Twice born

I feel so light, like a feather. As if I am floating above the land. No scratch that. It doesn't seem like there's any land anywhere about me. My eyes felt drowsy while at the same time there's this bright light coming from somewhere, I've no idea of. This light simply won't let me open my eyes. My body doesn't feel weak and battered like it did some time back, well that's strange. Then I felt it. A push like never ever felt before. It literally threw me off my balance as I felt the same vacuum again. But this time I couldn't feel the pain anymore and my eyes didn't sense the bright illumination it had felt before. So I tried opening my eyes. Try I did. Holy Cheesecakes!!!!

I was staring at it dumbfounded. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME? I mentally screamed. Why am I seeing things that...shouldn't be at the first place?! AM I EVEN OKAY? I looked at myself, I was wearing the same school dress with which I'd left home for today, it was pressed and still had this lingering smell of my mother's love and affection. My shoes were sparkling, my father had those polished when I was busy rummaging through my cupboard pulling socks out of haywire. He had given me one of his best smiles ever, it was the first day of my new academic session. Both my parents had stood at the door, waving and smiling. Millie, our furry member went wagging with his tail down the road till we parted at the railway crossing. I remember waving at the stationmaster, the warping of the entire surrounding into a hazy mist of confusion as the deafening roar of the proceeding train took over, bright lights and then darkness had consumed.

I looked up at the sight in front of me. It was the earth I was staring at, presently. I pinched myself hard! Ouch! That did hurt indeed. What the hell, why was I looking at the earth like this? Is this even normal? I guess you can't associate normalcy with a person like me who doesn't even remember what had happened some hours back and had ended in a 3D movie theater where they're showing some astronomical clips from the space. I looked around and had a heart attack, almost. There it stood, in all its magnificent glory, the sun. Good lord, how high am I right now? This certainly can't be real,right? The yellow ball looked so white, now that I look at it. It wasn't the yellowish ball we view from down there, up close it looked a lot lighter. Our Physics teacher did tell us about the air layers and reflection of light particles in earth's atmosphere that gives off this yellowish tinge. Wow. This is definitely HD! Well guess what my family could never afford a proper television so why not enjoy this free of cost show, which I'm getting right now! Hell yeah! I realized I was floating, no shit Sherlock. I was actually floating and the entire Milky Way was around me. The earth looked so calm and peaceful, no usual tensions that happen down there. The blue took up the majority of the surface while the snow-capped surface had receded more or less to the poles. This looks bad. Last time I remember, the white cloudy stretch was still there in some patches, now that I look at the earth now. It looks indiscernible. Almost.

The earth, it looks so strange from out here, there I mean. Inside it seems so big, gigantic and imposing. Out from here it looks so small and vulnerable. I looked down, there really was nothing on which I could walk on. Or was there no need for it? If this is a dream or something close to that, why not try then? I straightened myself, pushed hard. No sooner had I done that I was flying! Well there's no gravitational pull in the space, duh! WHOHOHOO! OH MY BUTTER! I AM FLYING! EVERYBODY! WHERE ARE YOU? LOOK AT ME, WILL YA?! I'd hardly had the time to reflect upon when a ball of fire, an asteroid I presume, whizzed past me. Psstt...hissing all the way it made its way around Jupiter. And there it struck against Jupiter's dome. Good lord! Those fumes, just look at those. It already looks so dangerous and toxic from out here that I don't even have to go that far to get a hold of that. Saturn looked peaceful with its pretty rings, they're sparkly. Wow. I looked behind me to find the constellations scattered about. I'd already found out where Gemini was. The others looked amazing, all sparkling bright. Must be pretty hot as well.

I'd been so immersed in this entire weird scenario that I'd hardly noticed the rapid pace at which the props were disappearing. Within a span of ten seconds everything was gone except the earth and the darkness around me. Slowly I was losing my vision, my chest constricted as I heard.

Nurse, get the machine ready!

I was finding it difficult to breathe. Ah! My heart was beating right in my head, my ears, it was everywhere! Why?! I clutched at my chest, trying to squeeze out the pain as of now a new wave of shock coursed through my body.

Ready! Here we go again!

I felt an enormous pull or was this a push in the opposite direction? Intense pain wrecked through me as those same bright lights blinded me.

Something soft and wet was tickling my hand, what? I slowly opened my eyes to the soft light burning above me. It took me some time to realize, I was in the hospital, my mother was on a chair beside me. Millie's nose was what I'd felt earlier. I heard the familiar beep of a machine overhead, a drip attached to me. What's going on?

"Nita?" My mum was awake now, she looked terrible. The kohl she'd applied earlier was running in lines down her beautiful face. She looked so emotionally brittle, why?

"Mum? What happened to me?"

She came closer and took hold of my hands, bringing them to her lips she kissed them tenderly. I could see she was trying hard but her sobs wouldn't let her. What happened to me? Was that out-of -the-earth-event not real? I must have been dreaming, then.

"Nita, you met with an accident."

"What?" I was so confused that nothing was looking quite real and believable to me. Is this even real?

"Did you not hear the train coming, Nita? The stationmaster said you were suddenly on the tracks in front of the train." Gathering herself she continued," luckily he had pulled you out before anything had happened. But the doctors said the shock was enough for you to bear." It then hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn't even believe it. Everything was coming back to me bow, in flashbacks. The crossing, Millie, the train and then whoosh. I held onto my mother as my mind fogged up yet once again. I shivered.

I wonder how my parents would have reacted had they known, I hadn't slipped in front of the tracks all of a sudden, out of whim. It was premeditated. That day I'd made up my mind to kill myself at the tracks but had chickened out at the last moment. But by that time the train was already there for me; my mind and body had stopped working by then. So that brings us to the conclusion that I did die, only to come back once again.