Two deaths

The last thing he heard was the scrape of metal, the sound of breaking glass, and a woman shouting, " Help me get him out! The steering wheel crushed his chest!» The last thing he felt in his body was a sharp pain somewhere in the region of his ribs, as someone grabbed him with strong hands and pulled him out of the crumpled car into a shapeless lump, he felt a soft impact on the wet ground. The last thing he saw with his eyes was a bare skeleton of a tree with a huge trunk, I think it was an oak.

Then everything faded.

The first thing he felt when he found himself without a body was fear. Withering horror. When he was in the body, he noticed emotions of a similar composition, but never of such intensity. Even the panic he'd experienced during his depressions had been a distraction compared to what he was experiencing now. He felt a hundredth degree of anxiety, loss, dissatisfaction, uncertainty, and a whole kaleidoscope of various fears that he could not identify.

"Did I go to hell?" "what is it?" he asked in a strangled voice, though he didn't have a voice in the usual sense.

- No, hell is a fairy tale, you were alone with your UN-lived and suppressed emotions, - a voice answered him, either from the void,or from the head, although there was no head either.

"What do I do now?" I can't live in such horror.

"You don't live like that anymore. Be patient for a few earthly days until your subtle body, where emotions were stored, disintegrates. They will pass and then you will meet with your unworn and suppressed thoughts. Try not to treat it as a punishment, because there is no punishment. It's just something you refused to meet while you were in the body. The inevitable stage.

"What do I do until then?" What happens after?

There was no answer, and he was left alone with a deadly horror. "So that's what hell is," he thought. There were no cauldrons of which the preachers had written. It was even worse. If he had not already died, he would have committed suicide from this suffering.

After what seemed like an eternity, the horror began to subside, and thoughts began to appear instead. Confusion came first. It was so strong that if it had had a head, it would have shattered into small pieces. "What will happen next?", " I will be born in a new body?", " How long will it last?", " Why this lie about devils?", " How could she do this to me? I loved her so much, especially her body." The wasps of thought stung the missing head unbearably from the inside. If he hadn't already died, he would have committed suicide from this psychosis.

After another eternity, on Earth at this time on the fortieth day, the deceased was commemorated, thoughts began to slow down and finally completely melted away.

And there was nothing left. The void. There was no individual soul waiting to be born in a new body. There was no more hell, no more heaven. He did not meet God. I didn't meet a devil. It turned into a complex fractal pattern and was absorbed by a single consciousness. His last experience, before his thoughts left him forever, was the knowledge that all the horror he had experienced in those two eternities had returned to where it had come from - to the universal ocean of pain, and that all the wounds that he had not healed would be reincarnated in the bodies of future people.

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The last thing she heard in her ears was the whisper of relatives around her bed: "her breathing has slowed down, look, she's barely breathing, her eyes are frozen." The last thing her body felt was the soft satin of the sheet and the prickly lace of her nightgown. The last thing she saw with her eyes were the people she knew well and loved, who saw her off - children, grandchildren, great-nieces and daughter-in-law. There was also one person whom she saw for the first time today. He was dressed in a black dress with a white collar and on his chest hung a wooden carved cross the size of a child's palm. The man muttered incessantly, wiped his wrinkled forehead with a handkerchief, and crossed himself. "It seems to be the same prayer that my grandmother hummed to herself before going to bed," she thought, and fell asleep forever. She wasn't afraid of death. She fought off the portion of fears that had been given to her. She met death with a sense of pleasure and curiosity. The man in the black dress closed her eyes, which, even when glazed, retained their bliss and wisdom.

Then everything faded.

The first thing she felt when she was without a body was ecstasy. She had experienced similar bliss during her lifetime, when she was in a state of exaltation, but she had never experienced pleasure of such intensity. It throbbed with ecstasy. It was as if she had become ecstasy herself. If she had eyes, she would cry with the grace that fills her. The sense of freedom she was experiencing at that moment was more intense than any possible sensation she could have experienced when she was United with her body.

"Am I in Eden?" she asked jokingly into the void, not expecting an answer.

But the void suddenly answered:
"No, you know that the promises of Paradise are fables. Enjoy a few earth days until your subtle bodies disintegrate.

She enjoyed it for what seemed like an eternity. With joy and love beyond the power of the body, she recalled all her relationships, all her experiences-both happy and bitter. With gratitude, she recalled all the pain she had experienced, which seemed especially illusory from here. She recalled her deep spiritual experiences with reverence. She smiled at the thought that it would end one day and there would be nothing left.

After an eternity, on the fortieth earth day, her bliss began to melt. The last thing she realized was that she hadn't added any of her injuries to the General ocean of pain. She knew that her identity was about to evaporate, that she would not be able to be born in a new body. And it didn't bother her. With the last chords of rapture ripping through her nonexistent chest, she turned into a complex fractal pattern and was absorbed into a single consciousness.

(C) Ekaterina Zavalej