I was eating lunch the other day

when I started to think of death. I don’t know why.

Suddenly it filled the room

like the smell of gas escaping.

All those stories of people on the brink

brought back to life.

Telling of the incredible peace they experienced.

Something beyond words.

And, odd as it seems,

it was with resentment they recalled

the hands of the doctor, deep in death’s coma,

struggling to pull them back.

We get thrown into this world

cold turkey

without memory or longing for the time before.

Strange, isn’t it?

It’s from mystery we sprang, warm in our mother’s womb.

Springs pushed out of the mattress.

And we spend a lifetime faithful to the laws of thermodynamics

returning to our original shape.

A state of rest.

Oh, then it came to me, she said.

Not the incredible peace but a small flame of

excitement

like a pilot light.

-Art Goodtimes