Ghost Be Gone!

 Is there "Law After Death"? Can Death be sued? How do I get a restraining order against Death? Death is pursuing me! Stalking me! And not for the first time, but the second.

 It is four in the morning as I write this. (Are you sleeping?) One hour ago, I
was awakened by that Ghost again, the Ghost who wants me dead. Just as I had been awakened many times before. But I've HAD my sudden cardiac arrest. I DID the "dead thing". I thought it was FINISHED. For almost three years, I've struggled with the aftermath of being dead - the reality of being a real-life zombie. I've been living a pointless, but peaceful, life.

 Lately, though, Terror has resumed its visits. As it did before my cardiac
arrest. Taunting me with chest pains. Teasing me with death. As before, it comes in a dream. To put it mildly, a "nightmare".

 This time, I'm dreaming that I'm riding in my car. It's night. My wife is
driving. Then, in the blink of an eye, the dream changes. Our places are
switched. I'm driving and she's riding. The dashboard lights, and head lights,
are blinking off and on, and I can't see what I'm doing. Then the streetlights
go out and I can't see where I'm going. The brakes aren't working. My wife is
still with me. She keeps telling me, "Slow down. Watch where you're going!"
"I can't help it!", I say. I can't see anything. Everything's dark. Where are
the streetlights? I can't see the road!" An attentive spouse, she keeps
repeating, "Watch where you're going! Watch where you're going!"

 She isn't listening to a word I say. "I can't see! I can't see!" "Well, watch
where you're going! Watch where you're going!"

(Now, it gets weird.)

 Suddenly, I'm sitting in the driver's seat and SO IS SHE! We had been changing places. First, she was driving, then I was driving. Back to her. Back to me. A few seconds of her. A few seconds of me. And, each time that I was behind the wheel, the dashboard lights would go out. The headlights would go out. The street lights would go out. I couldn't see the speedometer or the road and the brakes wouldn't work. But now, we're BOTH sitting behind the wheel! In the same seat! She's becoming transparent. Yes, Mr. Wizard, two things CAN occupy the same place at the same time.

 "Watch out! Watch where you're going!", she's telling me, again. She's telling.
I'm yelling. She's not listening. No one is listening. No one can hear me. Now
where is she? She's disappeared. I'm alone. Alone behind the wheel of a car that doesn't exist. And I realize that it isn't my wife who is taunting me to crash, no. It's that Damned Ghost again!

 With that realization, and in a terror, I wake up! Shocked. Feeling like I'm
head-on into the crash. I have no control. I feel a wide strap around my chest,
squeezing me... like a jungle snake... squeezing... Heart beats faster. This is
when the chest pain begins.

But at least I'm awake, now. In bed, on my back, looking pathetic. With my two
the air, above my chest, gripping a steering wheel that isn't there. A look of
stupidity frozen into my face. Thankfully, it won't last long. The chest pain
goes away quickly. There will be no "nitro-glycerine" pill this time.

 Ahhhhh... sudden relief. The "strap" around my chest breaks. No more pressure. No more snake. No more squeezing. My chest is heaving, but at least I'm breathing. I'm groaning like a lost, chained-up spirit in an old movie.

 My wife is to the right of me, her back to me. She's snoring. She doesn't hear
a thing. I'm trying to get her attention, but I don't have the breath to groan
any louder. I make a weak fist and try pounding it against her butt... but, to
no avail. After a short while, though, two minutes probably, she finally wakes up. "Bob? ... are you alright?", I hear her ask in a muffled, annoyed voice?

 And so this episode ends, with my emotions changing rapidly. Thoughts running everywhere. Fear stops. Anger starts. Why didn't she wake up when the car was going out of control? Resentment takes over. Why didn't she just wake up and help me? My frustration ends. I just want to get up and turn on the light. At a time like this, I HATE THE DARK! It takes a little effort... I'm still feeling weak. Eventually, I find myself sitting up on the edge of the bed... groping for the light switch. My breathing is normal again. (What a relief.) I get to my feet. Haven't found the light switch, yet. I just want out of this room, but I don't want to step forward. What am I passing through, here? A doorway? Really? And what am I stepping into? A hallway? REALLY? Not at all sure.

 The last time I passed through a dark "doorway", my heart had stopped. I found myself standing in eternity, with no ground beneath my feet. And, you wanna know something? It was BETTER there. Peaceful. Pleasant, there. Better than this.

 With one death already under my belt, I don't know how much more of this I can take. How much more of this do I really want? How much more for one heart?

