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41. DEATH'S TERRIFYING PORTAL (Dec. 2003)
Americans believe in self-improvement and overcoming obstacles. Faced with a
crisis, a challenge, a problem, there is someone or something out there to
overcome it: a doctor, a diet, a course, a book, a psychiatrist, a set of
weights, a pill, a spiritual guide...
I was in Tower Records
and picked up a paperback called Death: A User's Guide, by Tom Hickman. I
saw he said that when we die our senses disappear in this order: Sight. Taste.
Smell. Touch. Hearing. Suddenly, I imagined myself sightless, lying on my back
on a bed. I was sightless because death was coming. I could taste, but there
would never be anything to taste again. I could smell-- the sickly medic smell
of my sickroom. Then I was trapped, gripping the sheet. I could feel the
sheet, but suddenly it grew soft, and wasn't there at all. Not the bed. I was
floating. I was not at peace, I was panicking, my heart giving its last beats,
my mind was working, I was aghast, conscious to the last, I could still hear
voices around me: "Is he dead?", one whispered. I wanted to rise in a volcanic
eruption of life, and SCREAM, but............
Back standing, alive in
the store.
Knowing, utterly
defeated.
No doctor.
No diet.
No course.
No book.
No psychiatrist.
No set of weights.
No pill.
And as for the spiritual
guides-- damn them all.
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