An interesting thing about life; no one gets out of it alive. People get shot, stabbed, thrown off cliffs, poisoned, and all manner of things involving a lack of morality each day. Yet one of the most surprising things about life is, what ends it the most often.

You hear plenty of people picketing and protesting, wanting to ban guns, nuclear weapons, and cigarettes. Guess what device being banned would save the most lives? The bathtub.

That's right folks, more than guns, more than car accidents, more than all the nuclear weapons ever used combined, baths are lethal. It isn't even close. But you never see grungy people protesting the leading cause of death multiple years in a row. Come to think of it, a bunch of Charlie Brown pig pen like people waving signs outside a capitol would be rather amusing.

You never hear of anyone asking to ban what killed me either; the internal combustion engine driven demon commonly known as the car. A Gremlin in my case, of all things. There I was, walking home from the movie theater with my best friend Reg.

Reg (or Reginald, though it meant a fight if you called him that) had been my friend since kindergarten. Maybe even since preschool, though my memory didn't go back that far. We had just gone to see the movie monster marathon at the Globe, an old time theater. It was October 29th, 1976 in Silo, Iowa.

Yes, they named the town Silo, I swear, I can't make this stuff up.

Silo was the typical two horse town; a small strip of suburbia placed in the middle of farms, large or small. Corn had more of a presence in the region than people. We had a small grocery store, a small hardware store, and a small theater that was among the oldest in the state. It was falling apart of course, but it still made money. Where that money went no one could say, cause it almost never showed new movies, instead showing grainy insect eaten copies of the classics.

It was also the only source of urban amusement for anyone living in the town. Next closest thing was one of the new malls in Bufordsville, a good thirty miles away. Kids like us could only reach it by parents, or by bike. And biking there on the interstate took way too long in my opinion.

Thad swore my dad was the best amusement in town. My dad was a mutant. A so called “gadgeteer” to be precise, he made strange hi-tech toys for kids. That's right, no cool robots or ray guns or futuristic appliances; dad (Dr. Wexler, or Paul to his friends) was a toy maker.

The toy that most people loved, that was even manufactured by Hasbro, was a walking talking cyborg guy with a light up eyes and a kung-fu grip called Commander Zap. Which was a stupid name, but nobody asked me. It paid the bills anyway, and I had the full line for free. I didn't see the allure though. I was more a fan of simple toys; model planes or trains, things like that.

The unspeakable things he did to my model train set still haunts me.

These wandering thoughts and memories were beneficial; they took me, for a brief time, away from the fact that I lay dying. But again I remembered, the panic setting in this time to stay, the dream of past fun times now tinged with the knowledge of approaching mortality like blood pouring from a wound.

Possibly even from my wounds, though I wasn't really capable of checking that.

WE had just gotten out of the theater, after the marathon, the last of which had been “Bride of Frankenstein”, a pretty awesome movie by 1930's standards, and were filing out into the street with the crowd, when the truck came. A semi without a trailer, driving down the interstate in what for us, was a late hour. It also seemed the driver had never been here before, as he missed the weather-beaten but still bright red stop sign at the intersection before the crosswalk. The crosswalk a good 10 of us were on. The crosswalk the Gremlin was just now passing.

I had looked up from some comment on how hot the actress was, even with stitches, to my friend Thad (who was a bit of a horndog) to see a puke green monstrosity coming at me, seeming to be at least five times larger than it likely was.

And then the sensation of flying; no pain, no impacts with either the truck or the ground. Just flying. My best friend's face swam into vision, sparking off a thousand memories of disjointed moments; stealing cookies from the cookie jar then running when my father saw us, laughing. Playing hide and seek in the woods with other kids. Lying in the warm sun, just soaking it up, next to the creek where we used to launch boats of our own making.

This mixed with a thousand other such moments, all sparkling crystals shining in the river of blood surging out of me with every beat of my overactive heart. Asking Julie Devries to the freshman dance, and her laughter. Actually going with Betty McCallister, and the great time we had, discoing away till our parents broke us up.

Playing baseball with Doug McCallister, her brother, and winning the little league regional that year. My father, on my tenth birthday, handing me the wrapped package that turned out to be the train set he later butchered. My mother, her face more clear than it had been in years, staring up at me with a smile I could only classify as melancholy.

More faces, names, dates, and blurs, all circling in and crowding me as my friend's face began to dim; there was no sound save the roar of my blood in my ears, and no sensation other than the creeping cold stealing it's way into me like a thief after my most valuable possession.

And then nothing at all.

This wasn't how I expected death to be. Where were the angels, the pearly gates, the past relatives my grandparents had told me about? For that matter where were my grandparents themselves? They had both died before this I was sure, I could remember being young and going to the funeral home for Grandma's, though I couldn't seem to picture her face anymore.

There we no devils either, no lake of fire and brimstone, no screams of the tortured sinners to serenade me.

