Part 1

She was perched apathetically atop a paddle board on the red-letter waters of the San Marcos river rowing laboriously upstream towards Spring Lake. Stopping momentarily to pull waves of sandy blonde shoulder length hair that had been dancing with the unseasonably brisk March north wind into a top knot, we conversed while she stared off into the comparatively warm crystal clear spring water as it flowed under a blanketed gray central Texas sky.

"Tell a story."

It has been some kind of day and the truth had become too dull to stir her senses.

A simple enough request but I don't really do stories, it’s not my gift. At times my brain has created crazy, vivid dreams though.
I contemplated the latest in my head, thinking it might suffice as some kind of epic tale. The general plot was that I was heading to some unspecified but risky life saving operation which I had known about for scores of time but finally couldn’t wait any longer. In typical me fashion I just approached medical death row with characteristic haphazard, cavalier irreverence. Plus it was a dream. I could do whatever I wanted. And if I died…it was a dream. And if I wanted to fly…It was a dream.

We paddled against the strengthening current as we got closer to San Marcos Springs, the source of the artesian water that made Spring Lake. The river shallowed under a bridge beyond Sewell park and we decided to turn around and float down stream, drifting past one another when the current dictated or lagging behind as we skimmed the glassy surface gliding next to Texas wild-rice, over gigantic bass and bluegill, and under the tangled branches of hibernating live oaks.

