The World Through Various Eyes

[21] Not As I Imagined It (Leslie's POV)

Over those last couple months, I had learned many things.

On a deep note, I had learned that life is something to be cherished, and that the small things, though often overlooked, matter as much as the big things. Sometimes more actually!

On a simpler note, I learned that chemotherapy can be delivered in a chair, and not only a hospital bed.

I even learned the pain of chemotherapy itself. The endless needles, and the substance they pumped into my veins, and how it was supposed to help me, but made me feel sick half the time and weak.

The cancer in my body had been waging a great and powerful war, with high stakes, and I could only hope that the chemo was on the winning team.

Yes, I learned many things then. But nothing could prepare me for the next thing I would learn. Although many things had happened that year that I hadn't expected, this definitely would have made the top of my "list of things that I deemed impossible". Well, that is if I had made one. At that point, I was losing track of potential items for that list.

It all began late one night. I felt a strange sensation of pain, which left me dizzy and breathless. I lay in my bed, clutching my chest and gasping for air, all the while fading in and out of consciousness. I wasn't sure how this was connected to my leukemia, but instead focused on the sheer pain I was in and how I desperately wished for it to stop.

I felt an unpleasant, copper taste in my mouth, but kept trying to breathe. My throat was sore and aching but I struggled. I couldn't be taken down this easily without a fight.

My last glance caught sight of the green clock on my wall as it struck 3:00pm exactly, and then it all went black. No sight, no sound but somehow I still had coherent thought. The last thing my mind was thinking about before going completely unconscious was that I was dying. This was it. I hadn't gotten to say goodbye to the ones I loved and didn't even see it coming myself.

I knew I was dying, and there was nothing I could do about it. Death, from what little knowledge I had of it, was cruel, callous and unforgiving. At that moment, I was certain I was about to gain a whole slew of new information about it. I braced myself for the end, frantically struggling until my last moments.

Then... nothing.

When people spoke of "out-of-body" experiences, I always thought they were fake. Like all near-death situations were ploys to sell books regarding religion and faith. But right then and there, I felt sorry for ever even considering that. I had a feeling I was on the brink of death, if not already dead. If this was death, it felt pretty different from how I imagined it. And trust me, since my diagnosis in June, I had pictured it in many ways. You know, the usual "beam of white light" scenario, and the clićhed angelic choir. I wasn't feeling any of what I should have been.

That was just it, though- I felt! It occurred to me that my sense of touch and capacity to feel had somehow been restored. Slowly, my abilities of sight and smell faded back in, and I found myself standing up, stumbling in an attempt to regain my footing.

The scenery had drastically changed. I was in a large house, packed full of antiques and flashy, expensive items only a rich person could afford. So this was what Heaven looked like? Things were still spinning, as was I as I continued to stumble, but the low light that had faded in and the music playing at high volume, as well as the glimpses I caught, suggested that I was at a party.

Was this some sort of sick extravaganza for the recently deceased? Above all else, I was not in the mood to party. Who were all these people, standing around, sipping carelessly from curving glasses of alcohol? Tall, towering cabinets packed full of delicate dishware and sparkling silver utensils surrounded me. My shoes connected with the cushioned Oriental carpet, which matched the gold theme represented in the picture frames on the wall.