D E A T H S E N S E

It would have been just another early winter morning of a school day — if not for the thick fog pulling all that was known into a white abyss. I closed the metal gate behind me and started my daily solitary walk to the bus station. All the familiar places briefly unveiled themselves as I passed by them: gates, backyards and houses, a gloomy entrance to a synagogue, garbage bins by a closed grocery store, the wet benches in the cypress park.

I was wearing warm clothes — styles clashing — as I was in mid-metamorphosis from Spice Girls to Rammstein. But being an artistic fifteen-year-old, people always assumed that I just had a whimsical taste in clothes. I could really use a class on fashion... but our school was mostly known for advanced mathematics.

As the park ended, a grassy meadow followed — the favorite part of my twenty-minute walk — before the major street began, where I usually stand at the bus stop and wait every morning, six days a week.

But that foggy day, I stopped in the middle of the meadow. There, in a moment of mystical fascination, the world was suddenly erased. I looked around and saw an edgeless carpet of shaggy wet grass, fading into an endless whiteness in all directions. It was as though I was unmoored from the world — drifting on this patch of land — I lost all sense of direction. I knew that if I just kept walking, I'd eventually find a familiar landmark to correct my course — but I was also enjoying this liminal space and feeling.

"Stop!" a man's voice commanded in Hebrew — shattering my fantasy.

I wasn't sure if he was talking to me. I shuffled forward slowly...

"Don't move!" the same voice shouted from beyond the milky haze — commanding and urgent.

"OK!" I shouted back, and stopped, unable to see anyone.

"Where are you going?!" Another voice — now threatening.

"I'm going to school!" I gestured with my right hand toward an obscure direction.

A few figures blurred in and out of the whiteness — I couldn't quite make out their appearance, but I concluded that they had to be soldiers. Armed soldiers were a common sight during my childhood.

"I'm fifteen — I'm not a threat!" They must have had me confused for someone else in this fog, I thought.

Silence.

I took another step forward, hands slightly raised, eyes scanning. "I will be OK..." And that's when I heard the thunder.

A gunshot.

I could feel the cold breeze brushing against my chest, and a warm wetness running down my back. I knew that my chest was pierced through — but I was too afraid to look.

I fell backwards with a splash — the wet grass easing my fall, and complete silence and stillness followed.

I laid there with my eyes open, looking up into the white mist above me in disbelief. Why did this happen — was it my fault?

No footsteps or voices were heard — nobody came. No one was gonna help me... I was alone in the whiteout.

Raindrops materialized from the white void and fell down in fractal patterns — little orbs of refraction, too bright to look at, yet too hypnotizing to look away. Was I even able to close my eyes? No, they remained wide open — even when the droplets hit them.

What is there left to do?
Reflect on my past — regrets and happy moments? There is too much of it to sort — even for a fifteen-year-old.
The Future — worry about my parents, lament all the things I may never see or do? I already do that all the time anyway...
The Now — feel it, and keep feeling... Every moment spent in the present is a moment lived through — a tiny infinity, a temporary immortality.

Focus on the breath? I tried to remember when was the last time I took a breath... it then occurred to me that my breath was part of the stillness for a while now.

Now I was beginning to amuse myself — I started to wonder if hearing was the first sense that I lost, and started making bets with myself about which sense would 'go' next...

Perhaps smell?... although I couldn't tell, because being unable to breathe doesn't negate the sense.

Taste — the other chemical sense... Raindrops tasted the same as the air — fresh, wet, and cold — but no sweetness or saltiness, no flavor to hedge my bets.

Sight — I could see, the optic mechanism was unbroken and persistent... but what I was seeing gave me no hope that my perception was that of reality — perpetual whiteness and prismatic diamonds spiraling towards me, or am I towards them? Was that sight or imagination?

Touch — pressure, friction, vibration — I could feel the cold wet grass under my ears and hands. How annoying — once I start thinking about contact with something, it starts irritating me... a sense so precocious, yet such a pain when you can't move away.

Well, are there any others to list?

Sixth sense — my intuition... I feel the Earth, it draws me in with force equal to the one with which I draw it to me. It gives life, so it is alive. Yet, an atom is not alive, and everything is made out of atoms, so nothing is alive. But I cannot go any further — intuition got me this far, and it also got me shot.

Sense of purpose — remains vague, sense of humor — check, sense of fashion...

I suddenly realized, I'm wearing a turquoise sweater embroidered with red snowflakes — now even redder, black pants with subtle vertical stripes, a weathered canvas backpack, platform boots with purple accents, and a necklace with a dragon cologne... I die like this.

Like this?!

Panic ensued — and I woke up gasping for air, pressing my hand to the chest.
All my senses came rushing back - bringing reality out of the haze.
It's 5am... Soon the alarm will ring and urge me to get ready for school.

Based on a real dream I had as a teenager, and inspired by Hive account@holoz0r's "Boredom"
Written for The Flame🔥