DEATH


D. loosened the straps around my ankles. He stood with eyes closed before me, crossed himself, then loosened the straps around my wrists.
The numbness that began in my neck spread.
D. removed the needle -- goodnight sweet prince!
The next sensation is difficult to describe.  I tumbled forwards, or seemed to tumble. I seemed to watch myself tumble from the uncomfortable chair.  I was displaced, dislodged, on a different angle from my known existence.  I could feel it in my head just as freshly as I felt this numbness.  Gravity had grabbed my hand, leading me down a new path.  I submitted with flailing limbs, submitted to its deceitful pull.  Inside my head I felt a pulse and my body was pulsing in time with that pulse, louder, louder, until all I could hear was that dull thud.
I was over-eager, desperate for some conclusion.
Then the beauty of falling began to dominate my mind.  The exquisite subtle sense of the air humming!
No!
Singing close to my ears, as if my whole body was a shell with the spiral of noise swimming within it.
Buoyant.  Jubilant.
I felt all around me a solidness in what was not solid.  For the first time I had an awareness of the physicality of my surroundings.  The air filled every crevice.  Every hair tingled with its caress as its fingers playfully tossed my body.  Spun silk.
Time which I have always viewed with such contempt, became abstracted.  Time had always run too quickly when joy embraced me.  While during periods of trial an age would pass. Unabated, inexhaustible, it never seemed stretched towards eternity.
I could see the curve upon the horizon.  Gravity's condemntaion had finally turned to adoration.
The wind kissed me, gently nursing my body and the air, the air..........rolled me in roses.