Death wasn't like in the movies. There was no cinematic review of my mistakes, nor did a blinding light invite me to eternal rest. For me, Frido's end was the echo of a constant beep and a ravenous cold devouring my hands, while I watched my wife and son dissolve into tears by my bedside.
I had everything a "successful" man should aspire to: a house, a family that loved me, a good job. But, ironically, success tasted like nothing. I spent my life waiting for a bus that never reached the stop. Pancreatic cancer wasn't a tragedy; it was just the final punctuation mark on a monotonous existence.
"At last, peace," I thought as the world faded away.
But peace is fickle.
As I crossed that pale tunnel, a voice that belonged neither to men nor to gods thundered in my conscience:
—It is not your time. You have another purpose.
—Purpose?— I wanted to scream, but I no longer had a mouth. The white void slowly painted itself black until I felt myself vanish.
When I opened my eyes, the hospital had evaporated. There was no smell of disinfectant or beeping machines. I couldn't feel my limbs; in fact, I felt nothing at all. My gaze was anchored to a sky of a strange blue, streaked with brushstrokes of an unnatural pink, as if someone had spilled paint over a cosmic canvas.
Panic tried to rise through my throat, but found no path. "What the hell is happening? Hadn't I died? Is this heaven or hell? Well, I don't think it's heaven since I'm an ungrateful guy; I don't deserve it." Nothing answered my questions; there was only the cold silence of wherever I was.
A voice boomed in my head.
—Now you shall be known as Samuel, the creator of m...n...s.
The end of the sentence dissolved in the air. Samuel? A new name for a body I perhaps didn't possess. And what's this about a creator? The unknowns kept me distracted for a while. Hours passed and nothing happened; I only saw the infinity of space and the stars, as night fell.
I'm bored, there's too much peace. Is this a torture of hell? What a weird way to make someone suffer. In the end, tranquility is just the elegant name the living give to the absolute boredom of the dead.
For a guy who lived chained to screens and noise, the silence of nature was like a kick in the nuts. I couldn't scream to release the frustration, nor could I sleep or close my eyes to ignore the landscape. I could only exist, lost in an endless loop of thoughts.
My only entertainment was the cycle of the moon and the sun. I don't know how much time passed—maybe days, weeks, or months. Time is a flexible dimension when you are a static object... What am I supposed to be? A rock? A monument to my own bad karma?
In one of those days of solitude and eternal thoughts, there was finally a change.
Without knowing how, I felt my perception tear and expand. My vision, which had been fixed on that patch of pink sky, began to rotate as if an invisible camera were pulling away from my center. For the first time, I saw beyond. The emerald moss growing nearby was quite beautiful, and the immense forest where I lay was terrifying.
I lacked a brain, nerves, and eyes; yet, there I was, perceiving the surroundings with a terrifying sharpness. I was bored and, above all, deeply alone.
"What is to become of me?"
I began to visualize everything around me. The flora was nothing I could recognize, although they looked a lot like those on Earth. The small animals that occasionally passed in front of me were extremely strange.
The annoyance was so great that I literally started counting the seconds as soon as the sun rose. I failed several times, but according to my calculations, the days here last about 26 hours. I could only do these kinds of things and think about my previous life. This is horrible; having a cell phone would be incredible.
This is what I wanted, right? Peace and quiet. Life is sometimes very complicated and I almost always loathed my previous happiness. What will my wife be doing? I guess she'll be in mourning. And what will become of my little Jesús? My 10-year-old son. What happens if my wife finds another man? What if my son loves him more than me? Well, it doesn't matter; I'm already dead.
Much more time passed. I was losing my mind, and there came a point where I stopped thinking. I would look up and sometimes imagine I was flying away and meeting aliens. My mind was already elsewhere, dissociating like crazy. I was so desperate that I even wondered if Messi had won the league. It's sad, I know: I'm trapped in another world and I'm still thinking about soccer. But really, what else was I going to do?
On one occasion, unexpectedly, an imposing creature burst into my field of vision chasing a smaller one. The hierarchy was clear: predator and prey. The sturdier one pounced and gave the prey a good blow, knocking it to the ground. This one was something very similar to a cat, I describe it that way because of its features. It had antennas and, at the same time, a very fluffy tail, with a dense white wool that resembled sheep. It also moved like a monkey or chimpanzee.
The bully looked more like a dog, but it was very ugly, like a demon or something. It had a kind of horns, its fur was grayish, and its red eyes seemed to come from the Underworld. That bastard had a feast after killing the other one; all the blood fell on top of me, or so I think. I know it's the food chain, but I felt somewhat nauseous.
There was another change when it was all over. My consciousness stepped out of my being and I could see the corpse beside me. In that instant, I also realized the reality: I was nothing more than a rock; a measly and vulgar stone lying at the foot of a tree. This makes no sense. But, right after that, I returned to my body, being trapped again in that damn mineral prison.
Afterwards, time moved forward even more; it became winter and then summer. The specimen that died beside me rotted until nothing but bones remained. One day, another animal of the same species, a bit larger, approached. It saw the remains of the one who was perhaps its companion.
It looked at me with curiosity, as if searching for something. Then, it grabbed me with both hands. It brought me close to its face and I could see it better; it was about 1 meter tall, had ears like a kangaroo's, and its eyes were similar to humans'.
It grabbed me and took me with it. Although it was indirectly, I could finally move and look around my surroundings a little more.
I guess the boredom is over.