Heaven Is Beautiful by Peter Baldwin Panagore

Author:Peter Baldwin Panagore
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612833460
Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing

18

Alien in My Body

The next thing I knew and felt was searing pain. It felt like I was being slowly and painfully twisted, like an ice screw, back into my physical body at that point above my stomach and below my heart. I was stuffed back into my body, and it hurt. I hurt all over. I awoke. I was me, but I did not know what I was, who I was, where I was, or what I was doing. My body was dangling on my harness at an angle, and I could hear a voice shouting. I was dazed and disoriented. I did not understand anything. I was back in the world inside a body that I did not understand. I opened my eyes and looked up at the man who was screaming at me and looking right at me. I wondered, Who is he? Where am I? Why is he yelling?

Then, he had a hand on me, was grasping my jacket hood and pulling on me, jerking me, trying to hoist me up, or wake me up, or something. I watched him dispassionately for a time, as if I was observing him from afar, while trying to figure out what I was: What was this thing—this body—that I was in? Who was I? Where was I? What is this being—this man thing—who is yelling words at me that I do not comprehend while yanking on me?

Minutes passed, and I slowly understood that I was back in my body. Then, I recognized Tim. Bit by bit, I understood: I was Peter. I was a human being and no longer just a soul. I was on a mountain. My body hurt. I had not been hurting before.

Tim was shouting at me. He was very loud. He screamed at me, “DON'T DIE! DON'T DIE. WAKE UP! WAKE UP! DON'T DIE AND LEAVE ME HERE! DO NOT DIE! WAKE UP! IF YOU DIE, I WILL DIE.”

Tim was crying, and shouting, and there was fear in his voice; but there was determination, too. I looked at his eyes, into his eyes, and saw that he saw that I was awake, and so he pulled harder on my shoulder. I clambered back up onto the ledge, disoriented. I watched him in the moonlight. He was still shouting and crying, saying, “I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead. I'm so glad you're not dead. You scared me. I was alone.”

I said nothing. I could say nothing. I was having a difficult time thinking. I still didn't understand what I was or what had just happened to me. I remembered where I had been, but I didn't understand anything about it. I was perplexed, and struggled to figure out how my body worked, and even what my body was. One thing I did know was that I was not my body. I knew I was something inhabiting a body and that although it was somehow “me,” it was also not me at all.

I stopped listening to Tim and focused on inhabiting this thing, this body I was in.

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