-AS-
-YOU-
-WISH-
This is a true story. The events depicted in this book take place in Connecticut in July of 2000 and in Chicago in September of 2002. At the desires of the survivors; the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it had happened…
Prologue:
I died on a Friday.
Or maybe it was Saturday morning. One of those something sometime AM hours where time gets slippery and hospital lights blur into dreams you don’t remember asking for.
But the facts are this:
I died.
Flatlined.
No pulse.
No heartbeat.
Dead.
Only—I came back.
Not with a halo. Not with only what other’s call enlightenment.
Just a limp body, an unspoken memory, and the weight of something I wasn’t supposed to know yet.
This wasn’t the first time, either.
When I was seven months old, I flatlined in an incubator.
Born premature. Lungs underdeveloped. Withdrawals shaking through me like I’d been born halfway into this world and halfway into some other one. I was nature’s response to mommy and daddy’s drug use as my mother was doing speed for the first two months of her pregnancy after my parents had unprotected sex while under the influence of LSD…
I died then too.
No tunnel. No god. No light. Nothing I could remember.
Just cold nothing.
But something saw me.
And for some reason, it sent me back.
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t understand. Couldn’t explain. I was conscious life that was not conscious about life. QUITE the paradox of an existence I was born into… Crossing over to an afterlife without ever having truly lived a life.
But something inside me knew:
That wasn’t the end.
There was more.
I didn’t start having seizures until 13 years after my second death—the one in the car crash. The crash that shattered everything. The one that cracked my skull, delivered fractures to my right: ankle, knee, thigh, hip, forearm, my left: collarbone, eye socket, and broke the veil between here and there wide open.
Doctors later said it was the TBIs.
That it took over a decade for the damage to fully show itself. I was now dealing with inoperable scar tissue from my concussions that were now randomly preventing my brain waves from being sent properly; which caused me to black out, collapse to the ground, and have full grand mal seizures.
But I knew better.
The seizures weren’t just neurological. Not just triggered by stress and scar tissue.
They were spiritual backlash.
Every time one hit, it was like something was trying to break back through.
I was eight years old when I made the wish.
I remember it.
Arguing during recess after lunch at school.
My intentions so pure and unfettered.
That smell of sweat and secrets.
I was standing there, roaring with fury, and I screamed to everyone, to god itself:
“I want to have a near-death experience. I want to see what’s on the other side. NO MATTER WHAT THE COST! I want to come back with the truth so we can have something more than someone’s made up scary fairytale mythology from thousands of years ago. I want to bring back THE TRUTH about God, Divinity, ALL about life and death as we should know it. I WISH TO HAVE A NEAR DEATH EXPIRIENCE; NO MATTER WHAT THE COST!”
Kids do say the damndest of things.
A real wish.
Not childish curiosity.
A dare to the divine.
And something heard me.
The wish didn’t cash in immediately. The universe has a long memory but what one might consider terrible timing.
Instead, it stalked me.
Waited.
Followed me into adolescence. The entrance to being and adult.
Into parties and pills and loud music and that feeling that something big was always just around the corner.
And then one night—
Years later—
The wish answered.
With glass.
With metal.
With silence.
But the crash isn’t the beginning.
Neither was the girl on the helicopter.
Neither is the raves, the clubs, or the seizures or the dream.
This story starts where it always did:
With a hum.
Soft. Constant. Cosmic.
I heard it before I had heard my name.
Before my body could process light or air.
It sang to me in the dark.
And I never stopped listening.
So here I am.
Back from the dead.
Drinking burnt coffee in a diner that smells like bleach, old ketchup, and half-finished conversations.
There was a waitr-AS-
-YOU-
-WISH-
This is a true story. The events depicted in this book take place in Connecticut in July of 2000 and in Chicago in September of 2002. At the desires of the survivors; the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it had happened…
Prologue:
I died on a Friday.
Or maybe it was Saturday morning. One of those something sometime AM hours where time gets slippery and hospital lights blur into dreams you don’t remember asking for.
But the facts are this:
I died.
Flatlined.
No pulse.
No heartbeat.
Dead.
Only—I came back.
Not with a halo. Not with only what other’s call enlightenment.
Just a limp body, an unspoken memory, and the weight of something I wasn’t supposed to know yet.
This wasn’t the first time, either.
When I was seven months old, I flatlined in an incubator.
Born premature. Lungs underdeveloped. Withdrawals shaking through me like I’d been born halfway into this world and halfway into some other one. I was nature’s response to mommy and daddy’s drug use as my mother was doing speed for the first two months of her pregnancy after my parents had unprotected sex while under the influence of LSD…
I died then too.
No tunnel. No god. No light. Nothing I could remember.
Just cold nothing.
But something saw me.
And for some reason, it sent me back.
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t understand. Couldn’t explain. I was conscious life that was not conscious about life. QUITE the paradox of an existence I was born into… Crossing over to an afterlife without ever having truly lived a life.
But something inside me knew:
That wasn’t the end.
There was more.
I didn’t start having seizures until 13 years after my second death—the one in the car crash. The crash that shattered everything. The one that cracked my skull, delivered fractures to my right: ankle, knee, thigh, hip, forearm, my left: collarbone, eye socket, and broke the veil between here and there wide open.
Doctors later said it was the TBIs.
That it took over a decade for the damage to fully show itself. I was now dealing with inoperable scar tissue from my concussions that were now randomly preventing my brain waves from being sent properly; which caused me to black out, collapse to the ground, and have full grand mal seizures.
But I knew better.
The seizures weren’t just neurological. Not just triggered by stress and scar tissue.
They were spiritual backlash.
Every time one hit, it was like something was trying to break back through.
I was eight years old when I made the wish.
I remember it.
Arguing during recess after lunch at school.
