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41. DEATH'S TERRIFYING PORTAL (Dec. 2003)

          Americans believe in self-improvement and overcoming obstacles. Faced with a crisis, a challenge, a problem, there is someone or something out there to overcome it: a doctor, a diet, a course, a book, a psychiatrist, a set of weights, a pill, a spiritual guide...
          I was in Tower Records and picked up a paperback called Death: A User's Guide, by Tom Hickman. I saw he said that when we die our senses disappear in this order: Sight. Taste. Smell. Touch. Hearing. Suddenly, I imagined myself sightless, lying on my back on a bed. I was sightless because death was coming. I could taste, but there would never be anything to taste again. I could smell-- the sickly medic smell of my sickroom. Then I  was trapped, gripping the sheet. I could feel the sheet, but suddenly it grew soft, and wasn't there at all. Not the bed. I was floating. I was not at peace, I was panicking, my heart giving its last beats, my mind was working, I was aghast, conscious to the last, I could still hear voices around me: "Is he dead?", one whispered. I wanted to rise in a volcanic eruption of life, and SCREAM, but............
          Back standing, alive in the store.
          Knowing, utterly defeated.
          No doctor.
          No diet.
          No course.
          No book.
          No psychiatrist.
          No set of weights.
          No pill.
          And as for the spiritual guides-- damn them all.
         

 

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