18 Minutes

I'll be gone in 18 minutes. Out of here. Done. A figment of everybody's imagination. I've already said most of my goodbyes to those who cared enough to associate with me as I bravely fought this disease. Some simply didn't want to see me like this and turned their backs on me, which only makes my end result easier. That's fine. I certainly won't have to live with that guilt any longer.

There will certainly be some things I will miss. Those who stood by me through thick and thin; those nice gifts given by those who felt bad; the thousands of talks I had with those who were in the same condition...so grateful for everything.

Unfortunately, I will succumb to this illness. It is not my choice--how could it be?--but I feel strangely okay with it.

How couldn't I be?

I lived my life every day. I gave everything I had to others, both literally and emotionally. I had some of the highest highs anybody could possibly experience. There are some things I wish I could have experienced, but I guess what I don't know won't hurt.

I feel good. I feel ready. I'm going to fly, now, in a way almost no man has ever flown before. Not even Superman. I'm going to fly so high that I will most certainly make the papers. I'm going to be a star in death that I only wish I could be half of in life. Everybody dreams of this moment. Some fear it.

I don't.

Those "five minutes" I've been yearning for, those seconds linked together in my empathetic, tortured, broken-down head of mine, are creeping back to me. It's the time where I felt completely careless about anyone or anything, and felt like the world revolved around me, and was made just to make me happy in that moment in time. I can feel it again. It's a feeling I haven't come close to experiencing since I came down with my illness.

I feel serene. I feel beautiful.

I can now see the light. The pace is quickening. I can physically feel the air of the light bursting towards me.

30 seconds.

The light is shining closer. This is the light everybody always talks about, the signal of eternal freedom from anything evil in this world. It's staring me right in the eyes, and I'm not blinking. Those "five minutes" are about to last an eternity.

I hear people screaming. In my head I can hear them saying, "welcome home." Horns are going off. The clanking of metal on metal. The "light" is slowing down, but it will still reach me. I know it will.

It's 7:24. It's time. I guess one can say I'm about to board the express train to my eternity of painlessness.

Smack.

I'm flying.

I'm free.