Why Nothing is the Same

While I was having open heart surgery, something went wrong and I was clinically dead for four minutes. I drifted out my body like a plume of smoke and floated off into a corner of eternity. Generally, people who have life-after-life experiences say that they can’t wait to go back, but I’m not sure. I wish there had been more time to explore everything.

I’ve been wearing green contact lenses for years because people are less likely to ignore me that way. They made me remove them for the surgery. I cached them in a safe place, but I can’t remember where that was.  I can’t afford new ones, so my eyes are blue now, watery baby blue. Nobody commented on the change. My family and friends have adjusted to my chameleon nature, changing eye colour, hair colour, body composition, and tattoos. Not even I am sure who I am sometimes.

My mother used to tell me that I needed to relax and be myself instead of twisting myself out of shape. That is never going to happen. My blueprints were lost forever decades ago.

When I woke up from the surgery, I sensed a presence in my head, observing me, monitoring the dance of my neurotransmitters, intruding into all the private niches of my soul. I thought it was a hallucination, a side effect of all the drugs that they were pumping into me. But now I am home, and that presence is still there, stronger than ever.

Yesterday, he introduced himself. He said his name was unpronounceable by humans, but I could call him Martin. He is my personal angel of death.

That came as a shock. “Angel of death! Am I going to die?”

“Everyone dies,” he said.

“I know that, but I was hoping to delay it for another twenty or thirty years. That’s why I agreed to the surgery.”

“It might be a while,” Martin said. “All I know is that I’m here to prepare you for your transition, and guide you through it.”

It might be helpful to have a guide. I don’t know anyone who has been through the death process and lived to tell the tale. It’s the Great Unknown, pure mystery.

But why does it have to be Martin? Couldn’t I get someone who knows how to shut up? Martin just keeps spouting aphorisms, suggestions, commentary, and leading questions to lure me into spilling my guts.

I've hinted several times, not too politely, that Martin could head back to where he came from, and return closer to my departure date. But he keeps saying, "Not until my work is finished." So I'm cursed by an invisible friend who makes every waking moment miserable with his incessant cryptology.

He says he wants to help me to live fully until the day I die. I don’t know what he means by that. Living fully is what people do when they have money to spend on travel and culture and education. I’m just a bum ferrying people around in a taxi, hoping to make enough money to buy a six pack of beer after all the bills are paid.

He tells me that I’ve constructed my own personal hell, and it’s time to set myself free to live my best life, to facilitate my transition to the Other Side.

I just want him to go away and stop bugging me. I’m going back to work next Monday, and the last thing I need is a smart-alecky hitchhiker in my brain commenting on everything.

I am what I am, and that will never change. I’m not going to waste my final days riding some wild emotional roller-coaster with a figment of my imagination.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” I asked. “Surely there are other potential clients who would welcome your services.”

“I’ve been assigned to you. You are unique. You are loved. You are my responsibility.”

He’s such a stubborn, smart-alecky brute. Reminds me of me in my earlier days, when I still had dreams and ambitions. I guess we’re stuck with each other. 

If I tell anyone, they’ll lock me up and medicate me until I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. That’s not the best life I had in mind.

“Martin, were you human once?”

“Not really. But I am very empathic, so I have some idea what you’re going through. It’s not easy to come face-to-face with your mortality.”

“What’s the Other Side like?”

Martin told me that the details are classified, but I would probably find it better than what I’ve been contending with here.

Meanwhile, he wants me to enjoy my life here as much as possible. That works for me, in theory. But his ideas of enjoyment are very different from mine. We’ll be arguing right up to my dying breath.

But I won’t be alone. That’s something.