Author : Russell Bert Waters

…fireworks exploding, the smell of sulphur…
…sliding off the road on a slushy day…
…first kiss, soft, lights of the city in the distance…
…fighting, bloody nose, principal blocked by a crowd of kids…
…nervous job interviews, too many to count if one were…
…”I do” as he looked into her glistening eyes…
…running over a dead deer…
…September 11 “where were you when” conversations with coworkers…
…every intersection, and landmark, as if a slideshow…

Things had begun to blend now, swirling, speeding up.
He wasn’t supposed to know, but that didn’t matter.

…school cafeteria rejection scene, “I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last boy on Earth!”…

He wondered where she was now, right now.
He knew she wasn’t experiencing this.
No one was.
No one knew.

Scenes were flying, he could feel the sensations, smell the scents, hear it all, see it all.

…the first hill of The Tornado roller coaster…
…the Cubs winning the World Series…

He had no control over what was coming through his mind, it was amped up, his body was awash with waves of memory, and his mind was in a spooky trance state that he wasn’t sure he could recover from.

…his first real estate sell…
…various acceptance speeches…
…the birth of his daughter…
…anguish at the death of his daughter…
…the note his wife had left…
…anguish again…

He yearned for more happy memories, happier sensations, some began to come.

…sunsets, sunrises, skylines reflecting in water…
…baby animals…
…gatherings with friends and family…
…finding love again…
…the birth of his second daughter…
…graduation of his second daughter…
…proud tears walking her down the aisle…

This was more like it, he smiled to himself. More floods, more happiness, waves of joyful memories, most of the sad memories were long past now.

….grandchildren…
…trips with his family…
…watching storms roll in off the lake at their summer home, the lightning playing in the sky, the wind chopping the water…

He came to the now, the present.
He slowly woke up from his trance, from the life he had lived flashing before his eyes.
Sitting in a park, a light breeze played with various papers and leaves before him.
He was on a bench that had been donated by someone, in memory of someone else.
The sky was clear, and there were other people around.
People whose life had not been flashing through their minds; in front of their eyes.
He could see a bright spot in the sky, like a misplaced star.
As the bomb detonated, just outside the atmosphere, there was a spherical burst, which caught people’s attention.
His phone crackled angrily at the interference, and then decided to begin to restart itself.
As the sky lit up there was an Aurora effect, and green serpents played in his view.
He realized he should stop staring right as his retinas were scorched and it no longer mattered.
The rest of his life continued to play out in the theater of his mind, as his flesh crackled and sizzled like a good steak, and his bones popped inside of him.
As he baked and burned and melted and popped, he had one last thought, and a smile played on his now nonexistent lips:

“mine was a good life.”