Conception

I’m not sure what day I died, what time I died, or how I died, but I know I’m dead. I’m sure of that. I don’t know how old I was, but somewhere between the age of thirty and fifty seems a safe bet. How I know this I couldn’t tell you; it’s just a feeling I have.

I can’t remember my name or the names of those whom I was close to, although I remember their faces perfectly. They flit through my mind constantly, children and the elderly and babies and men and women. They look sad, probably because they are. An unsmiling human face is a frowning one, isn’t it?

It almost resembles a corpse’s.

I’ve had a lot of time to think. Think, not remember. It makes me sad that there are people I should miss, friends and family I once knew. If I’m dead – and I’m sure I am – the greatest injustice is that my whole life was a waste. I have no memories now, no fond remembrances or tragic regrets. I’m just here in my head, trapped in blackness.

I suppose I’m being punished, but for what? Did I commit a terrible crime? Do I require rehabilitation? Am I in purgatory?

When will I understand? Will it take years? Decades? Centuries? Longer? The idea frightens me immeasurably. Time immemorial or time ad infinitum or no time at all, I fear, is the nexus, the place we all go to disremember. It doesn’t matter whether I’ve been trapped here forever or for a second, for this is no place to be.

I want to escape.

Yet how does one flee from imprisonment when she knows not where she’s confined? How does one exist when he has no form, no feeling?

Instinct. I have an immeasurable will to live and breathe. I want so badly to become.

I will be reborn.

I think I can.