My intentions so pure and unfettered.
That smell of sweat and secrets.
I was standing there, roaring with fury, and I screamed to everyone, to god itself:
“I want to have a near-death experience. I want to see what’s on the other side. NO MATTER WHAT THE COST! I want to come back with the truth so we can have something more than someone’s made up scary fairytale mythology from thousands of years ago. I want to bring back THE TRUTH about God, Divinity, ALL about life and death as we should know it. I WISH TO HAVE A NEAR DEATH EXPIRIENCE; NO MATTER WHAT THE COST!”
Kids do say the damndest of things.
A real wish.
Not childish curiosity.
A dare to the divine.
And something heard me.
The wish didn’t cash in immediately. The universe has a long memory but what one might consider terrible timing.
Instead, it stalked me.
Waited.
Followed me into adolescence. The entrance to being and adult.
Into parties and pills and loud music and that feeling that something big was always just around the corner.
And then one night—
Years later—
The wish answered.
With glass.
With metal.
With silence.
But the crash isn’t the beginning.
Neither was the girl on the helicopter.
Neither is the raves, the clubs, or the seizures or the dream.
This story starts where it always did:
With a hum.
Soft. Constant. Cosmic.
I heard it before I had heard my name.
Before my body could process light or air.
It sang to me in the dark.
And I never stopped listening.
So here I am.
Back from the dead.
Drinking burnt coffee in a diner that smells like bleach, old ketchup, and half-finished conversations.
There was a waitr-AS-
-YOU-
-WISH-
This is a true story. The events depicted in this book take place in Connecticut in July of 2000 and in Chicago in September of 2002. At the desires of the survivors; the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it had happened…
Prologue:
I died on a Friday.
Or maybe it was Saturday morning. One of those something sometime AM hours where time gets slippery and hospital lights blur into dreams you don’t remember asking for.
But the facts are this:
I died.
Flatlined.
No pulse.
No heartbeat.
Dead.
Only—I came back.
Not with a halo. Not with only what other’s call enlightenment.
Just a limp body, an unspoken memory, and the weight of something I wasn’t supposed to know yet.
This wasn’t the first time, either.
When I was seven months old, I flatlined in an incubator.
Born premature. Lungs underdeveloped. Withdrawals shaking through me like I’d been born halfway into this world and halfway into some other one. I was nature’s response to mommy and daddy’s drug use as my mother was doing speed for the first two months of her pregnancy after my parents had unprotected sex while under the influence of LSD…
I died then too.
No tunnel. No god. No light. Nothing I could remember.
Just cold nothing.
But something saw me.
And for some reason, it sent me back.
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t understand. Couldn’t explain. I was conscious life that was not conscious about life. QUITE the paradox of an existence I was born into… Crossing over to an afterlife without ever having truly lived a life.
But something inside me knew:
That wasn’t the end.
There was more.
I didn’t start having seizures until 13 years after my second death—the one in the car crash. The crash that shattered everything. The one that cracked my skull, delivered fractures to my right: ankle, knee, thigh, hip, forearm, my left: collarbone, eye socket, and broke the veil between here and there wide open.
Doctors later said it was the TBIs.
That it took over a decade for the damage to fully show itself. I was now dealing with inoperable scar tissue from my concussions that were now randomly preventing my brain waves from being sent properly; which caused me to black out, collapse to the ground, and have full grand mal seizures.
But I knew better.
The seizures weren’t just neurological. Not just triggered by stress and scar tissue.
They were spiritual backlash.
Every time one hit, it was like something was trying to break back through.
I was eight years old when I made the wish.
I remember it.
Arguing during recess after lunch at school.
My intentions so pure and unfettered.
That smell of sweat and secrets.
I was standing there, roaring with fury, and I screamed to everyone, to god itself:
“I want to have a near-death experience. I want to see what’s on the other side. NO MATTER WHAT THE COST! I want to come back with the truth so we can have something more than someone’s made up scary fairytale mythology from thousands of years ago. I want to bring back THE TRUTH about God, Divinity, ALL about life and death as we should know it. I WISH TO HAVE A NEAR DEATH EXPIRIENCE; NO MATTER WHAT THE COST!”
Kids do say the damndest of things.
A real wish.
Not childish curiosity.
A dare to the divine.
And something heard me.
The wish didn’t cash in immediately. The universe has a long memory but what one might consider terrible timing.
Instead, it stalked me.
Waited.
Followed me into adolescence. The entrance to being and adult.
Into parties and pills and loud music and that feeling that something big was always just around the corner.
And then one night—
Years later—
The wish answered.
With glass.
With metal.
With silence.
But the crash isn’t the beginning.
Neither was the girl on the helicopter.
Neither is the raves, the clubs, or the seizures or the dream.
This story starts where it always did:
With a hum.
Soft. Constant. Cosmic.
I heard it before I had heard my name.
Before my body could process light or air.
It sang to me in the dark.
And I never stopped listening.
So here I am.
Back from the dead.
Drinking burnt coffee in a diner that smells like bleach, old ketchup, and half-finished conversations.
There was a waitress who keeps topping me off so it’s like I haven’t even taken a sip.
There’s a hum in the fluorescent lights above me, matching the one in my bones.
And I know this time, I have to talk about it.
Because this time, I remember.
-AS YOU WISH-ess who keeps topping me off so it’s like I haven’t even taken a sip.
There’s a hum in the fluorescent lights above me, matching the one in my bones.
And I know this time, I have to talk about it.
Because this time, I remember.
-AS YOU WISH-ess who keeps topping me off so it’s like I haven’t even taken a sip.
There’s a hum in the fluorescent lights above me, matching the one in my bones.
And I know this time, I have to talk about it.
Because this time, I remember.
-AS YOU WISH-