There was only blackness, pure and total. No sensation, no pain, no sound, no sights. Nothing. I was all there was. The only thing that existed, though I could only prove I existed by chasing my increasingly muddled thoughts around, as a dog would chase it's own tail. Soon even that started to fade, and I simply was. I was trapped, with only myself to console me.

I made games to pass the time, relived memories till they began to fray around the edges. And still, there was naught but darkness.

Then there was light. It wasn't a clear break of day, the pure light of truth, or a magical epiphany of the hoped for variety. Instead it started out as an ever so perceptible dimming of the pure darkness I was enclosed in. The next thing noticed was sensation. The heat and cold I'd almost forgotten existed impinged upon all that I was, enlarging it.

Almost at the same time another increase in all that I was came to me. Sound. I remembered this from the dances and films that endlessly replayed themselves in myself. But this music was different; new. I had heard some of it before, the classics they were called. Some were remembered clearly from those very movies I could still remember.

But some, and these were the most important by far, were songs I had never heard before, for all that they involved the same old themes of love, loss and bragging. Some voices I even fancied I recognized, like the one that made me dream of meat. To my near endless frustration, I could not understand them. The dulcet tones nor gravelly baritones alike. I knew I should be able to, but I couldn't. The language seemed hauntingly familiar. Perhaps I had lost more of myself than I thought to the darkness?

I mourned, despairing that I would ever know such understanding again.

That led to my next discovery; I 'mourned'! I felt 'despair'! I could feel! All that I was had expanded! But I could not move. I was still trapped, even with the new/old/half remembered stimuli.

There were other voices too, that did not belong to the music, that spoke in soft gentle tones of almost reverence. I had the feeling they were speaking to me, but I couldn't understand them, and couldn't respond. I didn't even know how to. They came and went, unknowing of my plight.

Then my vision began to clear. I knew then, I had to have eyes! And to hear, I had to have ears! To feel cold, I had to have a body! I remembered bodies. Everyone had them, even I had once. But somehow I had one again?

The moon, that was the source of the light. It was almost painfully bright and oh so beautiful; a pure white like the light in my dreams had been. It was a friend, that light, and I embraced it as utterly as one can when one cannot move.

The heights of joy, to have a friend again! A dim memory of a face, almost lost, faded to a complete lack of recognition, surfaced. That was a puzzle; one I could not solve and that made me feel bad somehow. But the moon could be my new best friend, and I would love it utterly! It even had a face too!

A small part of me whispered that the moon would be a very poor friend, having no self to speak of, but I ignored that part of me. I was big enough now that I could ignore the parts of I that I did not like, and that one was a jerk.

And then greater despair; the moon left me. It stole itself away from my new vision, and I was alone again. How dare it move when I could not! I hated it!

Maybe the music would be my friend? It had not left me since I regained my hearing. Maybe it would stay? I listened intently, mourning the loss of the traitorous moon, but while the music itself was pure, and understandable, the words in some of it were gibberish, illusive. But some were beginning to make sense, as if I had heard them before.

The ones made by the meat guy were especially soothing. Something familiar somehow, even when it wasn't. More light came, this time tinged golden, and I expanded again. Memories of sunshine came back, of a thousand days spent in it's warmth. My vision was somehow drawn to it, a lodestone even brighter than the moon. I remembered now, the two chased each other around the sky. One meant the other would be gone or hiding... most of the time.

The rules of existence began to reassert themselves. My vision moved, which meant I had to have eyes. Hearing indicated ears. Feeling indicated a body. When I focused, I could blink... eyelids? Muscles with movement in them. My eyes did not like it, at first. But the pain, the beautiful wonderful pain which made me feel alive, eased.

Even better, my vision began to clear more. I began to make out the details of my new existence; a set of three walls of bare rough cut stone, with large wall hangings on them (I should know that word, I knew I should! Beautiful frustration!) with pictures of animals and things. Mixed with these were posters from movies that I had only a little trouble recognizing, and posters of... boys?

There were shelves lines floor to ceiling with stuffed animals and dolls too; a few of the other things I recognized as having been made by my... father! I had a father! I remembered him, a kooky man who made toys! More emotion; love so deep it swallowed me utterly, mixed with something else, something darker. I did not recognize the stuffed things, or the dolls, except as what they were.

I knew the Commander Zap action figure intimately; I just knew it was mine, the one I'd been gifted with at some point in life. The dolls, the stuffed things, did not have that recognition in their favor; they clearly did not belong, somehow.

Something else intruded on my awareness. Smell. The room smelled musty, of dust and other things not so definable to me. It felt like a tomb, or an unused shrine. How I knew that, I did not know. Maybe I had extensive knowledge of such things?

There was a big fireplace inset in the wall opposite me, and to the side of that closest to the window (a large thing with an arch at the top, all clear glass so clean I could barely tell the glass was there at all) The item on the other side, closest to the door and in it's own cabinet, looked kind of like a stereo system. Though I didn't see any spot to put the 8 tracks in, nor any records.

