The Dream

CHAPTER 16

I saw the body on the table before I saw the five blue figures surrounding it. 

The room was spinning when I first broke through the barrier of life and death. Or was I the one spinning? The monotone grey and white paint along the walls transformed into a smear as if someone had taken a large brush stroke across the entire room. Soon the whole landscape looked as though it were being flushed down a toilet. Myself included. Round and round we went until I popped through the ceiling. The blue figures took shape as I watched the nurses and doctor from my perched vantage point. Neither of them took notice of my presence as I floated overhead and watched earnestly the procedure they were performing. I could not make out the face of the body on the table through the air tube and mask, and all the moving arms and blue gloves of the nurses and doctor.

Two of the nurses continuously passed the silver tools from a nearby table back and forth to the surgeon while the other two nurses assisted in lighting, entering and exiting the room with more supplies, or holding up an IV. It was as though the surgeon had his two designated assistants and each of them in turn had their own as well. Their movements were methodical, almost rehearsed as they worked like worker ants--ceaselessly and tirelessly--towards their goal.

The surgeon feverishly hovered over the fleshy body lying on the table like a child does his green soldiers he's mounting for an attack against the forces of evil in Castle Lancaster. He was the King, and the nurses his loyal subjects, his court jesters, clerks, advisers, and knights--separate and different in social classes, equal only in diversity. One finger cannot conquer the land on its own. You need all five to master the sword and the pen. Only then could true mastery and control take root.

I could just make out a burnish of dark red smeared along the whole abdomen of the motionless prey of surgery. A thick mat of blood, and what looked like dirt and debris, hung in a black cluster by the side of the temple and streamed all the way to the shoulder. Even the entire arm was wrapped in a tight weave of white bandages, stained with the dark color. Whatever had happened, it was serious. And from the looks of it, survival was questionable.

As I maneuvered myself through the air, the ceiling tiles scratching along my own naked and fleshy body, the five figures began to blur. The room dulled and faded out until all that remained was a hazy semblance of the event unfolding below me.

I felt a light throbbing in my head as an incessant buzz began reverberating through the room. One of the nurses who had just exited the room came barging back in, the door flapping wildly in her stead. Chaos broke out as the surgeon bellowed instructions to the four nurses. Their blue-gloved hands and blue coats danced along the scene in a blur of motion. Not too long after another nurse rushed in wheeling a large machine behind her. Its wires and two electronic arms hung down its side as the fifth nurse situated it by the surgeon and the body on the bed.

The doctor grabbed the two arms while one of the nurses squeezed some clear gel onto its metal surfaces. The doctor rubbed them together like two frying pans while another nurse rubbed more of the mysterious clear gel substance all over the body's chest. One of the nurses said something inaudible that I could not make out; then the doctor pressed the two arms against the body's chest and said, "Clear!"

The room disappeared before me as I was violently yanked back into the ceiling of confusion. I lost sight of the room and was trapped in the cloud of spinning greys and blues for a second time. I tumbled, flipping and flapping my arms wildly, trying to swim my way back through. I managed to squeeze my head through one of the ceiling tiles just as the metal arms were placed against the body a second time and the doctor screamed for "Clear!"

A white explosion of light erupted into life. I could feel myself falling. But what's strange is, I wasn't falling down, but falling up. My face was on fire and my ears felt like they were held firmly below the tumultuous barrage of a waterfall, beating down on my skull with every bit of its three-hundred-foot drop. My body was jerked through the nauseating pool of greys and blues and on through the building's plaster, concrete, and metal tissues and asbestos filled ventilation packets.

My hands and feet were pruned into white wrinkly clams and looked as though they had been sitting in a pool of water for weeks. Goose bumps glistened all over my arms and legs from the cold air washing over me as I fell. The light intensified--not sure how that was possible-as I plummeted. The noise in my ears grew louder until all I could hear was the roaring of waves pounding my eardrums and brain. I passed through layers of immense heat to death-gripping cold. My body flipped-flopped through the corridors of feeling and numbness, unable to determine which temperature to adjust to. I felt motionless and numb. The vortex of dull color was now a tiny speck far below me when I felt my body smash into something solid.

My feet and arms were pinched into a V-shape until they both touched. I never knew I was so flexible! With my buttocks leading, I felt as though my spine was being ripped from the rest of my bones through a tiny crack in the earth's surface, even though the ground was thousands of feet below. Through the solid barrier I collided with in my falling ascent my body was squeezed and into darkness with a resounding pop.

A peace enveloped me within a cocoon of sanctuary immediately and then my eyes sprung open with the rush of dark water.

Author's Note:

Are you ready for a new adventure? Ever wondered what the afterlife looked like? Do you feel like you're the only one going through a difficult time? Don't worry, I know how you feel. Keep on reading to find out how you can overcome even the darkest of obstacles and receive peace.

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