What it will be like to die is a question that haunts us all, especially as we age. This truly is one of life's unanswerable questions as the people who go through it are forever unable to share their experiences. So, in an attempt to better understand this mystery, I wrote up a thought experiment on what the experience of dying feels like. Enjoy!

Me:

This is the moment when I am supposed to know!

Only several inches of space stand between us. I can feel his sharp, icy breath penetrate, curling in through the ridges between the wrinkles of my cheek, making me shiver under the soft silk of my half-sleeved nightgown.

I have been envisioning our encounter for months now. I had submerged myself in the fear, the disgust, the aversion he inspired beforehand, so much so that now there is nothing left to feel. Standing in front of him, in a state of such rationality, drained of all emotion, one would think that finally, finally, the answer would come to me. But I know nothing.

As this realization strikes me, I feel an acute sprout of desperation bud and then grow within me, spreading out its tentacles, leaving me breathless for an answer.

I look to him to shed some insight upon my confusion. In response, he takes a step, only one step, forward. He is giving me time to think.

What did it all mean? Love? I have loved many people: my parents, my friends, a few men here and there, then my children, grandchildren. But they had all passed with time, or else they are living their separate lives now. To them, I exist only as a barnacle of a thought, a memory that clings on to the distant part of their mind, which they occasionally muse over now and again.

So the answer I am seeking could not be love, for all who I had loved had left in some way or another and I have been alone with my thoughts for some time now. My thoughts. Is that it then? Does the answer lie in the power of the mind? The art we create, the science we discover?

Again I look at him, and again he takes one step forward, leaving nothing but an inch between us. I keep my gaze steady, do not retreat for there is nowhere to go. Behind me is the wall of my bedroom, in front is the endless hollow abyss that are his eyes, the white gravelly texture of his skin, the indented bones for his nostrils.

In his proximity, I feel cold, so cold, but I welcome the chill for it sharpens the clarity of my thoughts.

Intelligence cannot be the answer! For what of the moments when creation fails us? The times when we feel sick of our intellectual pursuit, feel burdened by the knowledge we hold? The times when writing down our thoughts does more to inflate our pain than alleviate it, the times when our ingenious inventions lead to destruction? My old friend Alfred Nobel, he has been dead for over a decade now, could attest to how a harmless lab discovery, in which he mixed nitroglycerin with ammonium, led to the creation of an explosive that was then used to obliterate the entire village of Forx. No… intellect could be dangerous, depressing.

What is it then? I am running out of time! He has an iron grip around my wrist, and he is pulling, pulling me towards him. What am I missing? Is being kind to others the answer I am seeking? Is it the pursuit of individual happiness or devotion to a greater cause? Or is it all a game? Has my life simply been a splitting moment in the existence of the universe, like the Earth had exhaled to let me out and was now inhaling, sucking me back in?

I don't know, and he isn't telling me. I am locked in his embrace now and the frost is biting. Yet strangely, the colder I get, the warmer I feel. It is so cold and I am burning, and the air around me swirls, and I get hotter, and colder, and hotter, and colder, and hotter, and colder, and then —

Nothing.

Death:

I particularly enjoy these moments. The simple-minded humans are not as fun to take; they are so filled with fear, they give in to your every demand. The contemplative ones are my favorite. I take them slowly, play with them.

This one who stands in front of me is old now, with wrinkles and graying hair. She feels no fear. I can see that inside her brown eyes exists an arduous light, shining brilliantly even in the face of my chill. The gears of her brain are hyperactive. She is not confounded by my presence, but inspired by it.

She mutters under her breath, looks frustrated, desperate, and then turns to me for an answer.

Ha! She cannot hear it, but I am laughing. I take one step closer to her, let the game go on for a while more. She keeps thinking, I keep moving. Thinking and moving, moving and thinking.

And then I am upon her. Her body is warm, and when mixed with my chill, the air around us gets colder and hotter concurrently. We do not feel human; we are ice cubes melting, we are candles left on the porch, our lights flickering, shivering in the autumn wind.

I tighten my embrace and the last thing I catch before I take her is the look of confusion fading from her countenance, leaving behind nothingness.

And then I stand alone, still laughing.

Silly human! She thought there was an answer.