 And what more can one man say? and do? but shake his fist at the after-life,
and scream out loud, "ENOUGH, ALREADY!"

 There ought'a be a law!

 - - - - - - - - - -


Originally published by me on Friday, August 19, 2011 at 5:09 am

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream... About the Dead

OK, so it happened again.

 It was about 6:00 am this morning, when I dreamed that I was on my back patio with my two little dogs. It started to rain, so we came inside. Now, this door, the back door, leads into a basement stairway, and also into the garage.
Inside the garage, is the kitchen door. So, once inside, I locked the outside
door. Once in the garage, I closed a second, inside door to the stairway and
back door. This door has no doorknob; it just swings.

 I walked to the kitchen door and standing there, I waited for the dogs to come into the house. They didn't. Instead, they sniffed around in the dark as they usually do, and at that time I heard a scratching sound, coming from behind that inside door without a knob.

"Scratch-scratch" "Scratch-scratch"
[pause...]
"Scratch-scratch" "Scratch-scratch"

 The dogs didn't seem to notice. Unusual for them. I walked back to that door
and listened, and I held my hand in position to stop the door, should it burst
open.

"Scratch-scratch" "Scratch-scratch"
[pause...]
"Scratch-scratch" "Scratch-scratch"

 The scratching wouldn't stop. I whispered for the dogs to come. They heard me and right away came to my side. They sniffed at the bottom of the door, which is where the sound seemed to be coming from. I thought it might be a mouse, a squirrel, or something like that, having crawled in behind us.

The dogs didn't seem to care at all, and that was odd. But an image was
developing in my mind. The image of a man, bending down and scratching at the bottom of the door - as if to try and fool me into thinking he was a mouse. He, or it, continued scratching...

"Scratch-scratch" "Scratch-scratch"
[pause...]
"Scratch-scratch" "Scratch-scratch"

 I moved the dogs away with my foot as I pulled open the door. There was just
enough light from the open kitchen door to let me see into that three square
foot area behind the scratching door. I peeked and then pulled open the door,
but I couldn't open it more than a few inches. Something strong was pulling back, and it was no mouse! I stopped pulling and IT stopped pulling...

"Scratch-scratch" "Scratch-scratch"
[pause...]
"Scratch-scratch" "Scratch-scratch"

 I did the kind of thing that only I would think of doing at a time like that. I
scratched back! Then came the answer - more scratching - duplicating MY
scratching. Nope, this was no mouse.

 So, one more time I tried to pull open the door, but only enough to see who was behind it. I used my foot to prevent the intruder from shoving the door into my face, but instead of shoving, he pulled it closed again! He wouldn't let me open the door, and he wouldn't stop scratching.

 At that point, I realized what was happening. It was an old familiar ghost...
who had come back to attack me again! I immediately shoo-ed my dogs toward the kitchen door and we all ran into the house. There I could lock the kitchen door with its dead-bolt.

 BUT... at that moment... I felt a strong pain in my chest and it woke me from the dream.

 This has happened so many times, that I wasn't even startled at the event. I
was, however, groaning quite loudly, due the chest pain. Many are familiar with the term, "angina". (Pronounced, AN-gin-uh". It means heart-pain.)

 It really hurt, too. Maybe the worst yet. Not the worst 'ghost-dream', but
definitely the worst pain. I got up to find my 'Nitro-glycerine pills', nearly
stumbling and still groaning. This pain is no joke, folks. It IS a party stopper.

 After the usual four minutes, the tiny pill had melted under my tongue and was absorbed. The pain quickly subsided and in another four minutes, my breathing was back to normal; the feeling of heat was gone from my head and neck, and I felt sure that I would be alright. That is to say, no sudden cardiac arrest this time. No heart attack, either. Well, for all I know, it could have been a heart attack in progress.

 Before my cardiac arrest, three years ago, this ghost was a frequent visitor -
as if Death itself were stalking me. Each episode began with a dream about the ghost of a man - who would enter the house while I was sleeping and try to lure me outside. But then he would not allow me to get out - thus trapping me in my own house.

 After my cardiac arrest, the ghost "attacks" stopped, but I began to dream
about people who are dead - and I still do. These dreams about the dead don't bother me at all. It is only that ghost-dream that causes the trouble.

 And so I ask... is there another sudden cardiac arrest in my future? Is this ghost a messenger? Will I still be alive to blog tomorrow? I just don't know. We'll see...

 Until then, Death is what I live with.

 - - - - - - - - - -


Originally posted by me on Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 7:27 AM