I didn't think death would be like this. Actually I didn't have any expectations whatsoever, apart from oblivion - if nothingness can be called an expectation. But here I am. Me, just not me in the old familiar sense - more like a detached me, disembodied ... literally.
Dying wasn't particularly painful - I suppose I have the morphine to thank for that. I remember saying something to Elsbeth, and watching her fade from view as my eyesight went; then a flurry of jumbled memories as my brain shut down, followed by darkness, total and utter, not frightening but somehow warm and comforting, perhaps like the womb might have been. Then this, a detached, pseudo coexistence with the world I knew.
I could see Elsbeth weeping below, though 'below' is not the right word for what must be a transdimensional direction, but it will suffice. I reached out to touch her but my hand passed straight through her, so I watched, unable to comfort her in her sorrow. Two nurses came in and tended to me, or what was me, my body, my old material self, now lying like an empty husk under cold white bed sheets. Then Jojo and Liesel entered, tears flowing from their eyes, holding each other for comfort. Elsbeth stood up, looking a little awkward, but they went to her, bless them, and the trio stood together arm in arm, mourning for old Aaron who was no more.
Except that I still am here, I shouted, but nobody heard, not even me.
