I felt the strength fading from my body. Even breathing was an effort now. The cancer was everywhere, and there was no treatment that could reverse the damage. They diagnosed me as stage four just six weeks ago, and the creeping death had spread into my brain. They gave me a month or a couple of months left to live at the best estimate. Now that I was lying here in the hospital bed strapped up to all the different machines watching my life signs dwindle minute by minute, I knew it couldn’t be far away.
Regrets piled on top of regrets as I lay dying. I wished that I had never taken up smoking, and I wish that I had taken care of my body instead of filling it with junk. I wished that I had taken the time to meet someone I could fall in love with. I was here with nobody by my side, facing death alone. I had no children, no legacy, and my existence of seventy-six years had barely left a mark.
It had been a pleasant enough life, but it was impossible, now that I was nearing the end, not to wish that I had done things differently.
The nurse came into my room. Her name was Diane, and she was exactly the kind of person you want by your side as you slipped off this mortal coil. She was beautiful in a way that only nurses in their pinstripes could be, but more than that, she had a beautiful nature. She was caring, compassionate, and she didn’t offer me pity. That’s the last thing you want when you know you’re sick. That look that people give you like they’re pitying you.
“How are you feeling, Jack?” Diane asked.
I smiled and tried to prop myself up on my pillow a little, but the pain was too much. Diane must have sensed this because she immediately reached for my painkiller drip and asked me if I needed more. I nodded, and Diane pressed the button. Soon the blissful numbness washed over me.
“Oh that feels better, thank you.” I swallowed, but it was painful. My mouth was dry and I couldn’t quite seem to finish the swallow all the way.
“I’m coming to see you because the doctor is worried about your vitals, Jack. Your blood oxygen level is dropping at an exponential rate, and it's time we started talking about what you want to happen from here.”
“Well I’ve asked you, when it happens, don’t try to resuscitate me. I’ve signed the DNR waiver, and once it’s done it’s done. How long are we talking Diane?”
I felt myself gasping for breath then, as though her talking about my blood oxygen level made me hyper aware of just how bad things had become.
“It could be hours, Jack, but probably no more than a day. We have options to make you more comfortable though. We can make it so that you don’t feel it when it happens you can just slide away. But it’s up to you.”
When faced with the news of my imminent demise, all of those regrets and mistakes that I made throughout my life came back in a rush.
When I was in high school I’d fallen in love with a girl by the name of Ariel, you know like the Disney Princess from The Little Mermaid? She had the same red hair, and the same mischievous streak that made her not want to do what other people told her to do. I guess that’s half the reason why we never actually got together. She said that she liked me too, but she needed to travel the world before she settled down. She’d booked a year-long backpacking trip through Europe. I got angry at her for rejecting me, so I blocked her on all the social media platforms we shared, and I never responded to any of the emails she sent me. And she did try to contact me over the years, but I was too stubborn to allow it to happen.
Instead, I shacked up with a girl named Caroline, who turned out to be the wrong person to fall in love with. I loved her and I’m sure in some way she loved me too. But we got together too young, and we grew in completely different directions. She wanted me to be something that I wasn’t, and was more interested in the idea of me than the me that actually existed in the real world.
We were together for almost ten years, and by the time that broke down I was left holding the whole house of cards we’d built. Everything was in my name, and we were overleveraged to the eyeballs. After the house of cards fell, I was financially destroyed for another decade.
I was mistrustful of almost everyone else because of what had happened. Even though I’ve never been an ugly guy, and I’ve always been pretty charismatic and confident, after Caroline I had a really hard time trusting anybody.
And believe me, when you start dating in your thirties, most of the people who are still single are either broken or psychopaths.
I always wanted to have my own land. I never really had any clear idea of what I wanted to do with it, but I always knew that I wanted it. I always figured that depending on where it was, and what I could do with it, I could turn it into whatever it was that I wanted. I had ideas of turning it into a summer camp, or maybe even a fancy forest retreat, or maybe if I met the right woman we could build the farmstead and raise a family.
Stolen story; please report.
“What are you thinking about, Jack?” Diane’s voice was soothing, and I wanted to tell her about everything. But I just couldn’t gather the strength.
“I was just thinking about the dreams I had that will never be fulfilled. I always wanted to build something, hopefully something that would make the world a better place, you know?”
“You can still do that Jack. If you want me to make the last few hours more comfortable, you can spend them in whatever dream you want to. We have a special cocktail that will inspire pleasant dreams.”
“I have to admit, that does sound very nice.”
