| Biographical Non-Fiction posted March 12, 2022 |
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A Cautionary Tale
Written From the Other Side
by Jay Squires
At 10:18 PM, on a Sunday evening, four days prior to this writing, I was about one minute from being dead. Maybe a minute and a half. For sure, though, the dying process had already begun.
For those sticklers for precision, I’ll clarify.
I know it was 10:18 because I was at the halfway break in the first of two evening sitcoms, the Goldbergs—two mindless, back-to-back half-hour episodes, perfect for winding down after a three-hour FanStory reviewing stint. So, at 10:15, I figured I had just enough time to dump my nighttime meds from the pillbox marked “S-bedtime” into the purple plastic baby bowl we’d had since my adult grandchildren were still on all fours.
I took the plastic bowl and a glass of cold water filled from my Britta, to my cluttered dining room table. Somewhere in the middle of that process, I must have gone to pee which would account for an additional minute. I remember glancing at the clock atop the bookshelf as I took my chair and reached for the pills.
It was 10:18, and I had just popped my magnesium supplement tablet in my mouth. It was about the size of a plump M & M (the pill, that is, not my mouth), and it was at that moment when Adam, the youngest of the Goldbergs, delivered his comedic line.
Now, living alone, I rarely respond outwardly to humor, but occasionally, the content or the timing of the punchline is such that I would erupt from a rare center of spontaneity. This was one such occasion. It is significant because, as closely as I can recall, my effusive outburst came at the precise instant the magnesium tablet had slipped down over the back of my tongue.
Here, forgive me, but specificity and precision end. An awareness of what happened came suddenly flooding into my mind. At its heels, panic followed and threatened to whisk away any advantages of awareness that the mind offers.
You need air! NOW! Breathe!
My body tried to comply. By now I had scrabbled to my feet and bending forward. I remember—God, how I remember!—that horrid scratching sound my throat made, like cats’ claws on cardboard, as I struggled to drag air past the stubborn edges of that lodged tablet. None came.
Panic screeched: Do something, damn it! You’re dying!
I staggered to the wall separating the living room from the kitchen and slammed my back into it. From a remote part of my hearing, something clattered to the floor. Again, I rammed my back against the wall. My legs were wobbly, my chest fluttery. Baby nested birds oddly came to mind.
An epiphanous flash: Heimlich!
Balling my fist into the other palm, I placed it at the tender spot under my rib cage, bending forward, and yanked it up with all my waning strength.
Nothing.
Another pull.
Again. Nothing.
I dropped to my knees next to the chair. Unbidden, images flashed in my brain, each with its own self-contained message, but without the slow burden of words piled one upon the other waiting for understanding.
I saw the image, and the message was immediate: my son, Joe, three days hence, framed by the opened front door … just the face of him backing out through the door, gagging, covering his nose and mouth with his palm—and the image left me with the remorseful and humiliating realization that my body, too, was subject to decomposition. Death was the great leveler, after all, and Jay proved that in the end, he was no more than a sagging, melting bag of chemicals. I expected something loftier than that for my time on earth.
Image time-lapse: perhaps a second.
A new image of a three-day empty water bowl, lapped dry daily by Serius and filled nightly from the Britta before I went to bed, wordlessly carried now the warning that Serius can go weeks without food, but only days, within the prison walls of our house, without water. The image of the toilet-cover down with the unspoken message, Jay can’t abide having Serius drink from the toilet.
The third image: my cellphone, docked to its charger on my writing desk with the message that wisdom would've had me dial 911 first, run over and unlock the front door. Nine-one-one, what is your emergency? Repeated. Sir, Ma’am, I don’t know how to help you if you don’t tell me what your emergency is. And with the sound of my fists pounding against the table, Sir, ma’am, are you being attacked? Leave your cell phone on. I am sending someone.
Image of my wife, in the Tehachapi mountains, playing her guitar, singing, a faint smile on her face. She’s happier there.
My consciousness slipped irretrievably from me. A silver-and-gold crackling meteor fringe framed my vision as I turned my face to the couch and met Serius’s bored chin-on-paw gaze.
Then everything slipped into a black void.
Now, I am a writer and I am faced at this point with the temptations that would face any writer in any end-of-life (obviously, NEAR end-of-life) theme. I wanted so much to park you, my reader, in my brain for five to ten minutes and have you experience with me my to-the-brink-of-death choking incident. To do so, I had subjectified consciousness as far as pale language would allow me. To go further would have left me floundering about in wordless abstractions … yes and lies.
