The Beautiful Miscellaneous
A Novel
oneAs far as near-death experiences go, mine was a disappointment. No
bright whirring tunnel or silver-blue mist, just a wave of white noise,
a low-set squall coming from an unknown source. I was gone for ninety
seconds and spent the next two weeks in a coma. I sometimes imagine the
moment when my miniature death ended and the coma began. I picture it
like emerging from a bath in absolute darkness.
I woke in a hospital room during the last week of July 1987. I was
seventeen and it was the middle of the night. A series of machines stood
around my bed, emitting a pale, luminous green. I stared at a heart
monitor, mesmerized by the scintilla of my pulse moving across the screen.
Tiny drops of clear liquid hovered, then fell inside an IV bag. Voices --
muffled and indistinguishabl ... read full excerpt from The Beautiful Miscellaneous: A Novel ebook
