The Morning I Woke Up Dead
By Samuel R. Choy
I knew it was going to be a bad day, the morning I woke up dead. I gawked at my lifeless body. It lay on an operating table, all sorts of tubes and hoses sticking out of it. Around my corpse, the hospital staff did their thing.
At first, I thought I must have been in a car wreck. But that was impossible because I hadn't gone anywhere that night. I went to bed alive and woke up a ghost. If that's what you'd call me. I couldn't figure out for the life of me (or is that the death of me?) how I wound up on the operating table assuming room temperature.
I ventured out of the operating room. After all, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And I wanted to be as far away from my corpse as possible.
I went through the hall and took the elevator down a floor. In the waiting room my wife sat weeping next to her mother. Laurie looked so young. Vulnerable. I ached to hold her. To tell her everything would be all right. But when I tried to touch her, my arm passed through her like mist. I couldn't even feel her, like I wasn't there.
That's when it struck me.
My life was over, and I wasn't ready. I knew I wouldn't go to hell. But I was just not prepared to be dead. My earthly house wasn't in order. My office was a mess. I had never told Laurie where I kept the life insurance policy. I hadn't even balanced the checkbook. And what about my kids? They'd grow up fatherless. I knew I had blown it.
Then someone with a voice like James Earl Jones spoke my name.
“Timothy.”
I turned to see a glimmering twelve-foot-tall being. It was sort of like looking at the Incredible Hulk in a white robe. Except his skin and hair were gold, not green. And he didn't say, “Angel smash!”
He smiled and crossed his arms. “Well?”
I hadn't expected him to say that. My wife was a widow, my children fatherless, and to top it off, I wasn't in heaven. What was up with that? Was all my theology wrong?
“Well, what?” I shot back.
To my surprise, this angelic mountain of muscle didn't intimidate me. What could he do? Kill me?
“Aren't you supposed to be telling me something? I thought angels were messengers.”
“And so I am.”
“What now?”
He chuckled. “Now that's the question. Isn't it?”
“Would you at least tell me why I'm not in heaven? I am dead, after all.”
He clasped his hands together, interlocking his beefy fingers. “The answer is quite simple. It's not your time.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I still had a chance to get my things in order. This wasn't the end.
He placed a meaty hand on my shoulder. “You're not out of danger. The doctors managed to start your heart, but you've lost a lot of blood.”
I swallowed. “Will I live?”
“I don't know. My Lord hasn't told me.”
Then the angel disappeared. I wanted to scream. I rubbed my temples, expecting a headache to come. It didn't. Then I remembered I was dead.
I returned to the operating room where my body lay. The doctors didn't seem so panicky. One of them stitched a hole in my chest. I stared at him in grim fascination; the skill with which he tied the intricate knots amazed me.
Finally, I crossed the hall to the other operating room. I don't know why. It just seemed right. Two cops stood guard outside the door.
“He broke into a seven-year-old's room,” one of them said. “Except her father caught him before he could do anything.”
“Guess he picked the wrong house.”
“Maybe if the father were a better shot, he'd have killed the S.O.B.”
And then it all came back to me. My daughter's scream. The man in her room. Gunfire. Pain. Cold. Darkness.
That's when I saw the monster who tried to rape my daughter. He met my gaze and bolted. Coward. I sprinted after him, determined to finish the job I started: to send him to hell.
I chased him down the hall and almost caught up with him when something grabbed me and lifted me into the air. Great. Arnold Schwarzenangel.
“You're letting him get away!”
“That's the idea, my little friend.”
“But he tried to rape my daughter. I'm going to kill him!”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Are you going to calm down or do I have to flick you down the hallway?”
“I'm not calming down!”
“Very well.”
The next thing I knew, I tumbled head over heel. At the end of the hall, I slid to a stop. I lay on the ground, feet in the air, dazed. The angel already stood next to me, arms crossed, glaring at me as if I were a naughty child.
“Are you ready to behave like a servant of your Lord?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Talk to him. Forgive him. Tell him the way of salvation.”
“But he tried to rape my daughter.”
The angel pointed a finger in my face. “Don't question your Lord. Obey him or suffer the consequences.” He disappeared.
How could I do this? This guy almost ruined my daughter's life. But I couldn't deny the Lord. I wasn't the one who made the rules. So I set out to look for the creep. Eying his chart, I discovered his name was Ignat. No wonder the guy turned out weird. After an hour, I found my quarry cowering in a bathroom stall in the women's room. A pervert to the end.
I breathed a prayer for strength. “Ignat, I want to talk to you.”
No answer. “You're hanging over hell by a thread,” I said, paraphrasing the Puritan evangelist.
“Don't give me that hell claptrap.”
