Swirling Colors

This story is by Tom G and was part of our 2024 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

Swirling colors, frantic noises, and bright lights swirled into one and many, flowing back and forth with the violence of a riptide before merging into one bright light which brought me back to the cage fight where I got knocked out in a minute thirty. I must have hit the glass just as hard as the fist that fractured my skull. I remembered the blinding whiteness in my right eye with the doctor waving a flashlight in my left. He asked if I was okay and all I could say was how great I felt in that moment. The headache from the concussion and, as I later learned, skull fracture lingered for days.

Those first few blissful moments after I woke up were amazing though. The endorphins coursing through my body were some of the best highs.

I wiggled my fingers as a muffled noise began sharpening into focus, a voice perhaps, chipping away at the deafness in my ears. The rough asphalt reminded me where I was. I felt a gentle tug on my chest as a figure began forming in the brightness of my vision. I only thought of how badly my head was going to hurt.

“You okay?” came the voice.

Aside from a slight throbbing in my head nothing felt amiss.

“Yea,” I said.

“Let me help you.” A strong hand gripped mine and pulled me off the asphalt to a seated position. I was surprised there was no blood on me. I got really lucky.

Sirens were blaring all around as traffic had come to a halt thanks to the accident. Paramedics were hovering over a body that had gone through a window. Sooner or later, they’d come to me though I felt fine. My headache seemed to dissipate though I was sure I had a concussion. No way one wakes up seeing stars without one.

After looking around and dusting myself off, I found myself looking at man about my age with deep-blue eyes. I pat my pockets as if leaving the house: phone, wallet, journal, keys, pen. Miraculously everything was there except for my phone. Then again, I did stow it in the cupholder. I hoped it still worked so I could call my mom.

“Don’t get up. Your legs will be a bit wobbly,” he said. His familiarity struck me, but then he looked like any young brown-haired blue-eyed young man off the street. He shared a warm inviting grin as he sat next to me.

“Adrenaline?” I said as I looked at my hands for shaking. Stillness. Must not have hit my system yet or I was in shock.

“Something like that,” he said.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You died.”

I laughed. Morbid humor for having just met, but I felt okay. I liked him though I couldn’t quite place where I’d seen him before. I paused when he didn’t join in.

“You did,” he said. “Not many can survive being knocked through a window. Look.” He pointed at the body a few feet in front of the car. That was my silver Honda! The truck had smashed it, leaving a mangled mess. I looked at the slowed line of cars full of people taking peeks to see what happened. I looked at the body the paramedics worked to save.

“If I’m dead, why are they still working on me?”

“There’s still life in you. That’s why I’m here.” I looked at the paramedics once more, this time focusing on whom they were helping. They had cut away the familiar blue shirt, now stained a wet, rusted brown from the blood pouring from the head wound. I saw my face. It was odd looking at my face without my eyes looking back. Afterall, I had only looked at myself in the eye in the mirror.

“Is that really me?” I asked.

“Afraid so.” There was a gentle kindness in his voice that breathed familiarity.

I looked at the man once more. He looked younger than I in his early twenties.

“Are you Death?”

I was not sure what I expected as an answer. Aside from my classics classes in college and the times I fell asleep in church, I never paid much attention to whom or what came next. It all seemed so ordinary. No angels, no River Styx, no judgement. Of course, depending on this man’s answer it could all change. Was he Charon come to ferry my soul?

The man smiled. “I’m disappointed, Jimmy Peter,” he said.

My look turned curious. Only one person had ever called me that and he had been dead almost a decade. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the photo enclosed in the back cover of my little black journal. I glanced at the elderly man holding my three year-old self on his lap. My grandpa was long bald and wrinkly in the photo, but his eyes were unmistakable. I looked once more at the man next to me and searched my memories. I saw his wedding photo to my grandma from 1953. He looked spiffy while she looked beautiful in the popular wedding attire of the day. No, too old.  Even then his hair had already started thinning.

His discharge photo from the army; that was it. I remember where it hung in his bedroom.

My grandpa smiled again. “Now you got it.”

I hugged him. The seated side-hug was nothing compared to the big bear-hugs he used to squeeze me with growing up. I felt his love and warmth and immediately thought back to the month before he passed when I drove two hours every day to visit him and take care of him before staying the night and driving the two hours back to work.

“I missed you, Grandpa.”

“I missed you too, boy.”

We held each other in silence for several eternal moments before I remembered.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“Welp, to be honest I did not expect you for another few decades, but that truck there sped things up.”

“Is the driver okay?”

“Attaboy, always worrying about others. He’s fine physically. Emotionally though is a different story. That depends on what you decide.”

“What do you mean?”

I followed Grandpa’s finger as he pointed to our left. Gone was the grubby street corner of High and Main. Instead, an expansive beautiful meadow stretched as far as I could see. The luminous green was brighter and lusher than any field I had ever seen. Aside from the knee-high grass, there was a never-ending fence stretching just as long. At the center of our vision lay a single gate, nothing ornate ornate, just a simple wooden frame and latch.

“Once you cross that gate, there’s no turning back. If you want, I’ll walk with you, but you’ll have to choose to cross.”

“I get to choose?”

Grandpa chuckled. “Just this once.” He paused and indicated the paramedics. “Most times, you don’t get a choice. They’re working hard to keep you here since your end is not yet set in stone.”

“That easy?”

“Simple, maybe, not sure about easy.”

He didn’t have to finish his thought. I thought of my mom and sister. I remember they day her own father passed, mi abuelo, the pain in her voice as she struggled to arrange a flight back to Colombia. I had to manage it for her. How would she handle that phone call about her son? My sister too. She was just on the verge of entering first year of med school. What would the sudden loss of her brother who had always encouraged her to follow her dreams do to her?

“They will be okay, though, right?”

“In time, but that could be a long while. Besides, I’ve never known a parent to recover quickly from the loss of a child, no matter how old. You wouldn’t just be giving them up. You’d be giving up the little things, the little experiences that make life worth living: the first cup of coffee in the morning, a good book on the porch on a rainy day, the happy trill of street cat brushing its body against your leg. You still have a lot of live to live boy, but I will love you here or there regardless, as will they.”

I glanced at myself. From the looks of it I would be in a lot of pain for a while, perhaps the rest of my life. I then turned to the gate. A blissful peace came over me as I peered into the beyond. No cherubs descended from the heavens but I felt the warm embrace of love.

Grandpa slapped his knees and stood up, helping me to my feet, my legs wobbling upon the sidewalk. “Not much time before the decision is made for you.”

I looked back and forth between myself and the gate a few more times before looking down at the photo of Grandpa and me.

Our smiles were so bright.