Between

I’m awake, but my eyes will not open and I cannot hear or feel anything. My body appears to be paralyzed as I cannot feel my fingers, arms or legs nor can I move them. I also have no sense of contact with the ground or whatever I may be sitting or laying on. There is no gravity I can sense. Am I dead? Is this what awaits on the other side? I am not impressed so far. Spending eternity like this is gonna suck! I am forgetting something important I had to do, but I don’t know what.

Okay, let’s take a balanced and rational approach to this. My senses are not performing as I am used to, I am without any stimulus that I can sense on or in my body - if I still have one. I feel fine with no aches or pains or even thirst or hunger. I am not tired, and I don’t think I am dreaming any of this. I have no bearings or inner ear functions to inform if I am upright, laying down or floating in the air. Nothing, just what I think my mind is saying to me as I ponder on these questions to get some idea of where I am and what the hell happened to me…and what I am forgetting.

The last thing I recall is waking up in this predicament with no earlier memories at all. What’s my name? Where do I live? Who are my family and friends and where are they now? I gotta be dead and this is just some stage I’m going through in the grand scheme of life and death and making the transition from one side to the other. Yeah, that’s it. It will all be sorted out in time, but I have no sense of time. How long has it been since I woke up in this state? FUCK! This is frustrating!

Can I make noise? Let’s try a loud shout. “AAAAGG!!!” I didn’t hear anything inside this skull like I used to – so am I now mute or deaf, or both? What if all those religious warnings I heard as a kid growing up are in fact real? Is this purgatory where I am on hold in a line of other beings waiting for the Grand Architect to take me to the next stage? I wonder if and when I may be required to defend my life to St. Peter, what will I say?

My memory does not function like it should, so how do I know if I was a bad or a good person? Does St. Pete ask questions I am to answer or do I have to make some presentation that will determine my place in eternity? You know, this is the kind of stuff they should teach in Sunday School so we will know what to do when we arrive in this time and place…but I suspect we probably would not remember it anyway.

An FAQ for this procedure would be a good idea too, but as I am currently unable to see or read- what good would it do? I don’t feel anxious like something bad is about to happen, I just am. A bubble of Id waiting to discover or be discovered in this long slow process, but to what? I am frustrated in forgetting what is so important for me to do.

Well no point in wasting an opportunity - what can I learn while I’m in this predicament? Is this place and situation supernatural in any way? Are there secrets I can learn while I’m here? Am I here forever? I’m pretty sure this is not the meaning of life. But what then could it be?

Let’s try the Zen approach, just relax my mind, let it wander and see where it lands and what may be revealed. Nothing. No light, no sounds, no feelings…Nothing! My memories will not come when I try to recall the past, its just a thick cloud of vapour with no discernible patterns to be seen or imagined. That sense of forgetting something important still yells at my being. There is no sense of time passing either; no past or future, just now that continues to unfold in all directions, and in each direction it is meaningless for any clues to where I am and why I`m here.

What if there is a problem with the Grand Scheme and I am caught in some procedural failing which is halting my progress to the future and a better life - or afterlife I guess it is now? I sure hope somebody or something is monitoring my progress through this ordeal and will act as required if a fault is found to be influencing my advancement.

God! It seems like I’ve been here forever doing nothing but trying to determine what my situation is. Seconds, hours, days or weeks, they’re all the same and are meaningless without some static point to measure them against.

Did I go through the wrong portal and end up here in Oblivion, or is it Limbo where the powers that be are determining my next chapter? If so I wish they’d hurry up and move this show along. Even at the gates of Eternity I am growing impatient as I feel I have things unknown and forgotten yet to do.

Wait! I think I heard a couple dull thumps out there somewhere. There they go again but on and on they now continue, and they appear to be getting closer. I think my hearing is coming back, still darkness all around me when I try to see, and I can now feel a soft warm pressure enveloping my whole body. I can sense gravity once again, up and down have some meaning to me. Its as if a switch has been thrown and I am regaining my functions once again.

I CAN MOVE MY ARMS AND LEGS! Did a whale swallow me? It feels like I’m in something warm, wet and gooey to the touch.

My senses are returning slowly but yet they feel different than what I think I can remember them as before. I do feel strong and healthy which is good as I am now being squeezed for short periods of time becoming a not unpleasant sensation as the intensity starts as strong and firm and reduces slowly. There it goes again, and I can feel pressure building all around me. I’m excited and anxious, curious too, what’s happening to me? What did I forget?

Off in some distance I heard a cry of alarm or pain – perhaps both, then it was gone for a while. Something is definitely happening now, things are changing around me, but I don’t know what. The pressure on my body is increasing and it comes in spasms, the crying sounds continue. I can feel movement like a ship rolling on waves of water. I feel anxious like something is about to happen.

Jesus Christ! Something is squeezing my head hard and I feel the pressure around me increasing in its intensity and pulsing rhythm. The squeezing of my head continues and I can feel something rubbing from the top to the bottom of my face. Then brilliant white light blinds me as the pressure is the strongest yet and suddenly, I feel a cool breeze all over as hands begin touching me - lifting me. My sight returns but everything I see is alien to me. The pressure has stopped, I feel the sensation of movement as my eyes adjust to the light and I see I’m in a pastel green room with a couple of people in it.

Holy Shit! I’m a newborn baby! My hearing returns and I can hear a cacophony of sounds coming from the other people in the room. I am moving in the air again towards a woman laying on a bed. It’s my wife Shelly! I now remember what was so important that I forgot, Shelly went into labour and I was on my way to the hospital for the birth. I am that baby!

I am placed on her stomach and chest. She embraces me and kisses the top of my head gently and I feel fully and completely at peace as if I have achieved what was so important for me to remember. But everything is now beginning to fade, and I am changing once again.

I am lifted and I feel a sharp bright pain in my belly that only lasts for a second or two, but a burning sensation remains. Again, I am lifted, and I hear the nurse holding me say, “Poor little guy. Its such a terrible way to begin a life.”

I hear a question from another nearby, “What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing, he’s perfect, healthy and strong, but we just learned that his father was in an accident on his way here for the birth.”

“Is he okay?”

“Sadly no, he died downstairs in the ER about twenty minutes ago, Dr. Morgan has to inform the mother now. What a horrible thing to have to do, and for the father to be so close and not get to see his son.”

I see a bright white light coming towards me, I am drawn into it and suddenly everything turns to black.