I was pretty sure it wasn't playing a radio station, as I heard no DJ. It was while pondering this mystery that I was dragged back into the all consuming darkness. I did not wish to go, but the pull was simply too strong. Had I ever sensed those things that were? Or had I simply made them up? Yet again, I despaired.

The jolt shook me awake though. Somehow I was in another place, a place of whiteness, and every nerve (?) I had was tingly and screaming at me. Blue arcs of electricity was arcing across my vision, and there was movement. I wasn't controlling it, but it was movement all the same!

When the arcs of blue stopped, the movement did too. The white settled in around me. Voices began, and understanding followed.

“No response, doctor. Monitors all report no change.”

“Damn, I was sure I'd gotten the mixture right this time!”

“You say that every time, doctor.”

I could do that. Why couldn't I do that? I tried but no sound came.
“Doctor, do you really think this will...? I mean, after so long...?”

“Yes nurse, I really do. Now remove the sheet, I want to check for burns.”

The white came off, and I saw.

I was in a large room, lit by rods of white so intense they seemed pieces of the moon itself, brought to me. There were large, ancient machines of arcane purpose scattered around me; I recognized one as a dynamo, and another as a very large plasma orb, something I was sure was only around for looks. Electricity was arcing along the various massive cables leading from machine to machine; Sure enough, two of those cabled ended above me with giant clips. Electricity then, was the source of the blue I had seen.

Of far more importance than the appearance of the massive room, its play of light and shadow in the dark corners and unease generated by the smell of blood, the fact that I could now feel alternately rough wood upon my back and a sheet upon my front, were the room's occupants.

The one staring at me in shock and alarm, I assumed was the 'nurse'. She was honey blonde, with muted gray eyes set in a pleasant face, clear and unlined. She was quite possibly the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life. I knew she was female because she had breasts; big ones that bounced in a hypnotic way as she jumped away from me, taking the sheet with her.

“Doctor, her eyes are open!”

I tried to speak, to reach out, anything to stop this beautiful creature, this other I, from leaving me. The horror, the sheer stark terror she had at seeing me seared me with cold fire to my core. She took a deep breath, hand over her mouth as she scooted away from me.

My desperation peaked and my hand twitched, reaching towards the beautiful creature as the 'doctor' turned. Breathing! That was what I forgot! A gust of air rushed into me at my request, and the smells assaulting my nose increased tenfold. I idly noted that the chest expansion also affecting my own breasts.

The 'doctor was more lined than the 'nurse', having light brown hair streaked with gray and startling blue eyes. He was still fit, I noted, having an almost gaunt form encased in a white lab coat darkened with stains, and old ratty brown pants, and a gray shirt which might have once been white. I dubbed him beautiful creature number two... and then I recognized him, or thought I did. That faded image that haunted me so, of my best friend's face pulled itself into my surface thoughts in an instant, the gaps filled by the face before me.

My fumbling uncoordinated efforts finally bore fruit; I managed to grab the 'nurse's' arm, and she screamed.

Boy, could she scream! The delightful sensation of my eardrums almost bursting under the assault excited me, and I pushed forward with my attempt to communicate, to show that I was no threat to them, that to the contrary, I loved them and all they represented. But the efforts combined with my flash of recognition and the results got all jumbled.

“Pl...ple...Reg?”

The nurse dropped like a bird felled by a shot, taking me with her, as I would have sooner lost the arm I just found out I possessed than let her go again. Something that seemed a possibility, as it seemed very thin and only held on by a series of fine dark stitches, twined around it's width; the 'nurse's' weight nearly pulled my shoulder and arm off. The pain was exquisite.

The feel of her, the smell of her, was more so. She smelled of lavender soap and a slightly cloying perfume, with just a hint of sweat. She was wearing a spotless silk blouse and a denim skirt that did not quite reach her knees. She was soft and warm, and very inviting. I was concerned that she was lost to the self eating darkness, but she came back almost immediately, squirming briefly under me, then stilling.

The 'doctor' was still standing but motionless, his mouth open so far I could count his teeth. There were 14 in the upper jaw and 12 in the lower. There was something in his gaze that I was not sure I liked as he watched me nestle my head on the 'nurse's' breasts to better drink in their appealing softness, but I loved him anyway. Then he spoke, and something that was missing seemed to snap into place, like a puzzle's final piece.

“They called me mad! Mad! Was it mad to wish to try and reach beyond the veil of death, to pluck the very souls at will from that hungry embrace! And now look! Success! IT'S ALIVE...ALIVE!”

As he laughed, I stared into the face of the 'nurse' and smiled. I wanted to laugh with the 'doctor, but I did not know how. So instead I smiled, feeling the pulling of my cheeks as the nurse stared back with... fear?