The last moment was…peaceful doesn’t do it justice. Content…not strong enough. How do you describe bliss, tranquility and calm but with a touch of anxiety, fear and excitement? I laugh thinking of the question. I’m asking how I’d describe my own death.

“Who else would know but me?!”

So strange I can still hear my thoughts, though I’m fairly certain I don’t have a body. I can’t feel my hands or legs but I’m still able to direct my motion.

But—it’s dark in here.

Not haunting, like in a movie, but an emptiness, void. A very strange sensation.

Then something appears. A blob, approaching quickly.

It’s an island and it beckons me.

In a moment I’m there. Time doesn’t work the same way here. Moving was just a thought with an intent, and reality changes.

The island has four inverted arches in each corner and smoky shapes arrive in the center from the void. They stop, then fly off through one of the arches. My memories are harder to retrieve the longer I’m here, but it reminds me of something. A hub. A rail station!

“I can still remember!”

I giggle. It feels good to think about that time. My memories have a shape and a texture now, and just playing with them arouses the—I think I can see someone!

A figure standing just away from the center. Who is it?

And now I’m there.

It’s a young man. His skin is alabaster with patches of gray. His head is down and I can feel his feelings. They’re so coarse and scratchy, edged and sharp. They cut and claw at me.

“Who are you? Why are we here?”

“I wait,” he responds.

One of the arches behind him pulses and an echo reverberates around us. His head jerks back and his body reels, pulling him towards it, but he digs his feet in and resists. He moans at the strain, the grey patches grow larger, and I feel the razors of his emotions jostle and collide.

I just want to go back to where I was before. Where I was laughing and forgetting what made me laugh then laughing at it again. Am I being punished?

Stepping away feels wrong. I look to him and feel his pain again. It’s so familiar. I need to know why I’m here.

“What are you waiting for?” I ask.

The young man’s feet disappear, sunk into the black dirt of the empty place.

“For him.”

“Who?”

“The one I wait for.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you waiting in this place? There’s nothing here.”

“He will be here.”

“How long have you been here?”

He pauses and the linger lasts a day for the living and its texture is a straightjacket of suffocating water around me.

Somberly he replies, “A lifetime of lifetimes it feels. I want to go home.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“I must wait for him. This is the only place it can be done.”

His gray spots grow larger as he sinks to his calves in the dark soil.

Suffering, I reach for him, but he announces—

“He is coming.”

He turns, defiantly peering into the darkness as a shadow arrives, hurtling towards an arch beyond. Enraged, he leaps free of the soil and casts a hand into the air. He catches vapor and grasps hold of its heart, and a scream rings out.

On his knees he holds it tight, a shadow with an empty core. It fights against him but is no match for the young man’s resolute grip.

Triumphant and exhausted, he yells, “I got him!”

His catch, I can sense its being.  It’s harsh, like the young man’s, but of heavy sand that seems to stretch on and on.

“This is the man you waited for?”

“I will not let him pass.”

His head, now with only patches of white remaining, lowers. A blackness rises to consume it.

“How long will you keep him here?”

“Forever.”

I feel his despair. It’s a blanket of foul water and it draws between us. Through it, I push my hand, to try and touch his face. I call every fleeting memory to my aid to pierce it and when I can bear it no longer, the strain returns a sound—of laughter.

So I laugh.

I laugh at a memory of a boy playing in a backyard, falling off a bunk bed, tasting vanilla ice cream. Through the laughter of his memories, my hand crosses through and I touch his head.

It rises, a final fleck of white remaining. He looks at me with a child’s longing and my purpose for leaving that other place is clear. I say to him with the love of a father:

“I’ve come for you, son. Let him go. He can’t hurt you anymore.”