It's quite disconcerting really, observing your own cadaver. If I were to be critical, I'd say I look a mess. My white wrinkled body lies stiff and split open. My inner contents laid
bear. I wouldn't really call it upsetting, just odd. Whatever's left of me isn't in there anyway. It's somewhere up here, above. Although don't ask me where 'here' is as I really
couldn't tell you. I'm quite sure its not heaven, not because it's particularly uncomfortable, just because the man I was would never have even considered being sent to heaven. I
assure you, I was certainly no angel.
Its quite funny really, that after leading a useless, selfish, inertia ridden life, my only good deeds happened after being laid out on a mortuary table.I liked to watch them use me. I
firstly watched him remove them, I watched him split me open, his dark eyes the only part of him uncovered.He lies still in a hospital bed. He's young, his thick dark hair lies
ruffled against the pillow. His eyes are closed and although he's scared he seems at peace. Next to him, his veins are threaded into a machine; it pumps his blood round and
round. His confusion is obvious, yet no one will tell him the need for the dialysis.Eventually a nurse appears and tells him it is time, he smiles. As he's lead off I follow and watch.
The operating theatre is ready.A few hours and he's back. The heart monitor beeps, but he is finally healthy. I look on from above with pride. My very first achievement, I
caused that smile, that operation. Part of me lives on.
There is no peaceful expression in this hospital bed. His face is grey, wrinkled and strained. He struggles to breath his laboured death rattle, and his family collectively wince. He's
scared, but his guilt for causing his own plight is the hardest to bear.
His family share worried looks, they share hands, sighs, tears and pain.
They are waiting.
My death brings the end of this wait. He is lead off down the corridor for the last time.
He breathes freely now. Up here, I pray he never inhales that damn tobacco again; after all, my other lung will be long gone by then. BR BR
In this next final instance there is no waiting. She is propelled hastily to the front of the list. The clock ticks, almost faster than usual.
Through the pain, she screams. Why eat all that crap? All those burgers, pizzas, chips? Every day? Why force her own heart to give up? Her twenty-five stone bulk needs four men to haul her into the ambulance.
Again I watch, yet this operation seems more dangerous. Although the surgeons were dragged from their beds at 3am, there is a nervous excitement, a frison in the air. This is not
an operation they can perform often.
The last part of me again lives on, gives a second chance, heals, and mends.
Once awake, she vows to eat only salad and fruit. Fat chance, I think. BR
You may have noticed the exclusion of one vital organ. This organ wasn't even looked at; it was ignored, pushed aside. After all why give someone else the cause of my own death.
I too needed a second chance.
But who will take a chance on a man who owns nothing but a shopping trolley and a bottle of jack?.
I lost everything for my beloved jack; wife, kids, home, job. But at the time, I stupidly didn't care. Didn't even notice I lost them.
At least before the rot set in I managed to look forward enough to sign the form, to look after that little blue and red card with my name on it. I suppose without that, there
wouldn't be this tale. I would be just like all the others of my kind, found dead in a gutter or canal. I went to university, you know? Destined for great things they said. Gonna be
very rich they said. Well I got those great things alright and I got quite rich too, didn't manage to hold onto them for very long though.
Ironic isn't it? That after lying, stealing, drinking and fighting for the greater part of my life, I managed to save lives during death.
I think I'm a regular super hero. Well, that's what I tell the blokes up here. BR