Row, row, row…

Kneeling on the paddleboard (out of necessity. I was not about to stand and risk falling in the water…) moving with the flow of the river I broke the cold spring silence to tell my story of that wild fever dream I'd conjured up in my unconsciousness; an adventure which was fresh enough in my mind that I could recall most of the finer points and embellish all the rest.

~~~

“My field of view of the world was narrow as if life had condensed itself into the field of view of a paper towel tube periscope. The picture was permanently obfuscated through a thin ephemeral (what's a story if I don't throw in the word "ephemeral?") haze as I staggered from my car into a surgical receiving area of a huge hospital to accept an inevitability that I couldn't escape any longer. Just 10 hours prior, I chose to walk through the doorway of a friend's apartment. If my time was up, I wanted to spend what could have been the last couple of hours on earth with the person behind the door I was knocking on. The apartment entry glimmered an inviting yellow-orange in the setting summer sun as the door opened up. Between sips of castle-temp white wine that tasted of Downeast fog, freedom, and crepuscular beams from a lighthouse in the Atlantic, we laughed and talked in a cozy, warmly lit living room as the lamp light spilled like honey out the 2nd floor windows. Hastily shoved in my backpack was a note I had hastily written. Slightly crumpled, multiple pages in length, trifolded, crafted in my trademark Mandalay Maroon ink from my fountain pen, and laden with information that carried a specific gravity of importance to it; an answer key if you will, it sat idly by. Maybe subconsciously the substances we consumed were an excuse to make the transference of the contents of the letter easier. Maybe the intoxication was a way to diminish the sword of Damocles I was constantly conscious of, but when night rolled to morning and it finally came time to leave, I looked at the trifolded paperwork in my backpack, I shoved it down deep inside, and I left to sleep on the floor of an empty house. I eventually succumbed to sleep; the last night of my life before everything would certainly be changed forever.

When the morning came, because it always does, I tried in an altered state of mind to call an Uber to get to this operation but no one picks you up when you're on the fringes of proper society at 4am on a Tuesday. Having no other good option, I got in my car still feeling the effects of the substances and unsent note from the night before. The long drive to the hospital was executed carefully and exactingly if slightly impaired. But it was a dream and I'm basically a pro at Mario kart in the natural (read: real world) so the skills transferred over. I pulled up to the valet and tossed them the keys to my old car and walked away. Paperwork didn't matter. Tip didn't matter. What happened to the car didn't matter. Over a quarter million miles and those may have been my last ones. I didn't care what they did with it; might not ever see it again. They could hit it with a red shell for all I cared. (That's another Mario kart reference.)

Automated glass doors hinted at a faint golden shine of the dawn while they slid open to reveal a lobby full of people with their palpable anxiety all laid bare in that exposing, cutting, harsh bright white hospital lighting. The low din of conversation in the packed lobby never stopped or got quieter than a murmur. I guess people fear that the silence will usher in doubts or questions and they're not strong enough to stare those things in the face at any hour, much less so at 5am.

I sauntered in, leaned on a wall and waited mostly silently and what I felt was expressionless. The letter was still at the bottom of my backpack… Someone else would find it and know what to do if I didn't make it through, I reasoned. After all, they say that you have no control over who lives, who dies, who tells your story. And by "they" I mean Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Concluding my thought, a young man in a business casual hospital costume popped through a set of secured double doors and called my name. Maybe it was the hangover from the night before or maybe they pump weird air into surgical facilities but from that point I slowly tore away and I was watching my body. I was a spectator and someone else was behind the controls. The hospital liaison man guided me into a room to prep and put on a stupid hospital gown. I placed my Aggie ring, my watch, my camo "America Needs Farmers" hat, and my other valuables in a cheap plastic drawstring bag emblazoned with the hospital's logo, because America. My last real cognizant digital act just before I tossed my phone in the bag was, in a desperate stroke of genius, to schedule a PDF of that letter to be sent via email at 1055. Sure I would be temporarily unconscious or permanently de-conscioused by then, but some things simply can't go unsaid if I wanted to at least try to have control over who tells my story. And if I did indeed wind up waking up dead….how cool would it be to get an email from the other side?! Win for me, win for recipient, win for the afterlife. Win, win, win I confidently thought.

An attendant in white scrubs came in and told me to take my bracelets off. (I have these friendship bracelets that were given to me by very significant and special people and they're a permanent fixture on my wide and well pronounced wrist.) I reluctantly acquiesced and began to take off a silicone wristband off my right wrist with the word “Hope” on it. It broke when I pulled it over my hand.

Could have been a sign… could have been made in China.

“Those need to come off too.”

He was referring to all of those friendship bracelets on my left wrist, and an Era’s tour bracelet that was quite possibly the best gift I'd ever been given.

“No.”

It was a certain type of “no." A matter of fact statement in which everyone who was part of the conversation knew immediately that there was no way in hell or creation that anything would change my decision, be it persuasion, good sense, or blunt force. The bracelets were part of me and they were going to stay, sterile surgical environment be damned. I'd rather run the risk of an 18th century infectious death than cut off the bracelets. I convinced them the Era's bracelet (which had a clasp) was irremovable too. Suckers.

We exchanged disagreeing words at an increasing volume until a nurse came by and told the hospital lackey I was okay leaving them on.

Three or four feet away, separated by a thin curtain was my roommate for the 30 minutes I was in the staging area. I couldn't see them but heard them talk. The words were a jumbled mess and I intentionally tried to not pay attention to the dialogue, but very obviously the person was gripped with fear. I wondered if they were facing a bigger prospect of death than I was looking at, or is it really all the same, big or small?

A chaplain who spoke with what I guessed was a delightful Mozambican accent came in to speak with my roommate, and though I paid no attention to the specifics of the private conversation, that sheer hanging sheet between us did nothing to dampen the stressful tone of concern of the patient and the drone of the preacher. Pastor? Chaplain? Bishop??? Man of God.

The preacher stopped by me on the way out since my bed was the closest to the door. It could have been a sign or it could have been a formality. He tried to engage in conversation with me by asking a multi sequential question like "How are you, Are you calm? Are you religious? Christian?"

I replied with a sincere if half hearted "Yes" paired with an inauthentic smile laced with a smirk because it was all too easy to dodge his interaction. He didn't know I was a career charismatic introvert with an acute capability to eloquently crush an incipient conversation.

He asked me why I seemed so calm, and implied that I must be strong. I was flattered someone had noticed. A large, chiseled, burly preaching man calling you Hercules hits differently than when your mom does it.

"Tell me more about your faith…"

I looked at him as inquisitively as one can when they feel like they're moving above their body watching their life play out extracorporeally. Eyes methodically scanning left and right a few times like a Kit-Cat Klock, I said with a half cocked smile:

"Yes…" as my whole answer. He smiled wide, bright white teeth contrasting against his dark skin. My half smile drifted to a solid three-quarter grin. At that moment a team of 4 people came to take me away.

It was a very mechanical operation, equipment everywhere. Screens, hoses, cords, beeps, an incessant choreographed swarm of nurses and assistants helping helpless people in weird beds who were laid up in their dumb cotton gowns, waiting for someone in scrubs to take them away. Where they all went there’s no way to ever know.

I was wheeled past them all into an operating room. It was cold. Larger than I thought an operating room should be. More cabinet space than I would have guessed. Against the wishes of the attending staff, I transferred myself onto the hard stainless steel table that was sparsely padded. I wasn't dead yet and didn't need the help of these people yet… A nice woman conversed with me in generic pleasantries while she grabbed a large syringe from a package and, mid sentence, stuck the needle deep in my lumbar spine.

Et tu, Brute?

It was a lie when they smiled and said, "you won't feel a thing."

Anesthesia. A spinal epidural catheter placed with a 25 gauge Pencan delivered America's finest tetrocaine and epinephrine straight to my nervous system.

"That wasn't so bad…" I said with a tone of annoyance. My Last words. Maybe ever.

I had to stop talking anyway, though most of my cordialness went out the window when my nurse literally stabbed me in the back. They wanted me unconscious so they could stick an endotracheal tube in me as a means to deliver more anesthetic.

I looked around the room quizzically at the people preparing to dissect me as I was slowly assisted to a supine position on the table. I watched the world begin to turn into the waters of a dark gentle sea. One could call it scary but I thought it was cool. I saw in my fading periphery the glint of a golden door; a sight I had seen before in my life but a sight that didn't belong in an operating room. At the last moment of consciousness I stared hollow-eyed at the kind stranger who was helping me lie down so they could begin to cure or kill me. It was not the woman who stabbed me in the back…I'll never forget that face. It was a different person, kinder, quietly confident, calming. The whole situation was mildly haunting but oddly comfortable. Maybe it was the drugs, maybe there was just no point in worrying…

Though that person was an unknown singularity in a sea of 7 billion, I found something fleetingly familiar in their eyes; big, round, clear, reassuring, wise, and decorated with the most captivating tree bark-textured, cortado-colored irises that I've ever come to know. I was sure I had seen those before somewhere. Spooky…