The Day I Died. The next story in my year long project of writing a story a week. *******I died...

The Day I Died.

The next story in my year long project of writing a story a week.

*******

I died today.

It didn’t happen like I’d expected or feared. There was no drowning, trying to breathe air that was no longer there and choking on heavy fluid that was never meant for lungs. There was no burning, nerve endings crying out in searing pain before bestowing cold numbness.

No car crash, gunshot, stab wound in a dark alley..

Just one moment, alive, breathing, watching a squirrel yelling at another in a tree across the way, and the next moment, nothing.

Well. Not nothing exactly, just different. It was a little jarring, if I’m honest.

Colors are different. I don’t even have words to describe how; something at once muted and more vibrant than they were before.

Other than that, nothing seems to have changed.

I looked around first, at once knowing I was dead, and yet, sure I was hallucinating. The park was the same, though the people were gone, replaced by vaguely people-shaped smudges wandering where a moment before they’d been playing frisbee and walking dogs. The only creature I could see that wasn’t a smudge was a cat. It looked at me intently.

I stood slowly, trying to make sense of what I was seeing and turned in place, scanning the park for anyone, anything else I recognized.

I might have died again when I saw the bench.

My body was sitting there, slumped over from the aneurism that killed me. It faded to a grey smudge as I watched.

When it was completely gone, I felt an inaudible pop. I looked up and around for the other smudges. One was hovering around the cat and leaned down to pet it. It snuggled into the caress and then walked towards me.

“Are you dead too?” I asked.

The cat came closer and rubbed on my leg but gave no answer.

It walked away a few steps and looked over its shoulder at me, tail twitching. I shrugged and followed it.

We walked through the city together, the cat leading the way. The smudges were thicker where we were going, though they’d begun to fade into more of a grey than black. The city was familiar; I’d been here half my life, and I recognized the building to which the cat seemed to be leading me.

It was a hospital.

The smudges had all but disappeared by then and the cat led me through hallways and up staircases with a new sense of urgency. New smudges were appearing and darkening into shades of charcoal, and the cat led me to a particularly tight knot of them.

I stopped staring at the cat then, because my attention was caught by something in the center of the figures. I couldn’t make it out but all the other smudges with their increasingly hard outlines were focused entirely on that thing, that ball of potential in the center of the room.

There was a feel of worry from the smudges, becoming more and more tangible as moments passed. I felt like I should go towards the knot of attention but I was suddenly terrified. I wanted nothing to do with it.

The cat rubbed on my leg again, seeming to want to push me closer. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the thing, but I could tell that much.

The cat must have sensed that I was moments from bolting from the room because I’m the instant before I could, the little bastard bit me on the butt.

I jumped and yelped, but I had jumped right into the little ball of energy that the smudges were so focused on.

My ears filled with pressure and my yelp turned into a loud, screaming cry.

I opened my eyes.

The smudges had changed.

I made out the shape of a doctor and several nurses but there was something wrong with them: they were huge!

I gasped in a choking breath and screamed again and was rewarded with their expressions becoming relieved instead of fearful as they’d been moments before.

The doctor that was holding me carried me over to a woman who looked exhausted and let her hold me and in that moment I understood.

I was a baby. A baby who nearly hadn’t taken its first breath because I was scared enough of the unknown to be ready to run away.

My life before started to fade but I was starting to feel exhausted contentment when I saw the cat’s tail twitch around the delivery room door. A whole new life full of potential spread in front of me, and with that thought and the last of my fading memories flowing away, I slept.

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