“The doctor has already signed off on us providing you whatever level of comfort we can. We could just take the edge off, or we can put you into a dream state until things come to their conclusion.”
Between facing the pain that was to come and being able to go into oblivion numb and in the grips of pleasant dreams, dreams would be the best choice.
I told Diane as much, and she started making arrangements.
She left the room for a few moments, and while I’ve never been an overly religious man, in those last few minutes I made a prayer with a fervour that I’d never experienced before.
I prayed that there was something that came after this. I prayed that I would get another chance to live a life that I could be proud of, a chance to build something and make the world a better place. A chance to be open and love someone just like I wanted to be loved myself. I wanted adventure and challenge and something that I could do to keep my hands busy.
My breath caught in my chest and I felt a strange warm sensation coming from somewhere outside of me. Had something heard my prayer? Was that feeling of acknowledgement that something out there was listening? I didn’t get much of a chance don't worry about that as Diane came back into the room with a syringe full of blue liquid the colour of the open sky.
“If I attach this to your drip then you're going to close your eyes and fade into sleep, descending into dreams until your body cannot sustain you any more. If you still want to go ahead with this, just let me know.”
Diane’s face was kind and warm, and if I were 40 years younger she would be exactly the kind of person that I could see myself falling in love with.
“Will you stay with me until the end?” I asked.
She smiled a warm smile, which made her eyes crinkle up. “Of course I will.”
“Then yes, I want this.”
She hooked the new syringe up to my drip and injected some of the solution into the drip bag. It only took a minute or two before I started feeling the effects. The muscles in my body relaxed and a sense of euphoria washed over me. It was like there was nothing else in the universe except for me and this feeling of peace and calm. Everything became so heavy, and I felt myself begin to slip away.
I expected that the calm would be the last thing I ever felt, but it wasn’t. I was alert, the sleepiness and heaviness totally gone. I opened my eyes and the hospital room was gone too. Instead, the scene in front of me was almost indescribable.
It reminded me of something from one of those marvel superhero movies. A vast city stretched out before me, but it was a city built on clouds. Other cloud islands dotted the sky as far as I could see, and each of these islands had a city on it as well. Strange creatures wound through the blue sky between the cities. They looked like the wingless wyrm-shaped dragons of Chinese legend.
Suddenly I realized that someone was standing in front of me. He looked youthful, but everyone around me did. There were plenty of them now that I was looking, and they all looked like young folks in the primes of their lives. I looked down and saw my own body. My hands weren’t wrinkly and covered in age spots.
“Am I young again?” I asked and my voice had none of the ancient timbre that it had before I’d died.
The man in front of me smiled. “Souls don’t age. They change with experience, but they don’t age. So here, in the Great In-Between, we’re all very much the same. And yes, while you’re wondering, you are dead. This isn’t a dream. But your pleas for another chance have been heard. We’re in quite a situation at the moment, where we have the perfect life we believe you can slot into.”
“Wait, you guys heard me?”
“Yes. We angels are always listening, especially when a person speaks directly from the heart. You’ve had quite the life. Choices are important, and you’ve made many that have put you in a difficult place. A wasted life, some might say. You have many regrets, but you’re fundamentally a good person. The big guy above wants to see what you’ll do if you’re given another chance. There just isn’t enough information to send you to heaven or hell, yet. Are you interested in a second chance?”
The longer this guy talked, the more I wanted this. Like, really wanted this.
“Yes. What kind of second chance are you talking about?”
“You wanted to build something, fall in love, live a good life, right? We’ve had someone abdicate their life, someone who’s thinking about doing something that can’t be undone, and we’ve arranged a trade. Another world needs a hero, and you’re going to take his place in the world he came from. He’s about to inherit a piece of land, but we’re going to put your soul in his body while he goes off to become a Chosen One in another world.”
It sounded insane. Absolutely insane. But at the same time, there was no denying the reality of the situation. We were in a cloud city, the Great In-Between, and there were literal dragons corkscrewing through the sky.
“It sounds crazy, but what grounds do I have to deny what you’re saying?”
“None at all. Now if you’re ready, shall we get things started?”
“I guess, sure.”
“There’s just one thing you should know about this new world. It doesn’t run on the same rules as your old one. You’ll probably find it a little similar to video games you’ve played where you level up and grow stronger as you do things. You’ll notice other differences while you’re there, but you’ll figure it all out as you go. Talk to the townspeople, figure stuff out, and live the life you’ve always wanted.”
This again sounded insane, but I’d need to see it all for myself. “I’m sure I’ll figure it out just fine.”
And with a snap of the angel’s fingers the cloud city of the Great In-Between faded away.