Forty-Five Minutes Dead

It was a whiteout in bitter cold. You think you fell, though you don’t really recall. Rescued unconscious, airlifted to the ER, there by any measure of life and death, you died. The doctors invoked their sorcery, their necromance technology. Performing CPR, they bypassed your heart and lungs. They connected your lifeless form to a machine that mimicked life functions your body could not perform. The shamanism paid off. You returned to the realm of the living after being dead for forty-five minutes you were responsive again! Forty-five minutes. What wisdom can you impart about afterlife? Forty-five minutes. Did you sense your soul departing? Forty-five minutes. Did you see a path to the stars or a bright perfect glow awaiting? Forty-five minutes. What is living and dying? Is there a line? Animation and stillness? Growth and decay? Forty-five minutes. Are they just parts of a continuum? Are they intertwined like yin and yang? Forty-five minutes. Can you describe the face of God or the ecstatic rapture of eternity? Forty-five minutes dead.