And Yet, I Am

Trust me when I say this. Sometimes, people can surprise you. Maybe not often, but sometimes. Often, however, the world can shock the crap out of you far better than any person ever could. My life started many years ago, but that bit isn’t the important part of my story. The important part of my story began with a wish, a bully, and an inactive volcano. See, I bet that was surprising.

It was seven months ago, and I was just another jackass. Sort of. I wasn’t a bully myself, per se, but I also didn’t really help much. I sort of passed through the world. Ever since I was a kid, I had two rules. First, if people don’t bother me, I don’t bother them. And second, whenever someone hits me, I stand firm and hit them back harder. I was always kind of the runt of the litter, in school. As a kid, I was bullied incessantly. Until people learned and understood my rules. Most learned their lessons the first time they tried backing up their threats. I had kids twice, three times my size on the ground after they hit me. When I learned people liked me and looked up to me after I put a couple of the bigger bullies down, I ignored it. Eventually, when they learned I did it selfishly, that admiration went away. Middle school introduced new bullies, and those new ones swiftly learned to leave me alone, either the easy way or the painful way. In high school, however, bullies started to get more clever, harder to put in their place. They started thinking themselves to be my better.

It all came to a head during spring break of my junior year. By that point, I had made about four friends, and we all went to this massive party out on some island in the ocean. A bunch of kids from school were there, as well as a whole lot of college students. And it was supposed to be a great couple days. I had a plan. I was going to party, to help get my friends laid, and to have a nice evening reading Schopenhauer on the beach. Some of those kids that used to be twice my size, however, had a different weekend in mind for me, all together. Because of their plans, the course of my entire life was altered.

One of my friends was told by a rather attractive young gentleman that there was a big party thing happening up on the top of the mountain. She, of course, came to the rest of us about it immediately. “We got to go,” Alicia pressed us. We assented. We wanted to help her, after all, and we knew better than try to argue. I figured it was a little bit of a weird place to have a party, but who gives.

Together the five of us ascended the mountain. At the top, it was flat. It wasn’t a mountain, but a defunct volcano, after all. A much better place to have a party. And the party up here was, indeed, awesome. