driving in darkness under bridges, there is a slowing, an easing of my foot upon the accelerator, and a quickening in my chest, the thud of my heart and the agony of my senses widening, drinking in ever more in anticipation. i am fixed with my hands clenched at "ten and two," my eyes open, my mouth secreting bile, my stomach cold. i am waiting. as i round the bend, my eyes turn instinctively heavenward. there is no enormous object, there are no sparks flying. there is only the crushing truth of having been here once before, of having survived my own death. and as i move away, i begin to sob. tears break the levees of my eyes. i have been taken back to the night of my accident and i realize that it was not at all my life that flashed before my eyes, but it was the possibility of my own death being revealed to me. i have been witness to my own end. it is nothing short of terrifying. all my logical conclusions about the preciousness of life, the fragility of it all, the delicate balance that my entire existence rests upon falls so short of the truth of it. the raw, unencumbered reality is that i did die somewhere, in some time and i saw it all in this existence for but a second. i have known my death and my natural reaction is to cling, ever desperately, to my life. there are no deep thoughts regarding my death. there is only the urge to not die.