A month ago today, I was hit by a minivan in a Golden Corral parking lot. A tunnel of white light enveloped me with a warm puppy-like comfort. I didn’t plan to die that day, but I respect God’s plan for me. The light grew brighter and warmer before it shattered like one of those dang hippie lava lamps and I felt my body become solid again.
I opened my eyes and found myself in a room. Now this wasn’t just any room; red curtains surrounded the premises, three leather easy chairs, a few lamps, and a naked statue of the homeliest woman I ever saw. This was heaven?
I sat on one of the easy chairs and waited for what couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but it felt like several years. I heard the footsteps of what sounded like a child, but in danced this tiny man.
“Excuse me, sir, where’s Saint Peter?” I asked.
He smiled and in the oddest backward voice said, “I am the arm of Saint Peter. He had the strangest voice, like he was speaking backward but I understood him?
He snapped his finger and some gosh darn beatnik jazz music played.
“Let’s rock.” He snapped again and I lost control over my body. Please don’t tell my wife, but I danced with this strange little man. Was this what death is? I wasn’t sure until we sat back down and he said, “Hold out your hands”.
“Garbonzia”, he said. Then, a creamed corn-like sludge fell from above into my hands and he ate it out of my hands like a goat in a petting zoo.
Things got a bit spooky when a gaunt, stringy man with long, grey hair crawled from underneath the curtain and leaped onto me. He screamed and nibbled on my ear with a little too much pressure.
Again, please don’t tell my wife about this, she’ll insist I go to therapy again.
I thought it couldn’t get any worse, but then a giant kraut the height of two Larry Birds rubbed my shoulder and told me, “See you again in twenty-five years.”
I woke up in the ICU and learned I was legally dead for five minutes. For years, when anyone asked about my near-death experience, I just told them about the warm white light; I couldn’t bear to ruin folks’ preconceived notions about hell.