It is often said that at the end of one’s life, the mind floods with memories. This is presented as a sort of involuntary response in the majority of cases. A sudden flash of mental imagery. A chaotic gallery of autobiographical movies left to run at their leisure. Either featuring back-to-back moments of great joy, or ruminating regrets.

My first embarrassment freshly comes to mind. A rather strange example, to be sure. As I recall, my excuse was something to the effect of wanting to show a girl whom I called a friend something “cool” while knowing she had no interest in video games as I did. Somehow, that equated to a demonstration of human dimorphism. An explicit demonstration. How I came to that defense - let alone whatever truth of it - are far beyond my consciousness. The sense of it? Nonexistent. The dumb conclusion of events by dumb children. Still, an amusing tale, if a bit hard to palette.

As the hour for my own internal memoir draws nearer, I feel I have learned the truth of this phenomenon. It is simple habit. These thoughts flow with the ease of any other before them. One contemplates themselves at junctures where character matters most.

Though I am not subject to the teachings of Abraham, nor those of the Bodhisattva and so on, I do agree with them that to leave moments like this to the whims of empty decay is a saddening thing. That mother who caught me has been gone for years now. That girl for fewer, and the other onlooking children fewer still. I, alone, am left with the remains of that event. An isolation from which there can only ever be one solution to. And I do feel, after this century plus a baker’s dozen of life, that it is a solution. Not at all a whole new problem.

I am contented by my place in history and in these ticking minutes. I was not rich. I made no waves. I killed no men. But I lived. I loved. I watched that love bloom and plant loves of their own. Thrice over.

Early schooling nearly broke me. Almost made me into a monster - pushed me to the limits of redemption. But I found my peace. I stopped playing their games, and won my own. I struggled with my dreams, but achieved the ones that mattered most. I traveled. I learned. I fell in love a dozen times, and the twelfth stuck.

We struggled at first, in our lives apart. Plagues, economic collapse, political upheavals, and the like were known to us. I can only assume they will be known to all generations until they begin to last more than a few decades again. What mattered was that they were all manageable by our luck. We were never at the epicenter. We were never patient zero.

I wrote my books. I acted my roles. I enjoyed a plethora of stories, positing perspectives on the struggles of good and evil. I eventually even taught. Doers are often also the teachers somewhere down the line. I raised a great number of human and non-human lives over the course of my own. And I hope I served each one well.

What children outlive me look upon my form with furrowed brows and pursed lips. Their children match this with wet and twinkling eyes. The next generation, in their distanced maturity, weep in silence at the edges of the room. The youngest of all of them are scattered between my bedside, out-wailing the eldest among them, or outside the room clutching apathy tight. I do not blame them. They are too unknowing to comprehend the moment, and perhaps that is for the best. Let what few memories they possess of me be bright.

Still, I feel I should smile. Though my limbs grow heavy, I can turn my head to them. I can say I love them yet once more with these quivering lungs. Even at my weakest, I retain the strength to split the dense despair with laughter and jest - however bitter it may be. I will be fine. They will be fine. I go to join their mother, their grandmother, their exponentially great grandmother. I go to join my wife, assuming the gods haven’t beaten me there first - or feel the need to punish me for some petty dogma of their various credos.

Yes. Much better. A positive spin. The miasma lifts from their shoulders just a bit. Just enough. One last gift before drifting through that approaching door. Ah, perhaps it is better to have estranged them by this time. My passing would not pain them so, were that the case.

Or is that really true? I recall I cried quite deeply at my mother’s passing. We hadn’t truly spoken in over twenty years by then. I wish that we had, but the ball of remediation was no longer in my possession, nor even hers. The woman who had raised me, who had kept me closest and who had betrayed me and my brothers’ well being for the continued indulgence of christ blood, had never managed to accept her wrongs. She did not see them, and did not understand our emotions. One of many traits she had sadly passed onto me. I thank whatever wisdom graced me for having the awareness to admit and improve upon my faults to some degree.

