Fading Light
They told me I had seven months to live. In a way they were right, but in other ways they were wrong.
What does it mean to live? To my beautiful children it meant I could play catch and chase them around the local park until they could run no longer. To the rest of my family it meant I could talk and spend quality time with them. To my friends it meant I could go around on Saturday night pick up hockey and join them for a beer afterwards. To my boss it meant I could meet research deadlines.
But to the doctors it simply meant that my heart could beat. So while they were right that I had seven months to live, I didn’t in the ways that mattered.
I slowly left behind the world and the people I knew. I would see my kids’ youthful eyes looking through the glass at me wondering when I’d be healthy enough to take them to their favourite park again. I felt the transition from fluid thought like water to honey as my mind slowed down and visitor came less and less often. I felt the hope trickle away and I accepted that I was happy with all that I’d done in my life.
More than anything the beeping turning into a solid tone confused me. I was aware that my heart monitor couldn’t pick up my pulse anymore, but it didn’t make sense that I could hear it.
Death finally came. It was a slow process. My soul spread out in all different directions. Each attribute of what made me myself stretched and expanded, forming their own smaller clones.
Different colour mist swirled by snatching up parts of my soul. A black one devoured a good portion of them, but a greyish white mist that glowed caught many too.
This all happened while I watched suspended in time… space? I looked around and found I was surrounded, or rather everyone was surrounded since there seemed to be no end to the souls in any direction.
“Where am I?” I tried to whisper but nothing came out.
I later learned that I was in death. Partially. Another large chunk of me was in memory, and smaller parts of me were scattered across nostalgia, inspiration, love, regret and grief. Each emotion tugged at my soul like a toddler reaching for a new toy. They competed with each other. Not just for my soul, but for every soul. Over the years, as people thought about me less and less, it was neglect that ended up with the largest share of my soul.
Neglect was a whale and the other emotions in comparison were fish. I watched it all for a very long time. It saddened me when the part of my soul living in my children’s memory dissappeared so quickly, but soon I moved on too. Larger portions fell away when my partner and siblings died.
What surprised me, were all the bright spots I left behind that I didn’t even know about until I died. The servers at my favourite grab-and-go lunch spot. A business client long forgotten. But what surprised me most was when I had only one tether left. My hockey team that I would go out with on weekends. And then I was gone, completely engulfed by neglect. No one would ever say my name, think of my face or remember ever again for the rest of time.
While there was blooming world around me of emotions in the afterlife competiting for their hold on souls, there was nothing left for me. And so…
I let go.
608 words
May 07, 2023
all-stories