Out of body experience

Apparently, my heart stopped during the operation.

The first I knew about it was when I woke up and found myself floating upwards, towards a great light. I got no further than the ceiling though. I could see my body flat out below me, raw red hole where the surgeon had been, but otherwise serene and peaceful, an anaesthetised smile on my face.

The scene played out in slow motion. The surgeon was swearing at everyone, barking insults and orders. A junior doctor was juggling inexpertly with the defibrillator, shocking my body with powerful electric jolts. A machine was beeping, which added to the general air of panic. I was the only one with any sense of perspective and watched over events with a calm detachment.

Eventually the doctors gave up and the machine was switched off. I tried to tell them to keep trying, that I wasn't dead, just taking a bit of time out, but they carried on as if I wasn't there. I remained in my place on the ceiling as my body was wheeled out and my death-blood cleaned away.

My body was placed in the hospital mortuary. I didn't like it in there, cold and miserable, so I went back to the operating theatre, the one I died in. There was a woman in my place, different surgeon, different team, the machine was still there, though it was no longer bleeping and the life-line was alive, up and down like a beating heart. I watched the surgeon operate, fascinated, I'd never seen a real live operation, had slept through my own. This surgeon was good, nobody came to join me on the ceiling, the woman survived, minus just one small lump of flesh (less than a pound).

I watched Samantha come to identify my body. I tried to get her attention, let her know I was still all right. "Don't worry love, I'm fine, as soon as they get me back in my body I'll be as right as rain." I failed to console her though, and she left in genuine tears.

I went to my own funeral. It's poor form I know, but I had nothing better to do. It was a lousy turnout, even if you include me in the headcount. I know it was raining, but does it really have to be fine weather to mourn me? Where was Jeff? We'd known each other since uni, was I really not worth the trip from Northampton? And as for the vicar's speech, I know he didn't know me, but he could have made some effort. He must have seen Samantha every Sunday, did they never once talk about me? Did he assume she was single?

After the funeral, everyone left and I was alone with my body. I tried to join it, it was my final resting place after all, but it was dark and depressing and I certainly wasn't going to stick around for the being eaten by worms bit.

But where to go? Being an atheist I've always argued that there is no afterlife, proved it many a time on the back of a beermat. "Stands to reason, doesn't it?" So I had no faith to show me the way.

From school I remember something about Heaven and Hell. I didn't do Religious Studies GCSE, or Geography, so I missed out on the important info, about how to get there. I looked around for a lift or ladder that might lead up to heaven (I figured if the devil wanted me he'd come and get me) but nothing, just the normal mortal world around me.

I walked over to the church. If there was a path to heaven, surely I'd be able to find a way from there. I floated around inside for a while, listened to the vicar talk to a few regulars, but he said nothing to enlighten me. I went back a few times, but the only direction the vicar ever gave was that "The path to heaven lies in the avoidance of mortal sin." He went on to say that we were all sinners, so maybe nobody goes there now.

Let down by the church I went to the library, thought they were bound to have a book on the subject. But being a ghost (for want of a better term) I couldn't lift any of the books off the shelves, let alone open the pages. I tried the internet, Wikipedia was bound to know, but my fingers kept passing through the keyboard. I was doomed to be forever offline.

I went back to the cemetery, thought maybe there'd be others like me hanging around, but I was a lone spirit.

I spent the next ten years wandering the earth; not in a wailing and clanging of chains type of walking the earth, it was more pottering around, doing a bit of sight seeing, chilling out. I visited some of the most haunted places in Europe, hoping to see more ghosts like me, but I remained alone.

I returned home. Samantha had moved away, didn't leave a forwarding address.

It was without hope, goal or mission that I left what had been, for seven years, my house and home. I wondered if my medical insurance had paid off my mortgage, or if I had died with debts undischarged.

Then I saw her. Walking down the street towards me. The most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Well, not a woman, a spirit, a free-floating soul like me, as beautiful as a well-constructed sentence; verbs, nouns and adjectives in perfect alignment. She saw me and smiled.

I don't have a heart, obviously, having abandoned it on the operating table, but something inside me still went 'boom, boom, boom'. It was love at first sight. The first time I can genuinely say I didn't love a woman for her body.

I was nervous and vulnerable, as a fragile heart in uncaring surgeon's hands, as a balloon being used in a game of pin pong, as a boy ghost meeting girl ghost for the first time. Ten years alone without another immortal soul (I'm guessing I'm immortal, it's pretty hard to say). I'd never spoken so much as a word or wail in all that time. My lack of religious grounding left me with no concept of what to say to her. "Hello, I see you're dead as well," "Is this one of your regular haunts?" I didn't have a ghost of a chance.

Luckily she took the initiative, and floated over, like an angel in a vision.

"Excuse me," she said, "I think I'm lost. Could you show me the way to heaven?"

I flashed her a wicked grin. "Stick around, I'll see what I can do."