I don't know. I don't know where I am. I don't know who I am or what. Suddenly beyond the bounds of space and time, I knew nothing. I felt the truth of the word agnostic. I didn't know.
Whatever had taken place was highly unpleasant. Stressful and painful, I'd been afraid I was dying, torn from the thread of time where I'd clung, then pushed with excruciating force from the universe where I'd existed. Until, just as my agony grew so great, I welcomed the death that would end it, the pain and pressure released in a rush of unfamiliar senses. I felt the desperate loss of all that had ever been familiar. I wondered, was I dead? Was all this nothingness Hell? Had I lived billions of years, only to die and find myself in Hell?
I was too terrified and alone to appreciate the irony of the moment. The instant felt an eternity. Would it be an eternity? A forever of nothing? Worse, forever, with the awareness of nothing? Was this death? Was this all there was? Nothing?
I cried out in desolate loneliness. I cried for my mother. I cried for Mary. I cried for my long-dead wife. But there was nothing - not even the hope of once again seeing their faces.
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The Words - An Autobiography
Science Fiction"What if God was one of us?" Credit to Eric Bazzilion, and thanks to Joan Osborne for singing his brain-rattling words. Much earlier, my mother promised that if I applied myself, I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up. Then, from somewhere, I r...
