I died yesterday

I dreamt that I had died. A bullet in-between my eyes, through the skull. They say your entire life flashes in front of your eyes after you die, so I tried hard to recall what had been my life. I got as far back to the last hour but then I couldn’t do it. It was too tedious.

I could feel the warm blood fill the hole in my head. Everything was so slow. It felt like ages before I dropped to the ground. After that all I could feel was warmth from the blood that was starting to cover my face, blurring my vision to the point where all I could see was red. It felt like I was inside a womb.

And then it faded into black. A lapse of memory.

I awoke to find myself on a red desert with large orange canyons that held up a Prussian blue sky. A colorless river ran through the rocky earth like a vein; shallow and thin, like a blood vessel. It was neither too warm nor too cold. I didn’t know what I was wearing.

I suddenly felt hungry, and then remembered that I had died. This is the afterlife, I wondered to myself. Now where could I find something to eat?

I thought about it for a while. I remembered that in my culture, they would make balls of rice and butter, and float them into the Ganges as offerings to the dead — food delivery for their starving ancestors. So, I went to the river and, to my genuine surprise, found some rice balls, neatly wrapped in the leaves of tropical trees. I looked around to see who they belonged to but there was not a single soul in sight. I nibbled on one. It was enough to fill my appetite.

It was after a while that I realized the significance of the rice balls. I had found proof of an afterlife, and it was surely the Hindus that had got it right. If I could bring this back to mankind, I could prove religion and the importance of these customs. I could prove that the Hindu way was the right way. I had always been agnostic, a borderline atheist my entire life. For there to be proof of a religious afterlife was huge.

Then I remembered that I was dead. It didn’t matter if any religions were right or wrong. There was nothing I could do to get back. The living world’s ignorance didn’t bother me anymore.

My vital needs fulfilled, I started walking towards what looked like a mountainous peak. It was the only landmark I could see, so it must be of some significance. The desert eerily reminded me of Mars. I had never been to Mars. Till the day I died, no human ever had. But there was something about the place. As I started walking, I began to think and really absorb what had really happened. I was dead. I was dead. My family was in another world without me. All my friends, my teachers, my students, everyone I had ever met, I would never see them again, and even if I did, they would be vastly different from how I would remember them to be. My loss would have changed them. It just would never be the same. Everything I had done, now gone. I wondered if there was a heaven, and a hell. This didn’t seem like hell. It was probably purgatory, and I would soon be judged for my sins.

At that moment, I finally started panicking a little. I had led a good life, but I had done bad things. I never took religion seriously, argued frequently against the existence of god. I had probably stolen things I didn’t mean to, et cetera. The very thought of a hell frightened me for a while. I would not like it if they sent me there.

In my panicked state I tried to reason for a while. Maybe I was dreaming. So, I tried to wake up. I tried my best to let my conscious mind take over my dreams, which usually worked since I was a lucid dreamer. It didn’t work. I didn’t wake up. I tried again. I started getting worked up.

I lie. I wasn’t worked up. Frankly, it didn’t really bother me much that I was dead. I wasn’t excited, but I wasn’t terrified to bits that I would try everything to go back. My panicking felt just like a momentary hiccup. I was surprisingly calm.

That was the strangest part. It was unsettling how calm I was. I was eager, even, to see what lay in the great beyond.

Eventually, I reached the base of the mountain. There was a vertical train there that led to the top of the mountain. There were some people inside. There was something of importance at the top of the mountain, I could feel it. The people were all somber, wearing scarlet red dresses and suits, and they were all beckoning to me. No one spoke. It was still very silent. So, I got on the train, silently awaiting the judgment that might await me at the top. I don’t remember much of the ride or the way after. I just heard someone say, Not now. Not now…

Then I woke up. The sudden wave of relief hit me. I was on my bed. All my memories came back to me like a flood. I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t dead.

I died yesterday.