“You're not in a position to decide what you believe in anymore,” I answered. “I'm supposed to tell you God loves you and sent His Son to die for your sins. If you ask Him to forgive you, He will.”
“And why would I do that?”
Lord. What's wrong with this guy?
The Lord answered my question. He poured Ignat's memories into my mind. The endless, mind-numbing abuse at the hand of his father.
He ran away from home, and then the urges came. He couldn't make them go away, and there was nowhere to go for help.
Sin begot sin. Pain begot pain. And now, death begot death.
And I saw him in a different light. Though I didn't excuse his actions, I felt compassion for him.
A wave of white-hot heat seared my face. Out of a hole in the floor sauntered a band of demons. They didn't have scales and horns. In fact, they'd have been beautiful were it not for the arrogant sneer on their mouths and the wicked leer of their eyes.
I reached through the stall and picked Ignat up, shaking him.
“It's not too late,” I pleaded. But he was blind and deaf to me. He screamed, his eyes bulging. A hand grabbed me from behind and pulled me from the bathroom. The angel.
“Let me talk to him. Please.”
“You did what the Lord expected of you. Ignat's fate is not in your hands.”
The demons had him now, dragging him to the hole that opened to Ignat's eternity. He stopped screaming. His face empty, as if he had fallen into a catatonic state. And they disappeared in an instant.
Why'd you let me see this, God? Why?
I closed my eyes and wept. The angel picked me up, holding me in his powerful arms as if I were a child. I buried my head in his shoulder, taking comfort in the warmth of his touch, the sweet smell of incense wafting from his robe, and cried until I fell asleep.
There's now a scar where the bullet entered my chest. That wound has healed. But the wound on my heart, the one the Lord inflicted by making me watch a man go to hell, has not. I don't sleep well and often wake up at night, screaming. I don't understand why He made me witness that horror. I probably never will. But since then, I've kept my checkbook balanced and my office immaculate. I tell my wife and children I love them and kiss them until they're sick of it. And I share my faith with anyone who'll listen.
Once in a while, I catch myself praying for Ignat, knowing it's too late for him. Sounds crazy. I know. But I have this bizarre hope that maybe at the last nanosecond he repented. Maybe he did. God is big enough to do that. Stranger things have happened.
}
~~~~~ <~
}
By Samuel R. Choy
I knew it was going to be a bad day, the morning I woke up dead. I gawked at my lifeless body. It lay on an operating table, all sorts of tubes and hoses sticking out of it. Around my corpse, the hospital staff did their thing.
At first, I thought I must have been in a car wreck. But that was impossible because I hadn't gone anywhere that night. I went to bed alive and woke up a ghost. If that's what you'd call me. I couldn't figure out for the life of me (or is that the death of me?) how I wound up on the operating table assuming room temperature.
I ventured out of the operating room. After all, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And I wanted to be as far away from my corpse as possible.
I went through the hall and took the elevator down a floor. In the waiting room my wife sat weeping next to her mother. Laurie looked so young. Vulnerable. I ached to hold her. To tell her everything would be all right. But when I tried to touch her, my arm passed through her like mist. I couldn't even feel her, like I wasn't there.
That's when it struck me.
My life was over, and I wasn't ready. I knew I wouldn't go to hell. But I was just not prepared to be dead. My earthly house wasn't in order. My office was a mess. I had never told Laurie where I kept the life insurance policy. I hadn't even balanced the checkbook. And what about my kids? They'd grow up fatherless. I knew I had blown it.
Then someone with a voice like James Earl Jones spoke my name.
“Timothy.”
I turned to see a glimmering twelve-foot-tall being. It was sort of like looking at the Incredible Hulk in a white robe. Except his skin and hair were gold, not green. And he didn't say, “Angel smash!”
He smiled and crossed his arms. “Well?”
I hadn't expected him to say that. My wife was a widow, my children fatherless, and to top it off, I wasn't in heaven. What was up with that? Was all my theology wrong?
“Well, what?” I shot back.
To my surprise, this angelic mountain of muscle didn't intimidate me. What could he do? Kill me?
“Aren't you supposed to be telling me something? I thought angels were messengers.”
“And so I am.”
“What now?”
He chuckled. “Now that's the question. Isn't it?”
“Would you at least tell me why I'm not in heaven? I am dead, after all.”
He clasped his hands together, interlocking his beefy fingers. “The answer is quite simple. It's not your time.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I still had a chance to get my things in order. This wasn't the end.
He placed a meaty hand on my shoulder. “You're not out of danger. The doctors managed to start your heart, but you've lost a lot of blood.”
I swallowed. “Will I live?”
“I don't know. My Lord hasn't told me.”
Then the angel disappeared. I wanted to scream. I rubbed my temples, expecting a headache to come. It didn't. Then I remembered I was dead.
