Mercury · & · Sulfur

Where does life begin? This is a question that has been asked by many and answered by few. It is the source of debate for many people in today's society, whether life begins at conception or birth or even at cognition. But such theoretical discussion is best left to the theologians and the politicians. Instead, I wish to tell you how I came to be not as a man, but as an Alchemist. Awakened.

It began with my wife, Candice, coming to me one Sunday morning late in February. "Honey," she said as she stood in the doorway of my office, "it's such a nice day out today, I thought we could all go take a drive out in the countryside today. We could take Teddy out to play in the snow, and have hot chocolate in the car like we used to." I myself thought this was a great idea, as I'd been cooped up in business meetings all of the Saturday, and barely had any time to spend alone with my family that evening before we had to go out to dinner with James and Ruth. So while Candice went to dress our son, Teddy, for a day in the country, I went to get my coat and gloves. I remember thinking that today was going to be a memorable day, something special. I just didn't know how memorable it was going to be.

We were driving through a fairly windy section of road in northern Massachusetts, Candice was in the back seat with Teddy in her lap, playing a game that only they knew the rules to. I looked back at them in the rear-vision mirror and beamed a smile at my little boy. Then I looked back at the road, and everything suddently went into slow motion as I saw the truck coming towards us in our lane. I remember pressing as hard as I could on the brakes and being unable to turn because of the wetness of the road. I remember thinking to myself just before we hit that Teddy and Candice didn't have their seatbelts on.

What I don't remember is the impact. There were no sounds of metal twisting and ripping itself apart. No screams for help by my wife, or wails from my son. I looked around me, and I wasn't in the car, and I know now that I wasn't even in the physical realm. I stumbled forwards and found myself on a beach of metal chips and gems and soil. It was dark, like a photographic negative is dark, and off in the distance I could see something like a lighthouse. I felt myself drawn to it, and almost like a zombie, my legs started forwards, and rather than fight the sensations of my body doing its own thing, I harnessed it and made it my own. I remember thinking to myself 'Surely someone must be here', but I didn't call out to see if anyone would respond. I just kept walking.

The landscape was bleak, and yet it didn't have that sense of misery that normally accompanies such a description. It was as if there wasn't any meaning to any description at all. Things just were, and that's all there was to it. I kept on walking, and somehow I reached the lighthouse. At least, I thought it was a lighthouse, but it was more like a black, looming tower that looked like it had been shoved upward from underneath the soil and left there. Once again, there wasn't any sense of foreboding or dread accompanying the looming tower. It just was.

As I got closer to the base of the tower, I could see scratches and marks scrawled all across the base, as if someone had taken a rasping file to it before I'd arrived. I finally reached the base, and saw that the marks weren't just random etchings, but that they looked like signatures and names. As my gaze flicked over the markings, one stood out, if only for the briefest of moments. It looked like a number, though I'll be damned if I can remember what it was. I remember it only because it was the first time since I'd come to this place that I can remember having a sense of meaning to anything. It was only for a moment, but that moment was there.

I noticed that there was a blank space on the base of the tower, and I knew what I had to do. I took my carkeys and started to scratch my name into the tower. I felt my soul, the very essence of who I was, be drawn into the tower as I carved, and once I had finished it, the tower lashed my soul back at me, pouring back into me. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to be given back to me, and when I opened them, I was staring up at a white ceiling, with white panels and white lights. There was a nurse next to me, looking at me as if I'd risen from the dead, and she nearly fainted as she stumbled from the room, calling for a doctor.

I later found out that I had been in the Intensive Care Unit after the crash, and that the doctors had not expected me to come back at all, let alone with a full recovery. Miraculous, they called it, and in a way they were right. I felt more alive and alert than ever before. I felt Awake, able to see the world for all it was, but this feeling didn't come without it's price, I know. My son had died on impact, the doctors said, and Candice passed away in transit from the accident. My father had always said that you cannot have something without giving something in return. That was the way that the world worked, but I never understood what it meant until that day.

So, is that where life begins? I don't know. All I do know is that is when my sleeping life ended, and my life - my REAL life - began.

Backdated: Monday, November 18th, 2006