Page 176 of S is for SEX

TOAD

The two weeks Sydney had been away were filled with thoughts of her arrival, boyish anticipation of seeing her again, looking forward to spending time talking to her, and finding out just exactly what she was willing to accept from me regarding any advancements I may wish to make into her life.

Her presence didn’t make it difficult for me to proceed along my previously calculated path of slow steps, soft talk, and winning her heart; it seemed to have made it impossible. I was now under what I would personally describe as a full-scale attack, and she was providing minimal resistance to my approach.

I couldn’t accept that I had simply been shot, hospitalized, and was now in recovery; my beliefs were more complex. Convinced I had been shot, died, and was now resurrected, I viewed life, my existence, and Sydney much differently. In clear contrast to my former way of thinking, I no longer felt guilty for my presence on earth.

I was now truly grateful to be alive.

Lying flat on my back, I stared up at the ceiling and spoke. “You know, my parents named me after my grandfather, right?”

“Yes, you told me that,” she responded.

I tilted my head her direction slightly. “Do you know what it means?”

She raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth slightly. After a few seconds of silence, she breathed her response. “No, I guess not.”

“Change. Cambio means change in Italian.” As I finished speaking I shifted my gaze to the ceiling again.

“I didn’t just get shot. I’m going to tell you what I think happened and you can believe me, I don’t know…consider it…or think I’m crazy and go in the other room. I uhhm, but I’m going to tell you anyway,” I said.

“I won’t think your nuts,” she said.

“Hold that thought,” I responded.

“Some people get tossed in prison and they look at whatever it is they’ve done and make a decision to change. They decide if they don’t, they’re going to continue to repeat their behaviors and end up right back in there. That’s what the system hopes for, making the criminal think, and causing them to change into a law abiding citizen as a result. I guess you could call the experience of going to prison, for this particular person, an eye-opener.” I paused and tilted my head her direction.

She blinked her eyes as she nodded her head slightly. To relieve the pain in my shoulder, I shifted my eyes back to the ceiling.

“So I’m sure some people get shot, end up in the hospital, and make a conscious decision to change their life afterward. You know, just like the guy in prison. Make sense so far?” I asked.

“Makes perfect sense,” she responded.

“Okay, well that’s not what happened to me. I got shot, went to the hospital, and at some point in time, I died. I know I did. I was dead, Sydney. And I came back from that place, and now I’m a different person. I didn’t decide this, it just happened. I guess I need to back up, I’m not different, I see life differently. It’s hard to explain.” I shifted my eyes in her direction and waited for a response.

She had moved from resting her head in her hand and looking at me to lying beside me and staring at the ceiling.

“”What was it like, being dead?” she asked in an almost eerie monotone voice.

I stared up at the ceiling and spoke as if recollecting a scene from a movie. “My reply is probably what you’d expect me to say. Strange. Hard to explain. I don’t know, difficult to think about. It seems like a dream, but it wasn’t. I was weightless, but the experience was heavy. I felt like there was weight on me or with me at all times. I wasn’t a ghost or spirit, it was really me.”

“You know I have to ask, where’d you end up in your opinion? Heaven or hell?’ she asked.

“Heaven as far as I’m concerned. I mean it was peaceful. Not chaotic, like I think hell would be; and my grandfather was there, but he wasn’t sick. He was the way he used to be before he got sick, still old, but really full of energy and he seemed to be having fun,” I said.

“Did you talk to him? I mean in the experience?” she asked.

“No, he was out of reach. Just close enough I could see him, but not so close I could touch him. You know.” I paused and tilted my head her direction. “It’s weird. It’s like an entire lifetime of time passed in the 24 hours that I was in the coma. It’s just weird.”

She rolled her head to the side and grinned slightly. “I suppose so.”

“You believe me?” I asked.

“Uh huh, I do,” she said.

“I just don’t want you to think I got shot, ended up scared of dying, and decided to try and become someone I’m not going to be able to be. If anything, I’m not afraid to die, not now. And this wasn’t something I decided. It happened and I’m different.”

“I believe you,” she said as she rested her elbow on the bed and her cheek against her palm.

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