MAYS LANDING
a novel by J.C. Mercer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incident are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
Text copyright Cc: 2016 by J.C. Mercer
Chapter 1. THE COSMIC CHAMPAGNE The nurse told me I had been dead for over four minutes. As a third-year medical school dropout, I feel fairly qualified to state categorically what a crock of shit that is. Even after "clinical death," typically defined by the cessation of vital functions such as heartbeat and respiration, brain death doesn't usually occur for a good five or six minutes later, when the brain runs out of oxygen and becomes irreversibly damaged. In truth, the exact moment of death is somewhat arbitrary and basically occurs when in the opinion of the attending physician there is nothing left that can be done to revive the patient and the pronouncement of death is made, along with the current local time, which then goes on the official death certificate. Doctors love to perpetuate tales about bringing patients "back from the dead" to elevate their self-perceived godlike status, as if those present in
the Bellevue Hospital emergency room on Manhattan's East Side that rainy autmnn evening were witnesses to some divine miracle. Likewise for all those so-called out-of-body and near death experiences you may have heard about, such as feelings of euphoria, walking through a tunnel toward a bright light, or visions of your grandparents or favorite uncle beckoning you to join them in the afterlife. Spiritually reassuring no doubt, but all with very earthly scientific explanations. As your brain becomes oxygen deprived, a condition known as cerebral anoxia — even a third-year dropout can show off by flaunting medical terms — and begins to die, it releases a wide range of sensory altering chemicals. These include endorphins, euphoria-inducing hormones known to suppress pain and cause the "runner's high" that many experience after exercise, as well as powerful anesthetics like ketamine, which combine to create a cacophony of "neural noise," an overload of often faulty information to your brain. The common experience of being in a long tunnel with a bright light at the end, for example, is generally attributed to the retina at the back of the eye becoming starved of oxygen and its nerve cells firing at random. The majority of these nerve cells live in the most sensitive part of the retina, the fovea, which is the bright spot that looks like the end of a tunnel. The only true recollection I have of my brief excursion to "the other side" is a strange, effervescing feeling, as if I was some kind of giant AlkaSeltzer tablet. No glimpses of God's face, no revelations or answers to life's deepest questions. In fact it was just the opposite; if anything I was struck by the randomness, the meaninglessness of it all. If spending eternity drifting in an endless sea of ginger ale is not exactly what you had in mind as a reward for a life well-lived, I apologize. However, we've all heard stories of near-death survivors who claimed to have visited the "other side" and then lead inspired lives in this world, secure that there is a better life waiting for us in the next. I suppose what follows is a
chronicle of someone who came back from the experience pretty sure that there isn't.
To understand my thoughts in those first moments when I regained consciousness, it is important to consider the amount of preparation that had gone into my suicide attempt. This was no pathetic "cry for help," but the culmination of weeks of careful planning. When I finally closed my eyes I knew with i00% certainty that I would not open them again in this world. Thus, I naturally assumed the darkness, interspersed with what appeared to be flashes of broken light to be part the experience of being dead, the afterlife, or whatever came next. Not altogether unpleasant, I thought, except for a growing soreness in my throat.
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