nosleep

When I was twelve I got knocked off my bike by a drunk driver. I split my head right open and broke nearly every bone in my body. For four days I hovered between life and death. My parents said goodbye and even picked my funeral song. They held my hand and told me they were sorry for every silly argument, but I wasn’t there anymore, I was somewhere else.

I was in the in-between. I was connected to the hospital room by only a small frayed thread that with every passing minute threatened to snap. I could hear they’re voices but only faintly, not that they were a comfort anyway, there was no such thing as comfort where I was. It was impossibly dark in that in-between, and so cold you could feel the chill in the marrow of your bones. I can’t remember what it looks like exactly, that oddly empty place.

From my waning memory, I recall it as a formless mass of, wet, dripping, nothing; there was no left or right, no up or down. You’d float around like a kite in the wind with only that little string holding you down. It felt like I was there for years. Time just seemed to elongate there. Eventually my family’s voices faded into nothing and all I could hear was the loud deafening thud of silence. It was then I heard him."

“Hulqu-ša māru.” He said, over and over. His voice was soothingly consistent. I transcribe the phrase to you now accurately, though to my young, uneducated ears it sounded like a jumble of mismatched vowels. It was only in my adulthood that I found out that the voice he spoke to me in was Old Akkadian. Translated it meant; my child is lost.

Then I woke up. My eyes squinted from the bright hospital lights and my mother’s tears formed a puddle on my face. I can’t remember much following that, but my mum says that I kept saying “he’s real” over and over.

That’s why I know there is a god. He spoke to me, I walked in his kingdom and then I came back. Nearly eight-years later when I took my seat for the first day of my Religious Studies degree, I was perhaps the only one in that lecture theatre that knew with absolute certainty that there was a god. Was it the Christian God? The Islamic? Maybe no one has it right, but he existed. He was real. I knew that. I spent four years studying religion, and learnt nothing more important than what I found out when I was twelve.

“I have some concerns regarding your dissertation title Jeremy, Proving that God is Real, it’s… well it’s impossible to prove. We wouldn’t require faith if there was a burden of proof.” Professor Alcott said to me as he shifted through my research. “Personal anecdotes are also not sufficient subject to base an entire dissertation upon.”

“I’m committed to this research paper professor, I know with certainty that there is a god and I would like an opportunity to make this clear to everyone.” I said. “By next week sir, I will have more than anecdotes. Give me a chance.”

“I’m not one to quash academic innovation, if you would like to give this topic a bash, then I will not stand in your way. You are such a promising student Jeremy, I just don’t want you to waste your talent.” He said, looking dissatisfied.I left Alcott’s office with a seemingly impossible task. For centuries people have been looking for scientific proof in a higher power and all so far have failed. All I had was my own experience, I needed more. I scribbled down in my notebook the two most pressing features of a god with a puzzle knitting my brow together.

He’s everywhere.