DEATH IS LOUDER than I thought it would be.
I could have predicted the blinding white light. Some close to the end would speak of a radiant beam that beckoned. And they were right—it is beautiful, shot through with bits of brilliant color that fly by me like heavenly confetti.
But the roar. No one mentioned the roar.
Its vibrations course through me, voltaic and swift, carving what feel like vast networks of roads and tunnels deep into my being. And there’s a taste. Metallic. Just a tinge that hints at conduction. Maybe that’s it, maybe together the thundering light and I complete some sort of vast, eternal circuit, and that’s all there is. No heaven, no hell, just the white roar, everlasting and indifferent.
All my sins, if not forgiven, at least forgotten.
Oblivion. I can live with that.
So we proceed, the white roar and I, hurtling through the cosmos till I lose all sense of time, space, and myself. It’s perfect, and it lasts and lasts—until it doesn’t.
Without warning, the white roar pulls away, leaving me alone in the dark, trying to remember how to breathe.
Trying to remember anything at all.