I returned to the operating room where my body lay. The doctors didn't seem so panicky. One of them stitched a hole in my chest. I stared at him in grim fascination; the skill with which he tied the intricate knots amazed me.
Finally, I crossed the hall to the other operating room. I don't know why. It just seemed right. Two cops stood guard outside the door.
“He broke into a seven-year-old's room,” one of them said. “Except her father caught him before he could do anything.”
“Guess he picked the wrong house.”
“Maybe if the father were a better shot, he'd have killed the S.O.B.”
And then it all came back to me. My daughter's scream. The man in her room. Gunfire. Pain. Cold. Darkness.
That's when I saw the monster who tried to rape my daughter. He met my gaze and bolted. Coward. I sprinted after him, determined to finish the job I started: to send him to hell.
I chased him down the hall and almost caught up with him when something grabbed me and lifted me into the air. Great. Arnold Schwarzenangel.
“You're letting him get away!”
“That's the idea, my little friend.”
“But he tried to rape my daughter. I'm going to kill him!”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Are you going to calm down or do I have to flick you down the hallway?”
“I'm not calming down!”
“Very well.”
The next thing I knew, I tumbled head over heel. At the end of the hall, I slid to a stop. I lay on the ground, feet in the air, dazed. The angel already stood next to me, arms crossed, glaring at me as if I were a naughty child.
“Are you ready to behave like a servant of your Lord?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Talk to him. Forgive him. Tell him the way of salvation.”
“But he tried to rape my daughter.”
The angel pointed a finger in my face. “Don't question your Lord. Obey him or suffer the consequences.” He disappeared.
How could I do this? This guy almost ruined my daughter's life. But I couldn't deny the Lord. I wasn't the one who made the rules. So I set out to look for the creep. Eying his chart, I discovered his name was Ignat. No wonder the guy turned out weird. After an hour, I found my quarry cowering in a bathroom stall in the women's room. A pervert to the end.
I breathed a prayer for strength. “Ignat, I want to talk to you.”
No answer. “You're hanging over hell by a thread,” I said, paraphrasing the Puritan evangelist.
“Don't give me that hell claptrap.”
“You're not in a position to decide what you believe in anymore,” I answered. “I'm supposed to tell you God loves you and sent His Son to die for your sins. If you ask Him to forgive you, He will.”
“And why would I do that?”
Lord. What's wrong with this guy?
The Lord answered my question. He poured Ignat's memories into my mind. The endless, mind-numbing abuse at the hand of his father.
He ran away from home, and then the urges came. He couldn't make them go away, and there was nowhere to go for help.
Sin begot sin. Pain begot pain. And now, death begot death.
And I saw him in a different light. Though I didn't excuse his actions, I felt compassion for him.
A wave of white-hot heat seared my face. Out of a hole in the floor sauntered a band of demons. They didn't have scales and horns. In fact, they'd have been beautiful were it not for the arrogant sneer on their mouths and the wicked leer of their eyes.
I reached through the stall and picked Ignat up, shaking him.
“It's not too late,” I pleaded. But he was blind and deaf to me. He screamed, his eyes bulging. A hand grabbed me from behind and pulled me from the bathroom. The angel.
“Let me talk to him. Please.”
“You did what the Lord expected of you. Ignat's fate is not in your hands.”
The demons had him now, dragging him to the hole that opened to Ignat's eternity. He stopped screaming. His face empty, as if he had fallen into a catatonic state. And they disappeared in an instant.
Why'd you let me see this, God? Why?
I closed my eyes and wept. The angel picked me up, holding me in his powerful arms as if I were a child. I buried my head in his shoulder, taking comfort in the warmth of his touch, the sweet smell of incense wafting from his robe, and cried until I fell asleep.
There's now a scar where the bullet entered my chest. That wound has healed. But the wound on my heart, the one the Lord inflicted by making me watch a man go to hell, has not. I don't sleep well and often wake up at night, screaming. I don't understand why He made me witness that horror. I probably never will. But since then, I've kept my checkbook balanced and my office immaculate. I tell my wife and children I love them and kiss them until they're sick of it. And I share my faith with anyone who'll listen.
Once in a while, I catch myself praying for Ignat, knowing it's too late for him. Sounds crazy. I know. But I have this bizarre hope that maybe at the last nanosecond he repented. Maybe he did. God is big enough to do that. Stranger things have happened.
}
~~~~~ <~
}
Samuel Choy lives in Stewartville, MN with his wife, 3 kids, 3 dogs, and 10 chickens. During the day he’s a technical writer at a large I.T. Company. But when he’s not writing about bits and bytes, He is wearing out the keyboard writing about knights and fairies.
Samuel has a B.A. in English from the University of New Mexico.
Samuel has a B.A. in English from the University of New Mexico.
