smaller. That body was still there, lying motionless on the bed. Beverly was sitting there as frozen as she had been when this surreal experience first began. It seemed many miles away, but I could still see it off in the distance.

  All the while we were walking, I was trying to pick up some clues as to where we were going by what we were walking on. There were no walls of any kind. The floor or ground had no features; there was no incline or decline. It was like walking on a smooth, slightly damp, cool floor. How could this hospital hallway be so long? How could this same unvarying plane go on forever? When would we go uphill or downhill? Sometimes I had a strange feeling that we might be subtly descending.

  I also couldn't make out how much time was passing. There was a profound sense of timelessness. This was strange because, as a teacher, I had been able to estimate when I had talked for a certain length of time. I only knew that it seemed like we had been walking a long, long while. I kept asking when we were going to get there. “I'm sick,” I said. “I can't do this.” They became increasingly angry and sarcastic. “If you'd quit moaning and groaning, we'd get there,” they said. “Move it, let's go, hurry up!” The more questioning and suspicious I became, the more antagonistic and authoritarian they became. They were whispering about my bare rear end, which wasn't covered by my hospital gown, and about how pathetic I was. I knew they were talking about me, but when I tried to hear exactly what they were saying, they would say to one another, “Shhh, he can hear you, he can hear you.”

  They didn't appear to know what I was thinking, and I didn't know what they were thinking. What was increasingly clear to me was that they were deceiving me. The longer I stayed with them, the further away escape would be.

  Back in the hospital room, an eternity before, I had hoped to die and end the torment of life. Now I was being for
ced by a mob of unfeeling people toward some unknown destination in the encroaching darkness. They began shouting and hurling insults at me, demanding that I hurry along. The more miserable I became, the more enjoyment they derived from my distress.

  A terrible sense of dread was growing within me. This experience was too real. In some ways I was more aware and sensitive than I had ever been. Everything that was happening couldn't be possible, yet it was happening. This was not a dream or hallucination, but I wished that it were. Everything I had experienced before this was a dream compared to the way that I was now experiencing reality. I was frightened, exhausted, cold, and lost. It was clear that the help these terrible beings had first promised was just a ruse to trick me into following them. I was reluctant to go farther, but any hesitation on my part brought abuse and insults. They told me we were almost there, to shut up and take a few more steps.

  A few of the voices attempted a conciliatory tone that amused the others. Among themselves the mood was one of excitement and triumph.

  For a long time I had been walking with my gaze down to watch my step. When I looked around I was horrified to discover that we were in complete darkness.

  The hopelessness of my situation overwhelmed me. I told them I would go no farther, to leave me alone, and that they were liars. I could feel their breath on me as they shouted and snarled insults. Then they began to push and shove me about. I began to fight back. A wild frenzy of taunting, screaming, and hitting ensued. I fought like a wild man. As I swung and kicked at them, they bit and tore back at me. All the while it was obvious that they were having great fun. Even though I couldn't see anything in the darkness, I was aware that there were dozens or hundreds of them all around and over me. My attempts to fight back only provoked greater merriment. As I continued to defend myself, I was aware that they weren't in any hurry to annihilate me. They were playing with me just as a cat plays with a mouse. Every new assault brought howls of cacophonous laughter. They began to tear off pieces of my flesh. To my horror, I realized that I was being taken apart and eaten alive, methodically, slowly, so that their entertainment would last as long as possible.

  While I couldn't see in this total darkness, every sound and every physical sensation registered with horrifying intensity.

  These creatures were once human beings. The best way I can describe them is to think of the worst imaginable person stripped of every impulse of compassion. Some of them seemed to be able to tell others what to do, but I had no sense of there being any organization to the mayhem. They didn't appear to be controlled or directed by anyone. Simply, they were a mob of beings totally driven by unbridled cruelty.

  In that darkness I had intense physical contact with them when they swarmed over me. Their bodies felt exactly as human bodies do except for two characteristics. They had very long, sharp fingernails, and their teeth were longer than normal. I'd never been bitten by a human being before this.