Stranger still, when it came time for my father to pass, I wept only the smallest amount. In fact, I felt some measure of relief. He had much the same faults when it came to self-assessment, but was at minimum able to set aside some pride for the safety and well being of kin. This did little to rectify the adolescent trauma between us, however. Nor did it ever address the later years of strain and festering incompatibility. In the end, I felt it best if he learned from the final question itself. Words alone had never worked for him.

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So maybe that was the value at this moment, as I witness my own curtain call? This is the weight of my life upon my family. Through the good and the bad, the easy and the taxing, I had enough value for them to weep for me. Enough pleasantry to offset the offense. Even as they grin through their sorrows, the rivers on their faces are proof of a life well lived.

I can live with that answer.

I close my eyes for the last time. The light has begun to blur and my lids grow heavy. A few have noticed, and grow more somber. That’s fine. I’ll enjoy their fleeting warmth in these last few breaths. I bear witness to myself in this thin darkness. The pillow beneath my head is fading away. So is the bed and the blanket. My clothes. My skin. What I feel is something like the cold air, but more numbing. It is utter lack. It must be. It dims my hearing and muffles my sight. Mutes my smell. Clogs my taste.

The all-encompassing nothing washes over me slowly. Or what feels like it would be slowly. It’s impossible to tell now. Time seems to be the final sense after all. What I know must be my gray matter floats within a sinking static. Left-me says a final farewell to right-me. Right-me takes a psionic bow. We drift apart, though still tethered by the physical remains.

What perplexes us in this moment - or is it moments? - is the surprising amount of sensation still within us. It is not a touch, or a taste, or a sight. Nor is it a particular equilibrium or temporal cognition. We are still thinking. Why are we still thinking? How? An for how much longer?

A pair of somethings beckon from beyond the shell of reality.

The realm of Life has certainly faded from our awares. Remnant flares of color, smells, and memories flicker in the empty, but none really stick. We could dream now, if we wanted. And we certainly would want to, we think. Has that portion of our mind already powered off? Hard to say. Try again.

Still no good. How long was that attempt for? A second? An hour? So this is death. Much less the climax it was sold to be. Maybe serving in a war or two would have spiced this process up? What would Valhalla look like? Or Yomi? Or the twisted spire of Purgatory?

Though there is no force, their pull is unquestionable. They stake their convergent claim lest others beat them to it. This one is theirs.

More importantly, what is that presence we now feel? Not even a sensation, as much as an awareness. Like we know each half still blinks with activity, so too do we realize something is here in the aether with us.

"Come, echo of our touch. Be still in this life to breathe hope into these, which we impart to you. Fill them with understanding. Unite them through your knowing."

A god?

"Come, avatar of our wills. Impose our salvation unto those saviors housed within. Remind them of our love, and our fury. Remind them for whom they exist."

A demon?

Once more, they beckon. Invisible hands open wide. Arms outstretch. They are calling us to new solace.

My love?

Calling us to an irrefutable offer.

We think not. It is some force. It drives us apart, but not fully. It cannot sever the link. We would gladly let it, were we aware of how. But it just keeps pushing. Further and further. Towards the end? Wrong again. Some other direction. Directions? This plurality is beginning to grow more and more defined. We can feel it. And we can feel less of ourselves.

Splintered pulsations of life essence seep into the fractured void. The one is split in twain. Now two soak into new flesh. Osteoblasts help form the shape.

These shall be the cages. The containers. The vessels for new, yet familiar beginnings.

What's more distressing: we can feel at all. Sensations are returning. That isn’t right. Are they trying to revive us? The gesture is appreciated, but one more birthday would be the first of immortality. To feel the burden of outliving all other life is a far worse fate than this. It would hardly be life at all. Let us go. Let us go. Let me go.

As the bodies solidify, all links and bonds are severed. All but one, faint and ephemeral.

Let me go?

Me? Singular?

Where did I go?

And where am I now?