The truth is, my personal drama ended just north of that black void into which I seduced you to watch me slip.
I was very near losing consciousness, that’s true. And I suppose that would have been the harbinger of death. My eyes did fall on Serius, lying on the couch staring at me—and that would have been the final snapshot I’d have carried with me into death. And whatever would have been waiting for me beyond.
But in actuality, what small, shred of attention I had left in my consciousness focused in at that … very … instant on my throat where a few grains from one edge of that magnesium tablet appeared to have crumbled.
Through a pinprick of an opening, the vacuum that had existed behind that tablet was breached. Something—there had to be something—rushed in to fill that breach. It was an instinctive life force. It was certainly beyond my puny human direction. Whatever it was, though, it carried with it just enough oxygen to release a final cough.
At the forefront of that expulsion—I only discovered this later, after I realized I was breathing, that I was drawing in a huge draught of delicious air, letting it out again with giddy exhilaration, and pulling in another living lungful—there on the tile floor, where the left arm of that corpse had lain, was an intact magnesium tablet. Close inspection would reveal the stamped imprint: 250 mg.
Please don’t make anything supernatural of any of this.
The images I described as flashing through my mind are as true as words will allow me to paint them. Each seemed encapsulated in a tattered second before sliding into the next.
I’m 82 years old. If I do die at home, my son will be the one to find me. I’m sure of that. I think he knows it, too. He drops by about every three days. Unannounced, though I playfully chide him about it.
It’s true about the image of Serius and the water bowl.
My cellphone …. That thought construct may have come after I reflected on the entire incident. I do wonder, though, if it would do any good to call 911 if you can’t even muster a syllable of explanation to them.
My wife, Roseana, lives about 60 miles from me in the Tehachapi mountains. The image of her is always on the fringes of my mind.
~ ~ ~
As I look back on it (and it’s not easy to do), I wonder if there is really anything to take away from my experience. I want to tell you to be very mindful of chewing everything to a pulp before swallowing, but I’m not sure that’s good advice. Eating is such a natural process. Should it be turned into an exercise of caution?
I do use my pill-cutter on my magnesium tablet and swallow each half separately.
This I'll say:
Enjoy life.
It’s precious.
It’s fragile.
For those sticklers for precision, I’ll clarify.
I know it was 10:18 because I was at the halfway break in the first of two evening sitcoms, the Goldbergs—two mindless, back-to-back half-hour episodes, perfect for winding down after a three-hour FanStory reviewing stint. So, at 10:15, I figured I had just enough time to dump my nighttime meds from the pillbox marked “S-bedtime” into the purple plastic baby bowl we’d had since my adult grandchildren were still on all fours.
I took the plastic bowl and a glass of cold water filled from my Britta, to my cluttered dining room table. Somewhere in the middle of that process, I must have gone to pee which would account for an additional minute. I remember glancing at the clock atop the bookshelf as I took my chair and reached for the pills.
It was 10:18, and I had just popped my magnesium supplement tablet in my mouth. It was about the size of a plump M & M (the pill, that is, not my mouth), and it was at that moment when Adam, the youngest of the Goldbergs, delivered his comedic line.
Now, living alone, I rarely respond outwardly to humor, but occasionally, the content or the timing of the punchline is such that I would erupt from a rare center of spontaneity. This was one such occasion. It is significant because, as closely as I can recall, my effusive outburst came at the precise instant the magnesium tablet had slipped down over the back of my tongue.
Here, forgive me, but specificity and precision end. An awareness of what happened came suddenly flooding into my mind. At its heels, panic followed and threatened to whisk away any advantages of awareness that the mind offers.
You need air! NOW! Breathe!
My body tried to comply. By now I had scrabbled to my feet and bending forward. I remember—God, how I remember!—that horrid scratching sound my throat made, like cats’ claws on cardboard, as I struggled to drag air past the stubborn edges of that lodged tablet. None came.
Panic screeched: Do something, damn it! You’re dying!
I staggered to the wall separating the living room from the kitchen and slammed my back into it. From a remote part of my hearing, something clattered to the floor. Again, I rammed my back against the wall. My legs were wobbly, my chest fluttery. Baby nested birds oddly came to mind.
An epiphanous flash: Heimlich!
Balling my fist into the other palm, I placed it at the tender spot under my rib cage, bending forward, and yanked it up with all my waning strength.
