I awoke to a beeping rhythm and a very dry mouth. Something was stuck in my nose and a tube made cool air leak into my nostrils. It took several blinks and a few seconds before I could focus on anything in particular.
I was in a warm bed, and there were machines all around me. Judging by the wallpaper with a floral pattern and the generic landscape painting under the television, I was in a hospital room. An IV was plugged into my hand along with a number of other tubes coming from various areas of my body.
No ice, no Hell, and no demons. I was alive, tits and all. Relief flooded my body in a warm, crashing wave.
A light snore came from a recliner next to me, and I looked over to see my Dad sleeping. He looked a little wrecked with a few extra lines on his face than I remembered. His body was folded in an odd way as he snoozed away next to me. He let out a sudden snort, and I laughed out loud. My vision blurred with tears as I suppressed a hysterical giggle behind bandaged palms.
Never had I been so glad to see anyone in my life. Never had I been so happy to breathe. I laid there, breathing and watching him sleep, for an unknown amount of time. The tears eventually stopped flowing, and I let them dry warm on my face.
“Daddy?”
The snoring turned into a few more snorts as my father woke up. I smiled when those thirsty eyes of his focus on me. In a quick, desperate motion, he leaped from the chair and hugged me roughly.
“Bug? You’re okay!”
“Daddy, it’s you? You’re okay?”
“Of course, I am. I’m not the one in the hospital.”
All of the sudden, a buzzing sound interrupted our reunion. It sounded like an alarm of some sort. My dad jumped back with his hands in the air like he was getting arrested.
“Oh, I think I’m on one of your tube or sensors or something.”
“I don’t care. Hug me again,” I said.
Tears streamed down my face as I grabbed my father and hugged him tighter. Nurses rushed in with a middle-aged doctor in tow. Despite my firm grip, they manage to separate me from my dad. He moved to the side and held my hand while the doctor grabbed my chart.
“You should take it easy there, Miss,” said the doctor. “You were technically dead for a while.”
“You’re telling me I was clinically dead?” I asked.
“Yes, that is what we are telling you. You left us for a whole three minutes and sixty-six seconds.”
“It seemed like so much longer though,” I said.
“Come again?”
“How did I die?”
“Severe cardiac arrest. It is unusual with a woman of your age, but it happens. Have you been drinking heavily or taking any illegal substances we should know about?” the doctor asked.
“What? No,” I said.
“Sometimes, it’s genetic.”
“Her…mother…she had a condition…” Dad started.
“Doctor, tell me how I came back,” I said, interrupting him.
I didn’t want get into Mom’s story. My heart couldn’t take it. Not yet.
The nurses twitched a little. One of the younger ones looks antsy as if she really wanted to ask something. An older nurse next to her whispered something inaudible. The doctor hushed the others and continued.
“That is actually something we’d like to know. We about gave you up for dead quite frankly. Then suddenly, poof, you started breathing again. You came back. You were unconscious for a while, but alive. Just…poof.
“Poof? I died for three minutes and sixty-six seconds, and your only explanation for why I came back is poof?”
“Well, it’s not so much an explanation as…”
“Poof?” I asked with a thick layer of sarcasm. This guy was unbelievable.
“To be honest, there isn’t a medical explanation for how you came back to us. The paramedic’s called it. They stopped working on you. We were just wondering if maybe you remembered your experience at all. Some people see a light in a tunnel or claim to have out-of-body experiences. Did anything of that nature happen? Do you remember anything?”
“So, you want me to try to remember the poof? Really?” I said, feeling the anger fill my veins with much-needed warmth. “You medical professionals want me to tell you what my poof was? Is that a medical term?”
“Okay, I think my Danielle needs some rest now. If you will excuse us, please,” Dad said, stepping in to save the day.
“Yeah, I need to go back to the tunnel and follow my guiding light because…you know…poof,” I said with enough dark sarcasm to make Pudding proud.
Dad led the nurses and doctor out of the hospital room and shut the door behind him. He pulled up the recliner he’d been sleeping on next to my bed. My arms were crossed angrily over my chest, but I allowed him to take one hand.
“Can you believe those guys?” I asked.
“I know I know. But honey, we’ve got to tell people something. We’ve got to talk about what happened to you. I’m getting calls from news media, bloggers, and all sorts of people. They want to know what happened. It was all over the news. Do you remember anything?”
“Yes, I do,” I said with a long sigh. “I remember every bit of it in vivid technicolor. But nobody’s going to believe it when they hear the truth.”
