UNDER THE KNIFE

As I walked home from Haddon's house, one question echoed in my mind: What if I die under the operation?

It was a strangely impersonal thought. I had no wife, no dependents, and few friends who would be deeply troubled by my death. This realization surprised and humbled me. Most of my friendships, I saw now, survived more out of habit than affection. The emotional urgency of life seemed to have drained from me, leaving behind a calm detachment that felt unnatural.

I wondered whether this numbness was a sign of death approaching. Once, years earlier, after a severe loss of blood, I had felt something similar—a quiet resignation, stripped of passion or desire. Perhaps, as death draws near, the complex emotions that guide human life slowly fade away. Was I already withdrawing from life before it had truly ended?

These thoughts were interrupted as I crossed a bridge near Regent’s Park. Children laughed in the sunlight, nurses chatted, lovers passed arm in arm, trees stretched fresh green leaves toward the sky. I observed it all without feeling part of it. I was there, yet distant, as if already removed from the world.

Overcome with fatigue, I sat down on a green chair along the Broad Walk and drifted into sleep. I dreamed I was dead, my body decayed, lying beneath the earth as a voice commanded the dead to rise. Graves burst open in horror, and I refused to rise—until I was abruptly awakened by the ticket man demanding my penny. Shaken, I continued walking, narrowly avoiding being struck by a cab. It struck me as ironic that I might die by accident while expecting death from surgery the next day.

That night and the following morning passed in quiet certainty: I knew I would die under the operation. When the doctors arrived, I felt little fear. As chloroform was administered, a sudden resistance rose within me. Though I could not name it, I felt unprepared for death. Then sensation vanished, and darkness swallowed everything.

After an interval of nothingness, awareness returned—clear, cold, and emotionless. I realized I was no longer bound to my body, though I hovered close to it. I could perceive everything: the doctors, their thoughts, their doubts. I watched my own body cut open without pain, observing it as one might observe a mechanical process. My mind was sharper than ever, stripped of emotion.

Suddenly, a mistake was made. A vein was cut. I knew instantly that my body was doomed. The doctors struggled desperately, but it was too late. As they worked, I felt myself being drawn away, pulled upward by some immense force. Terror flared briefly—then vanished.

I found myself rising rapidly into the sky. Below me, London shrank and drifted away. The earth spun beneath my vision as I ascended beyond the atmosphere. The sky darkened into blackness, and stars appeared—not faint points, but brilliant, steady lights. I saw the sun as it truly was: a blinding white disc crowned with flaming arcs of fire.

The earth dwindled into a small glowing sphere. I realized then that I was not moving away from the earth—the earth was moving away from me. Released from matter, I remained motionless in space while the planet and the entire solar system rushed onward without me.

Time itself began to change. Moments stretched into years. I watched planets move in their orbits. Saturn rushed past in a blur of rings and dust. Eventually, the sun became just another star, and the solar system dissolved into insignificance among countless others.

The universe expanded endlessly before me. Stars thinned. Vast regions of darkness opened ahead. I felt myself falling into an infinite void, surrounded by silence and emptiness. For the first time, fear returned—overwhelming and unbearable. Was I alone forever? Had I ceased to exist?

Then, far away, I noticed a faint glow. Slowly, impossibly slowly, it took shape. It was a gigantic Hand, holding the entire universe like a speck of dust. On its finger shone a ring, and upon that ring rested the tiny light of existence itself. I watched in awe and terror, unable to comprehend what I saw.

A deep, distant sound echoed through space like a bell. The Hand vanished. A voice filled the darkness, saying, “There will be no more pain.”

Suddenly, light flooded my senses. The vision dissolved. The Hand became the rail of my bed. The ringing was my clock striking twelve. I was back in my body. The operation was over. I was alive.

And in that moment, I realized something extraordinary—the heavy melancholy that had weighed upon me for months was gone. Life, with all its feeling and meaning, had returned.