A very warm space, bathed in bright white light. A pleasantly airy space where I felt at ease. I was in such a place. I felt as though my mind would be overcome by a pleasant dreamy sensation when suddenly, I remembered something.
“That’s right... I had an accident.”
For the first time in a while, I’d taken a vacation from the company I worked for. The first time in a long while. I hadn’t had a vacation for eight months. In tears, I’d threatened my boss, telling him that if I wasn’t given a holiday, I’d kill myself and haunt him each night. Then I’d set out on a motorcycling trip to give my mind some rest.
That was when I’d had the accident.
All I remembered of my final moments was that I’d been riding along a mountain pass at night in light rain when I’d skidded and my motorbike had collided with the guard rail.
The reason I’d had the accident was that I’d needed to get to the next town on time, or else I wouldn’t have been able to get home before my vacation ended. So I’d soldiered on, biking through the night in the worst of weather.
It was the kind of reason that even had me thinking, How could you be so dumb?
Now the question is, did I end up dying, or am I in a vegetative state?
“I can speak...”
The words I’d idly mumbled disappeared off into the white space.
If I can speak, I can’t be dead, right? So I guess that means I’m in a vegetative state?
Then again, if that were the case, how would I even be thinking about it in the first place? You become vegetative when your brainwaves flatline so you lose the ability to speak and can’t even breathe by yourself. I remembered someone telling me that. Though I guessed I could be wrong...
What is this place? All right, stay calm. Stay calm. It doesn’t matter whether I’m dead or vegetative; I’m still me. So, there’s nothing to worry abou— ...huh?
“Who’s ‘me’?” I said aloud.
✦ ✦ ✦
It felt like a lot of time passed before I gave up thinking about it. After all, although I remembered the moment of the accident and had some other memories related to it, those were the only memories I had. I couldn’t even remember my own name; my own face; names of my family members; the name of my beloved. I vaguely remembered something about my beloved being inside a computer, but common sense told me that a person wouldn’t be inside a computer, so I assumed my memories were just confused.
On the other hand, I clearly remembered information that didn’t tell me anything about myself. For example, I remembered everything from basic math such as “1 + 1 = 2” to advanced math that you’d learn at college.
For some reason I could hardly remember any English, but I was surprised at how much Russian I could easily remember. I also had knowledge of subjects that were too specialized to be common knowledge. It seems I’d worked as a researcher or something like that.
Well, anyhow, I doubt any of this matters anymore...
I would normally have expected that forgetting my name and family would make me feel sad, but I felt nothing, perhaps due to having a reduced range of emotions. For that reason, I felt no strong anxiety and spent each day relaxed, slumbering in this warm and pleasant space.
“Whoa! Not again.”
As I was daydreaming, my surroundings had suddenly begun to shake.
The space I was in would occasionally shake. I’d noticed it started after I’d been here a while. At first the shaking had been so slight that I hadn’t even been sure if it really was shaking, but recently it had gotten much worse. I just had to endure it for a while and it would stop, but I felt like it was happening much more often recently.
“Don’t tell me this space is about to collapse?” The thought made me shiver as I spoke it aloud.
No way, I don’t want to leave this place... I wouldn’t leave this comfortable place for anything! Somehow this feeling was accompanied by a second contradictory feeling: I guess the end is finally here... It feels like the time went by so fast.
“Oh well, I might have gotten myself into an accident, but at least I had an excellent rest...”
The moment I spoke those words, the white space suddenly became even whiter, and I was bathed in light so bright I couldn’t open my eyes.
I guess this the end...
Then the world suddenly came into view.
“Congratulations! It’s a healthy baby boy.”