Utter randomness.

What do you Remember?

  The crash itself happened too quickly for me to fully register what had happened until it was over. One minute I was driving my younger brother home from soccer practice, the next the car had flipped and I was waking up in a hospital.

Except I couldn't move – couldn't even blink. I was trapped inside my own body, unable to experience the world around me but through sound. I could still hear my family around me when I was awake, but I couldn't open my eyes, couldn't move any part of my body.

Couldn't tell them I was still alive.

But it didn't last long, something I was grateful for. About a week after the crash, I found myself standing in front of Death, hovering over my limp body and my mother sleeping beside me.

You may think of Death as a cloaked figure, carrying a scythe and looking brooding, but he isn't. He's an old, bearded man – a man who might be able to pass as Santa Clause in a mall.

I look at him, and he looks at me.

"Is it time?" I ask. "Am I going to die?"

He is silent for a long time before he finally nods.

"Yes," is all he says.

"But I'm so young," I say. "Surely I have a full life ahead of me?" A pitiful plea, I know, but I had so many plans. I was going to a concert in a month. My girlfriend and I have our whole lives planned out. Now I couldn't live that.

"I'm sorry," he answers. "I've carried many younger than you. It's your time." He holds out a hand to me and I slowly reach towards it, my mind numb. But before I grab it, before I seal my fate, I ask a question.

"What do you remember?"

He looks at me, surprise on his face. I guess he was expecting something like "What comes after," or "why?" But he nods, and suddenly looks older than he did before, hundreds – thousands of years old.

"I remember so much," he whispers. As he speaks, his eyes echo what he says, showing me glimpses into the past.

"I remember battle fields – men and horses charging at each other with swords. I remember beaches, the sea wet with blood as men press forward. Pointless but brave sacrifices." His eyes flash red as swords flashes and guns blazed behind the pupils.

"I remember anger – people fighting against the fates. I remember those who beg for one last chance to make things right. I remember weeping families, screaming for a chance to see their loved ones again." More images flash through his pupils, people crying in rage, people begging for mercy.

"I remember peace – the old men dying in their beds. The couples with their hands clasped as they passed through together. The religious, comfortable in their faith coming with ready arms.

"I remember unfairness – the babes snatched from life before they have a chance to live. The parents having to bury their children. The women raped and murdered and left by the side of the road." He looks at me with sadness. "The young man in a car crash. Those who died before their time.

"I remember death."

Silence stretches between us as he finishes talking. I look up at him, sobered by his words. My life seems pointless in the shadow of all those who had come before me.

Death smiles at me as if he can read my mind.

"No one is pointless. I can also remember the hope – the world that is changed because of the war. The lives that are saved because of the sacrifices. The people who grow because they want to make a loved one proud. The man who changes the lives of so many people because his older brother died too young."

I blink, unsure what he meant by the last words.

"Can you see into the future?" I ask.

He just smiles, raising his arm. I see a window open and my brother, at least ten years older, standing in a graveyard. He looks exhausted but proud of himself.

"Hey, brother," he says. "I just – I thought I should tell you. There was a woman who had been in a car crash, and I – and I – I saved her life, Damion. I saved her life. I saved her family from going through what we felt when you... I did it."

The window closes and I stare up at Death.

"There's nothing you can do – no way I could -" I begin, but he shakes his head.

"It's your time, Damion. But I can tell you they heal. They recover – they move on. They make the world a better place."

I nod, looking down at my mother.

"Can I say goodbye?" I ask. He shakes his head.

"I'm sorry." He holds out his hand again, and with one last look at my mother, I take it. The world spins around me and I hear the faint beeping of a flatlining life support as I become a memory.