I Dreamt I had to Die

I understood I would be dead in 30 minutes.

Don’t ask how or when I found this out. Because I didn’t find it out. I just knew that I would not be alive after 30 minutes, just as I knew I was alive at that moment, and that I was sitting on a bench in some place, a place that was or wasn’t a real place.

And don’t ask how I felt about it. Because I didn’t do that either.

All I did was take my wallet and phone out of my pockets and start putting them away.

I texted my wife “I love you”.

Then I started to text “When will you be hom*” but stopped. That question was no longer relevant.

No question is relevant anymore. I would be gone before the answer.

Only when I woke was I surprised at how mechanical everything went down.

Death holds sorrow only for the living.

I didn’t LEARN I would be dead in 30 minutes. I just KNEW it. Might as well have always known it.

Reader: as someone alive and awake, you obviously are asking “when did you find out?”, “How?”

I was somewhere.

I learned that death is sorrowful for the living. I had no particular feeling at all in the dream, while I was actually dealing with my certain death. My mere telling to you of this story belies how unremarkable it all felt to me. In fact, I only felt like remarking on it at all after I woke up (I am awake as I write this).

There is no other backstory. I wasn’t shocked to learn I was dying. I wasn’t questioning or doubting the fact of it.

I was somewhere (not a real place. But it could have been.). I was me. My name is Rob. I will die in 30 minutes.