The Universe’s Life

Have you ever heard someone say something really cryptic and not understand what they were saying? That’s how I always felt when someone would say the universe was one. Like, what does it mean? We all exist as one? We all come together in the end as we leave our life? What does it mean? Well, I learned it. I learned it when I first died. At 13 years old, I died to a bee sting that I no one knew I was allergic to in the middle of nowhere Denver. And due to no prior knowledge of my deadly allergy, I had no epipen. The sting caused my airway to swell shut and I was recorded to have an anaphylactic reaction, which means that I didn’t get enough oxygen to my brain. On the way to the ER, my breathing stopped entirely, and my heart soon thereafter. Yet, weird enough, I never lost consciousness However, during this time, I felt something in my chest. A tugging feeling, as if something was trying to get out. The feeling was similar to the feeling you get when you forget your project at home or feel like you're forgetting something big. But the weird thing was, I didn’t actually feel nervous. I knew what was happening. I knew the doctors were struggling to keep my blood flowing and were trying to do what they could with the limited medical supplies in the ambulance. I could hear them shouting that they might lose me if we don’t go faster. I could hear them shouting incoherent words that were to big for my 13 year old self to know. But I didn’t feel nervous. In fact, I started to feel less nervous as the pit started to grow smaller and smaller. It was then when I saw the most confusing thing I had ever saw at the time. It was my own body. I was looking at myself from an aerial point-of-view. It was an amazing sight, but for some reason I left. I immediately flew out of the ambulance, uninterested in the idea of watching myself get treated and wonder as to whether or not I’d get out of that ordeal alive. Instead, I decided to fly a mile high above the mile high city. Everything looked so beautiful. The city lights looked like a swarm of fireflies standing still. I just stared and stared,wondering if it was really worth it to live if I could just stay up here and admire the bright lights. But as if at a snap of God’s fingers, I was whipped from the clouds back into my body. I was greeted by my crying mother, my smiling father, and siblings who were all gracious I was alive. Now while I was grateful that I lived another day, I always yearned to go back to the sky.

The second time I died wasn't more of an accident then the first time. My buddy and I were driving down to the local bar in his Dodge Charger when a drunk driver ran a red light while going 60 in a 40 zone. My buddy and I were also unfortunate enough to get hit by him. His F-150 t-boned my buddy and I. Needless to say, the charger was nothing compared to the massive truck. Our car flipped at least four times and only stopped when we smashed into a lamppost. The F-150 was a wreck after the crash, but my buddy and I were in a much worse position. The engine caught fire and the car was crumpled beyond belief. Hell, it'd be more appropriate to call it a big ball of scrap-metal. Paramedics arrived within a few minutes. I remember that I was already out of my body before they got there. I was on the very brink of death from what I saw. They instantly loaded my friend and I onto ambulances and rushed us to the hospital. Instead of leaving like the last time, I decided to take a look at my body. From diagnosis reports, I learned about what happened. My friend got off pretty lucky in all actuality. A concussion, broken arm, a little bit of internal bleeding, a little bit of external bleeding, and that was it. A lot less than what should have happened. I didn't get so lucky though. My body practically shattered into pieces. Four of my ribs broke into pieces, with one of them breaking off and puncturing my lung. A large concussion made me blackout and fall into a coma. My brachial artery was cut when I crashed. I should have bled out at that point but my chair had folded over and crushed my arm, but at least it put pressure on the point.There was a open-compound fracture in my leg, which means that a bone was poking out. Of course, I was shocked to hear how badly I came out compared to my friend, but I was glad that it was me and not him. Even still, I was slightly disappointed to realize how broken my body was. To distract myself from this, I flew over to the streets of Manhattan just to look at the people passing by. I saw a group of girls who were red in the face laughing uncontrollably. I saw a homeless man playing the guitar with a sign near him that said “homeless by choice, happy as can be.” I saw many more types of people that I can’t possibly list, but one girl caught my eye. A young girl, no older than six, was walking hand in hand with her father and mother when all of a sudden she and I met eyes. She looked at me as she passed by and kept eye contact with me, even when she had to look backwards. Eventually, she let go of her dad’s hand and waved at me! When her dad asked what that was about, she looked at him and said “I was just waving at the invisible man!” Her mother and father looked confused but brushed it off yet I couldn’t. Why could she see me when no one else could? This couldn’t have been a coincidence. But at the moment the girl finally turned away, I was whipped back into my body yet again. I woke to a white hospital bed along with a white room with various medical contraptions. My body was wrecked with fatigue and soreness but I knew that I was alive, and I was rejoiced.

The third time I died was at my own selfish hands. The emptiness that tore inside me became too much. A man cannot live without any strong emotions in his daily life. So like any selfish man, I took a bottle of sleeping pills and filled the emptiness with pills. I felt the same feeling like the other two times I died but it was different. Instead of the usual nervous feeling, it felt painful. Sharp and hot pains were building up in my chest. Even though my body I knew I had no physical in this moment, I was writhing in pain. I was thrashing around when I finally shot out of my own chest, feeling as if I ripped my own chest in two just to move. I looked down at the pathetic sight of me on my bed, comfortably wrapped in multiple blankets and a soft pillow to lay on. I hated that sight. I hated everything I saw in that room. So like the other times, I tried to leave. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t phase through the walls like last time nor could I open the door. Each time I tried to run through the doors that led outside, it felt as if I was running into a brick wall. I frantically moved around the apartment, trying to find any opening I could. But alas, I could not. I looked at my body and started crying. Why had I done this? Why didn’t I give more effort? Why was this my solution? I tried putting my head in my hands when I remembered I didn’t have either. I solemnly laughed at myself when I realized this. Stuck in this shallow room for eternity with nothing to do and no one to be around. I started to close my eyes to see if I could sleep when a ll of a sudden, I felt as if I was sucked into a typhoon of color. A rainbow caught in the winds of a tornado, having its colors whipped around at speeds unimaginable. Colors I’ve never seen before, flying through the space of nothingness, yet whirling so close that I felt claustrophobic. I could hear the winds howling around me, even though I knew that was impossible. The colors clashed into each other, fighting for dominance of which color would come out and shine. Suddenly it stopped. The calmness frightened me more then the storm of colors did. Where had that storm gone? Right as I thought that, I felt an earthquake. Walls of reality started to fall apart all around me, and in those chunks of walls that fell, I saw countless lives from different times. I saw an Asian man working in a cubicle much to small to fit him comfortably. I saw a young boy and his dog running side by side on a morning jog. I saw a father abusing his children as his wife stared in fear. I saw historic figures, such as Hitler rising to power. I saw Gandhi giving out a speech through the eyes of his followers. Then everything stopped. I felt as if I just had the wind sucked out of me. I tried rationalizing what just happened when t hit me. The universe lives as one being. The reason I saw all of those lives is because I was that person at some point and they were me. The reason the little girl saw me was because she was me at some point and knew I was there because she experienced it herself. All souls transfer from one body to another, expecting each life as if it were there very own. I rubbed my head trying to figure out everything. I tried walking around to see if I was ok when I realized I didn't actually die! I guess my suicide attempt didn't work. I'm glad, because if it did work, I would have killed me along with many more souls to come.