Amnesia After Death

Meeting of Death, his realm, and the first conscious soul.

 The man lay upon the empty floor, in the empty space. His eyes opened. Looking around the Emptiness his eyes widened at the no-horizon which did not make the sky and ground distinct from one another. It was darker than the darkness. All was Emptiness, nothing was other.

He slowly raised himself to his elbows, to his knees, then to his feet, with his non-existent breath increasing in its pace as anxiety and fear began.

The man felt a pressing feeling down upon his skin, from scalp to sole. Only so long could a human stand to be in complete darkness for a long duration before unease set in; it would soon be followed by claustrophobia, then an unrelenting animal panic to escape such violent unnerving of the sense of sight. That is how the living body would have reacted, and quickly. A soul, apparent without its encasing, is stronger and more resilient.

"No." He whispered with a strong fear in his voice.

"Yes." Death answered.

The man turned toward Death's voice. As he looked upon Death, the fear and pressure on his skin subsided lightly. He breathed a sigh of relief and stepped toward Death.

"Thank goodness. I was scared that, that I was in a windowless prison." He stopped a few feet from the entity, still in a slightly protective stance with elbows close to his side and his body arched slightly forward.

"No. This is no penitentiary, or solitary confinement. If you look at your hands, you will notice they are visible in the, well, dark."

Death's new visitor looked at his hands, followed by other visible attributes in the Emptiness, including Death.

"Then, where am I?" He paused and edged closer to Death observing him with a very obvious up and down motion of his head. "And, who are you?"

"I'll answer with a most traumatic phrase: you are dead, sir."

If the man's face could have voided its color, it would have. It only froze and fell into shock.

He raised one hand and place d it on top of his head, tangling his trembling fingers in his hair, and scraping his nails at his skin. The other was in the air before him, grasping at a thought, trying to see�"with glazed eyes�"if there was anything which would have told him he had died; an explosion, a car wreck, even an alligator chomping him down its gullet. There was not a single inkling of anything.

Empty memories combined with the tense feeling of the Emptiness made his voice pitch higher and uncontrollable as he began, "I'm not dead. I can't be! I don't remember dying. You, you would remember something like that!"

He looked about as if other people would reveal themselves and say it was only a joke. None did, and the man began to sob, with no tears or sniffles. His stomach ached without the repercussion of vomiting, and he felt he would shudder and shake and not be able to resist the pull of gravity with his weak muscles. But he still had some of his strength and steadiness.

Death edged closer to him and stopped. He placed his ivory hand on the man's shoulder. No shudder or abrupt retreat came from the man, only sobs. Death felt sad for the man. He knew the emotion from an external point-of-view, not from within. 'Very odd.' He thought inward. 'More than apparent changes, the Universe said. Mm. My mind affects my breast. Or is it the other way?' He also noticed his hand upon the visitor and wondered at it with his eyebrows furrowed.

"Not everyone remembers their death. It is a human mind's defense mechanism, and keeps working even in death. The brain is, in a way, the connection of the soul and body.” Death had read it in one of the myriad of books in the Emptiness.

Yet, he knew it to be partially correct. And deducing the obvious signs of the man's state and knowing the events from the man's death to now, he knew, just like a child in an abusive situation, the memories had fled. Self-preservation.

The man's sobbing eased as he looked up at Death, staring in to the gold shining eyes of the oldest entity.

"You must be an angel. Which one?" Hope appeared onto the man's face, and his hand rose to wipe non-existent tears away. No redness was upon his features. Only the peach color of his “pigment”.

"That is very kind of you, considering I know the reverence they are held in by humans. I am much older than the angels. You know me by my remembered duty, but not my first. I am Death.

“And to answer your very first question; this is the World of Waiting, the Emptiness as I call it. In technical terms it is the dimension all come to, and the one that surrounds all."

Blankness appeared on the man's face. He blinked a few times before speaking,.

"Um,” he swallowed. Though no spit was there, it felt like it to him. “I didn't think you would look like this. Formal.”

Death was clad in a purple button-down shirt, gray vest, and black pants and shoes.

