The Heat

She blinked her eyes as she nodded her head slightly. To relieve the pain in my shoulder, I shifted my eyes back to the ceiling.

“So I’m sure some people get shot, end up in the hospital, and make a conscious decision to change their life afterward. You know, just like the guy in prison. Make sense so far?” I asked.

“Makes perfect sense,” she responded.

“Okay, well that’s not what happened to me. I got shot, went to the hospital, and at some point in time, I died. I know I did. I was dead, Sydney. And I came back from that place, and now I’m a different person. I didn’t decide this, it just happened. I guess I need to back up, I’m not different, I see life differently. It’s hard to explain.” I shifted my eyes in her direction and waited for a response.

She had moved from resting her head in her hand and looking at me to lying beside me and staring at the ceiling.

“”What was it like, being dead?” she asked in an almost eerie monotone voice.

I stared up at the ceiling and spoke as if re