A flash of blinding light surrounded him. The light was so bright and intense that he could not make out a thing. The most unusual sensation swept all over this body. It was like swimming weightlessly, almost like flying in the air.
As the light decreased, his vision cleared. To his amazement, he found himself floating above what looked like a body of a school boy lying lifelessly next to a car. The body laid on the road motionlessly. He saw that the boy had short hair just like his. And his face... that face...
Yusuke screamed. The face of the boy was his, his very own face, his very own body laid dead on the road while his spirit floats freely about it. But how? He shouted at the top of his voice, telling the world around him that he was not dead. Although a samll group of people had gathered around his body, no one heard him.
The driver of the car came out and frowned sadly at the body. He put his hand to his forehead and sighed heavily. A small boy with a toy ball pushed through the crowd of people and sat next to the body. He shook the body, telling Yusuke to wake up and play with him again. The body laid motionless, unresponsive.
Just at that moment, a policeman came to the scene and questioned the driver about what had happened. An ambulance too arrived at the scene. The medical crew quickly went to work on the body. They conducted CPR and other forms of life saving procedures, but to no avail. The body remained motionless.
Yusuke floated down towards them. He heard one of the medical crew pronouncing him dead. Yusuke gasped. He lunged himself towards them and gasped again for his whole spiritual body went right pass through them. He cringed at the thought of himself being dead as the medical crew loaded his body into the ambulance and drove off. The crowd dispersed, except for the boy with the toy ball. He was about five-years-old and he had the most puzzled look upon his face. It was obvious he did not know what had just happened.
Suddenly, Yusuke remembered. It was just after school, a bad day after school, feeling quite grumpy after a long lecture from the principal telling him to behave himself.
He was walking home, head bent down in an absurd manner. He kicked everything in sight: stones, cans, leaves. Anything on the sidewalk. He even kicked a poor cat. A toy ball came in view. He bend down to pick it up and began dribbling it. A small boy rushed towards him, nearly banging into him. He looked up to him and smiled.
Yusuke was not amused. He shouted loudly at him, telling him that he was asking for death as playing in the streets like that was dangerous. He went on about how cars may accidentally knock him down and also how he wished it would happen to his principal.
The boy stared at him without the faintest clue about what he was talking about. Yusuke signed. He tossed the ball back to the boy. The little boy smiled at Yusuke and Yusuke smiled in return, telling the boy how he wished he was a small young kid again. The boy just smiled childeshly, thanked him and skipped away.
Yusuke followed on watching the boy throw his ball up into the air before catching it again. However, the boy suddenly missed his catch and the ball bounced right into the middle of the road. A car was approcahing but the little boy just rushed towards the ball, unaware of the car.
Yusuke shouted an ran after the boy. He lunged forward, pushing the boy out of the way. He then felt painand he was the bright, blinding light...
"So, that's how it's like to die," Yusuke said to himself. Almost at that instant, he felt being pulled upwards towards the sky. Higher and higher he went. Finally, there was a flash of light again. This time however, he could not see anything. He then heard a voice, a voice telling him to go back. The voice was calm and child-like. He could not make out whether it was male or female. It hold him to go back for it was not his time and that he deserved a second chance for his deed. Yusuke was dumbfounded as darkness suddenly surrounded him...
He sat up, gasping desperately as he heard a woman scream. He was in the hospital. In the morgue.
He looked about in sheer amazement, trying hard to remember what had happened but he could not. Doctors soon surrounded him. They checked him and asked whether he could recall anything.
"No," he replied. "Not a thing at all..."
By Lilian Toh