A minute smile appeared on the man's face, only to fade to a constipated straight. Thinking that he had insulted Death, the man's eyes began darting around the deities attire and avoiding the “darkness” of the Emptiness, as well as the brightness of Death's eyes.

Death removed his hand from the man's shoulder, placing one behind his back while he stood straight.

"There is nothing which will harm you here, Abel. Popular Cultural references and old fear. Possibly misinterpretation from a person who died and revived, having glimpsed me in my previous form.” Death knew that was the reason, yet insinuated it for the man.

“That has happened many times before," Death shifted through many memories, coming to one prior instance;

Brought under the water and held there by a fallen branch, the woman had inhaled the cool liquid of the river and went unconscious. Some images of her memories and imagination meshed together into a fantastical scenery. But it faded in color, and a dark, black began creeping through the center of it. She was unconscious and capable of seeing both her dream-state and the dark, indistinct plains of the next world, occupied by a pale face wrapped in Emptiness before in the black encroaching space.

Her body had been pulled from the water by two men clad in tan pants, cloth shirts and straw hats of the late medieval centuries. The girl was lifeless. However, her soul had not exited the body, yet. And having seen a physician do something similar, one of the gruff men began hitting her sternum with his fist.

The heart began pumping blood and, most importantly for the brain, oxygen again. Water came spurting from her nostrils and mouth. He ceased his pounding. They both waited.

In her unconscious and half-dead state, the woman felt a tug, then another tug. Her soul was forcibly re-tailored to the body. The two meshing worlds disappeared into a less unfavorable black in the woman's subconscious.

In time, she would or would not regain consciousness, and tell or not tell her visions of the next dimension where she gazed upon a pale, dark figure waiting in a darker than dark word for them after their death.

Death returned his attention to his visitor.

His young guest's eyes had a half glaze to them, attempting, still, to apprehend the memory of his soul's departure.

"I'm not very old. And I'm married also." Abel randomly stated.

"What is the youngest memory you can conceive?"

Abel remembered, again with glazed eyes.

"I was visiting my wife at her job. It was our lunch. She ate her pasta . . .That's the very end of my memory."

"Follow me." Death instructed and turned, beginning to walk.

"Are you taking me to, you know?" Abel stood still and waited for an answer.

"Follow me, please," said Death, not stopping.

Abel followed Death, side by side after jogging to catch up. The Emptiness suddenly flashed to a shining white for the man. Startled by the abrupt change, he jerked to a stop, but regained his composure after a thought.

"Heaven." Abel stated.

"No."

Death stopped. Abel stopped. Slowly the white began to blur with shades of moving color; sounds faint became louder. Doctors, nurses, hospital equipment and a bed with a man on it came clearly into view for the soul. The staff was working thoroughly for their patient's sake, injecting chemicals, checking the monitor, or handing the surgeon utensils. Shoes squeaked at quick stops in steps, the monitor would beep a high note every few seconds; the heart was slowing.

"Whoa!" Abel jumped back as a nurse rushed in front of him, nearly colliding into his shoulder.

"Do not worry. I should have told you, you are like," Death thought for the proper character, a “ghost”.

A hint of sorrow dimmed his eyes a tint. His companion did not notice.

The man nodded his head and tried to get a better view of the patient, still being careful not to bump into somebody or any inanimate objects in the operating room despite what he had been told.

Motionless the man became after peering over the shoulder of one of the attending male nurses seeing the patient's face.

"That's me!" He shouted taking a step back and keeping his eyes fixed wide in the direction of his body.

Abel's encasing, as Death would name it, lay on the operating table. The four holes scattered about its abdomen bled. A high-pitched sustained sound screeched through the air as a thin line stretched across the heart monitor's screen.

The soul was ending the second and finite stage, and beginning the third and infinite. Of those who pondered the “great beyond” most were on the brink of knowing a tiny detail on what would come, though completely unknown to these philosophers was the event which had transformed the place which Death knew as his realm; his world; his home.

"He's gone," stated a doctor who stood next to Abel's shell and before Abel. "I'll call it."

As he did so, his staff began covering Abel's body and removing the wires and tubes. The room began to dwindle of its liveliness. Doctors exited first, slowly followed by nurses, but not before the two visitors could leave.