“You might want to give them the benefit of the doubt. People might be more open than you think. They’ll want to hear what really happened to you.”
“I don’t know, Daddy. I mean, maybe I should just stick to the poof light at the end of the tunnel story. It’s more believable that what actually happened.”
“Try it on me. I’ll be your barometer,” Dad said with a hopeful smile.
“You sure you won’t think I’m crazy?”
“I’m sure. You’re my baby girl. I believe you whole-heartedly, Bug.”
I took in another deep breath and let it out. Breathing meant good oxygen could steel my body for everything. Hopefully, that meant unloading a crazy ass story to your father. I looked him square in eye and dove into the deep end.
“When I died, a bitchy Hellcat, named Pudding, came to me and led me through the nine circles of Hell using cat shit. Demons kept trying to serve me Poors Light because it is the official sponsor of Hell. There were weird cat demons in Gucci, and a three-headed dog, and TV evangelists that made marshmallows taste like nutmeg. When I got to the final level, a super hunky Satan tried to freeze me in ice because I wasn’t good to you and mom and me, but I fought my way back here with Pudding’s help.
“Ummmm…”
“And I saw Hitler. Well, he was a tree. It was a Hitler tree. And he got pecked by big breasted bird things. And there was a woman who was basically a hamster. And I think everyone in my office saw my boob.”
I paused to check in with Dad. He had this “I’ve made a mistake” look on his face. He was both trying to believe me and trying not to be afraid I lost my marbles.
“Daddy? Daddy, say something.”
“I mean…”
“Daddy, do you believe me?”
“Sweetheart, I am thinking we should just tell everyone the poof story.”
I took a deep breath and nodded. Hearing myself was weird. Even I wouldn’t have believed me. If I didn’t want to get rolled up in bubble wrap and sent an asylum, it was best to go with poof.
Weeks later, they let me go. I had countless interviews with bloggers, news reporters, and people who actually knew me. They all got the same story. I saw a bright light, and I started for it but decided to turn back. Poof, I came back to life. Unfinished business and all that. It wasn’t my time or some such nonsense. Most of it I pulled from every ghost flick I’d ever seen.
I only told my Dad everything, even about the part he played. I figured that he was one of the reasons I made it back, so he deserved to know the truth. Whether he believed me or not, I didn’t know, nor did I really care. He was trying to believe me, and that was enough. He was positively ecstatic to hear I quit my job and wanted to move home with him for a while.
Dad wheeled me out to the car parked in the front. He fussed around me like a mother hen, loading bags and adjusting seats. When he readied my chair, I stood like a trembling fawn, hanging onto the car for support. It took some doing, but I managed to shift into Dad’s passenger seat with little pain.
Dad was about to shut the door when I heard the tiniest mewing sound. It was so high and sweet. That meow only kittens can make that’s both adorable and insistent. It was coming from a nearby bush.
“Wait? Did you hear that?” I asked.
“Hear what?”
“That sound over by the bush.”
“Is that a… kitten?” he asked, squinting in the direction of the noise.
The mewing got louder, and I spotted a familiar, fuzzy face poke out of the shrub. It was her, no doubt. A much younger version, but it was her. The notion wasn’t a sane one, but those things didn’t really seem to matter anymore. Not to me.
With little more than a gallop, the tiny thing ran from the landscaped bushes to my feet. She stopped there, looked up at me, and mewed. I smiled down at her, and with a little stiffness, bent down to pick up the kitten. She didn’t flinch at being lifted and butted my mouth with her head gently in greeting. She purred so loud it vibrated the car.
“Hi there, Pudding. I didn’t think I’d get to see you again.”
I held her to my face, and she rubbed my cheek with her head. Her tiny nose daubed wet triangles against my skin. Dad smiled in awe as he rounded the old car and settled into the driver’s seat. He scratched the kitten behind the ear.
“Do you think you have room for me and Pudding at the lake house, Daddy?”
“I don’t see why not,” he said as he petted her little forehead.
The kitten circled in my lap a few times before curling up and settling into a warm ball. Dad smiled as he put the car into gear and followed the paved driveway out onto the freeway. It guided us on a long journey through piney forests, the grey road like a knife slicing through the endless trees. We were about ten minutes from the hospital when a sudden realization hit me.
“Pudding, I hope you will understand that your litter box is going to go in the basement, as far away from us as possible.”
The kitten took a deep breath in, sighed with a long purr, and promptly farted in my lap.