Nothing.
Another pull.
Again. Nothing.
I dropped to my knees next to the chair. Unbidden, images flashed in my brain, each with its own self-contained message, but without the slow burden of words piled one upon the other waiting for understanding.
I saw the image, and the message was immediate: my son, Joe, three days hence, framed by the opened front door … just the face of him backing out through the door, gagging, covering his nose and mouth with his palm—and the image left me with the remorseful and humiliating realization that my body, too, was subject to decomposition. Death was the great leveler, after all, and Jay proved that in the end, he was no more than a sagging, melting bag of chemicals. I expected something loftier than that for my time on earth.
Image time-lapse: perhaps a second.
A new image of a three-day empty water bowl, lapped dry daily by Serius and filled nightly from the Britta before I went to bed, wordlessly carried now the warning that Serius can go weeks without food, but only days, within the prison walls of our house, without water. The image of the toilet-cover down with the unspoken message, Jay can’t abide having Serius drink from the toilet.
The third image: my cellphone, docked to its charger on my writing desk with the message that wisdom would've had me dial 911 first, run over and unlock the front door. Nine-one-one, what is your emergency? Repeated. Sir, Ma’am, I don’t know how to help you if you don’t tell me what your emergency is. And with the sound of my fists pounding against the table, Sir, ma’am, are you being attacked? Leave your cell phone on. I am sending someone.
Image of my wife, in the Tehachapi mountains, playing her guitar, singing, a faint smile on her face. She’s happier there.
My consciousness slipped irretrievably from me. A silver-and-gold crackling meteor fringe framed my vision as I turned my face to the couch and met Serius’s bored chin-on-paw gaze.
Then everything slipped into a black void.
~ ~ ~
Now, I am a writer and I am faced at this point with the temptations that would face any writer in any end-of-life (obviously, NEAR end-of-life) theme. I wanted so much to park you, my reader, in my brain for five to ten minutes and have you experience with me my to-the-brink-of-death choking incident. To do so, I had subjectified consciousness as far as pale language would allow me. To go further would have left me floundering about in wordless abstractions … yes and lies.
The truth is, my personal drama ended just north of that black void into which I seduced you to watch me slip.
I was very near losing consciousness, that’s true. And I suppose that would have been the harbinger of death. My eyes did fall on Serius, lying on the couch staring at me—and that would have been the final snapshot I’d have carried with me into death. And whatever would have been waiting for me beyond.
But in actuality, what small, shred of attention I had left in my consciousness focused in at that … very … instant on my throat where a few grains from one edge of that magnesium tablet appeared to have crumbled.
Through a pinprick of an opening, the vacuum that had existed behind that tablet was breached. Something—there had to be something—rushed in to fill that breach. It was an instinctive life force. It was certainly beyond my puny human direction. Whatever it was, though, it carried with it just enough oxygen to release a final cough.
At the forefront of that expulsion—I only discovered this later, after I realized I was breathing, that I was drawing in a huge draught of delicious air, letting it out again with giddy exhilaration, and pulling in another living lungful—there on the tile floor, where the left arm of that corpse had lain, was an intact magnesium tablet. Close inspection would reveal the stamped imprint: 250 mg.
~ ~ ~
Please don’t make anything supernatural of any of this.
The images I described as flashing through my mind are as true as words will allow me to paint them. Each seemed encapsulated in a tattered second before sliding into the next.
I’m 82 years old. If I do die at home, my son will be the one to find me. I’m sure of that. I think he knows it, too. He drops by about every three days. Unannounced, though I playfully chide him about it.
It’s true about the image of Serius and the water bowl.
My cellphone …. That thought construct may have come after I reflected on the entire incident. I do wonder, though, if it would do any good to call 911 if you can’t even muster a syllable of explanation to them.
My wife, Roseana, lives about 60 miles from me in the Tehachapi mountains. The image of her is always on the fringes of my mind.
~ ~ ~
As I look back on it (and it’s not easy to do), I wonder if there is really anything to take away from my experience. I want to tell you to be very mindful of chewing everything to a pulp before swallowing, but I’m not sure that’s good advice. Eating is such a natural process. Should it be turned into an exercise of caution?
I do use my pill-cutter on my magnesium tablet and swallow each half separately.
This I'll say:
Enjoy life.
It’s precious.
It’s fragile.
True Story Contest contest entry
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#6 March 2022 |
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