Comatose, Continued

"Are they going to take him off life support?" I heard my middle daughter whisper with burden. In a silenced gasp of terror, I knew I was the subject matter. A doctor's prognosis, in layman's terms: damage irreparable, vegetative state expected. I wrestled with my failed act of will to peal open my eyelids, to motion that I'm still here, living in mystery of the sight around me, but still able to hear, still able to sense. In blurs and slurs, I saw remembrances of faces and places half fabricated, like in dreams. Awake or asleep? --- I knew little difference. I could hear each footstep coming toward me and shuffling away. I could sense someone's presence by a muffled dose of warmth and light. As I heard my pastor praying, I embraced each word with the only hug I could give, one internal, one becoming eternal. As scripture dripped over my thirsty soul, I fervently prayed for each precious visitor, who would lament my impending absence. Like an infant's babbles trapped within, with inutterances now incomprehensible even to myself, I began to fade into an opening of light-flickering glimpses piercing through the doom. As I slipped off into the distance, a redemptive mystery began seeping through, ready to free me from my ebony prison.