Have you ever been curious about the notion
that when you are about to die, your life
will flash before your eyes? Every event,
every moment that you’ve lived, will, like a movie,
play on some small screen somewhere in your brain.
If you’ve lived a decent number of years, you’d think
this must be a film set to fast forward: In an instant
you’ll see it all, the director’s cut, or simply uncut,
everything set at a speed you’d imagine would make
images move so fast they’d be nothing but a blur.
Do you ever wonder if there’d be a soundtrack as well?
Are you suddenly transformed into a songwriter,
perfectly composing with deft ear and hand the score
to fit every moment of your life, death making
you the Bob Ross on meth of musical composition?
Or would the music of this blur be a muddled mass of noise,
a 33 rpm record spun at 78 zillion, the lightspeed stylings
of an ultra-Alvin and the Chipmunks tune that might be music
if it were slowed down, the younger you are at the time,
the better the chances you might understand what you hear?
The reason why I ask about this right now is that I had,
I believe, a near-death experience today while standing
at the railing above the Waiola Ala Moana koi pond,
becoming aware of a woman several feet away suddenly
yelling in my face, asking why I was lying on the ground.
What bothered me most about nearly biting the big one
was that I think I did see my life flash before my eyes,
but it was neither a rush of images nor of notes, only
a board with “Intermission” printed on it, set with silence,
apparently summing the entirety my life story so far.
Lanning Lee 