  During our struggle they felt no pain. Other than their lack of feeling, they appeared to possess no special abilities. During my initial experience with them they were clothed. In our intimate physical contact I never felt any clothing.

  The level of noise was excruciating. Countless people laughed, yelled, and jeered. In the middle of this bedlam I was the object of their desire. My torment was their excitement. The more I fought, the greater their thrill.

  Eventually I became too badly torn up and too broken to resist. Most of them gave up tormenting me because I was no longer amusing, but a few still picked and gnawed at me and ridiculed me for no longer being amusing. I had been torn apart. In that wretched state I lay there in the darkness.

  I haven't described everything that happened. There are things that I don't care to remember. In fact, much that occurred was simply too gruesome and disturbing to recall. I've spent years trying to suppress a lot of it. After the experience, whenever I did remember those details, I would become traumatized.

  3

  ___________

  ALONE

  As I lay on the ground, my tormentors swarming around me, a voice emerged from my chest. It sounded like my voice, but it wasn't a thought of mine. I didn't say it. The voice that sounded like my voice, but wasn't, said, “Pray to God.” I remember thinking, “Why? What a stupid idea. That doesn't work. What a cop-out. Lying here in this darkness, surrounded by hideous creatures, I don't believe in God. This is utterly hopeless, and I am beyond any possible help whether I believe in God or not. I don't pray, period.”

  A second time, the voice spoke to me, “Pray to God.” It was recognizably my voice, but I had not spoken. Pray how? Pray what? I hadn't prayed at any time in my entire adult life. I didn't know how to pray. I wouldn't know what the right words were even if I could pray. I can't pray!

  That voice said it again, “Pray to God!” It was more definite this time. I wasn't sure what to do. Praying, for me as a child, had been something I had watched adults doing. It was something fancy and had to be done just so. I tried to remember prayers from my childhood experiences in Sunday school. Prayer was something you memorized. What could I remember from so long ago? Tentatively, I murmured a few lines—a jumble from the Twenty-third Psalm, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the Lord's Prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, and “God Bless America,” and whatever other churchly sounding phrases came to mind.

  “Yea, though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. For purple mountain majesty, mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. Deliver us from evil. One nation under God. God Bless America.”

  To my amazement, the cruel, merciless beings tearing the life out of me were incited to rage by my ragged prayer. It was as if I were throwing boiling oil on them. They screamed at me, “There is no God! Who do you think you're talking to? Nobody can hear you! Now we are really going to hurt you.” They spoke in the most obscene language, worse than any blasphemy said on earth. But at the same time, they were backing away. I could still hear their voices in the utter darkness, but they were getting more and more distant. I realized that saying things about God was actually driving them away. I became a little more forceful with what I was saying. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, God is going to get you. Leave me alone, the Lord is my shepherd, and one nation under God, and . . .” Retreating, they became more rabid, cursing and screaming against God. They claimed that what I was praying was worthless and that I was a coward, a nothing. In time they retreated back into the distant gloom, beyond my hearing. I knew they were far away but could return.

  I was alone, destroyed, and yet painfully alive in this revoltingly horrible place. I had no idea where I was. At first, when I was walking with these people, I had thought we were in some foggy part of the hospital. In time, I realized we had gone somewhere else. Now I didn't know if I was even in the world. How could this be the world?

  There was no indication of a direction to follow even if I had been physically able to crawl. The agony that I had suffered during the day in the hospital was nothing compared to what I was feeling now. The all-consuming physical pain was secondary to the emotional pain. Their psychological cruelty to me was unbearable.

  I was alone in that darkness for time without measure. I thought about what I had done. All my life I had thought that hard work was what counted. My life was devoted to building a monument to my ego. My family, my sculptures, my painting, my house, my gardens, my little fame, my illusions of power, were all an extension of my ego. All of those things were gone now, and what did they matter? All those things that I had lived for were lost to me, and they didn't mean a thing.

  All of my adult life I had been strong and confident that I could take care of myself. Now I was a worm cast into the outer darkness and had neither any strength nor power, nor my inner rage, to protect me. This ordeal had stripped me of all of my defenses.