"Follow me." Death stated and turned to walk through the silver, double doors.

Death's visitor slowly backed away, watching his lifeless body's lumped outline on the hospital operating table.

Abel turned into the calm hallway of the ER. At the call desk, Abel saw his living self standing with a blonde woman in pink scrubs.

"My wife." He smiled with squinted sad eyes. "I'll never talk to her again. Will I?" He turned to Death. Who only nodded back to the scene.

"WHERE'S HE A'?! WHERE'S THA' PUSSYASS B***H?" Shouted a man.

He had just come around the furthest side of the nurse's station, following a nurse. He shoved her to the floor, withdrew a gun, and shot her.

"WHERE'S HE?!" The answer would not come from her dead lips.

Living Abel stepped in front of his crouching wife. Abel�"the soul�"also stepped before her and his living self. The living Abel in front of the wife, covered her with both arms behind him. His abdominal cavity was open and wide.

"WHERE YA?" The killer was dressed in very rich clothing, though his slacks were much to large for him. “QUI' BEIN' A LIL' P***Y!”

"IN HURR YA F***A!" Came a voice from a nearby, closed curtain area on the opposite side of the nurses station. It was behind where the husband and wife stood.

Quickly, the gunman walked toward the answering voice. He passed by the living Abel and shot four times without looking down at his second victim. Living Abel slumped into his wife, gently falling to the ground as her arms tried to hold him amongst her screams and cries.

"I remember." He turned to Death.

Not noticing the scenery change around him again, Death motioned Abel to look. The young man turned to observe his wife and his living self enjoying their cold left-over home meals in the nurse's break area. It was a small, confined space, but private with only a single small table for them to eat at, and a small kitchen area behind them.

A sweet laughter filled the small space. He smiled.

“You didn't tell him that.” She spoke between giggles and swallowing her food.

“He knew it was a joke. There wasn't any harm in it.” The living Abel took a drink of his soda.

“Oh, well, that's good. I want to be better at telling jokes.” Her face etched into seriousness, and relaxed after a moment.

“Like everything it takes practice and time. Tell one to me.” His voice was kind and loving to his wife.

Speaking to Death, but still watching the scene, he said, “Her funniness came from her messing up the joke.” He chuckled in his throat and looked at his feet. The tips of his shoes tapped up and down in synchronization.

Emptiness faded around them again.

"Most humans will forget ten minutes before their death." Death stood there with hands folded before him, remembering the souls similar to the drowned girl, who didn't recall minutes during or before the accident.

"Do you show every amnesiac their death?" Abel continued to look at his shoes.

"No. You are the first. In many ways. Though, only by a few seconds. But you did not feel any pain when you saw him shoot you." Death thought of the other souls at that exact moment he was leading from the Emptiness towards Heaven. He didn't show them their past, only led them to their designated destination.

Abel thought on it, "I didn't."

"It's because you died with a loved one watching you, I would believe. One who held you as you began your sorrowful parting from the living world."

Death's visitor stared into his memories,"Thank you for showing me."

Death snapped his head at an angle and raised his eyebrows simultaneously. "For showing you your death?"

"No.” He looked over at Death. “No. It's for showing me my wife." A true smile stretched on his face. “And hearing her laughter and happiness with me.”

Death nodded. "Follow me." He turned and walked into the Emptiness.

"I don't think I'll be able to handle anymore memories," he said, slowly following behind Death.

"Those were not memories. It was actual time from my point of view. And I am not showing you any more."

"Oh. To Heaven then."

"There is a slight stop in-between."

"Um. Then, not Heaven. Should have listened to my father. He was a pastor. Cried on his deathbed because he was scared that it would be the final time we looked upon each other.”

Death stopped and turned to face the man. "You are going to see God. But, it is a different God than the one so vastly known on Earth. And it is also a different Heaven. Follow me."

Death turned and the man trailed with him farther into the Emptiness.

He was not the first formed soul to enter Heaven. The act of death did not happen one soul at a time. Yet, the 'first' soul to enter Heaven was a barefoot little girl, carried their in the arms of God.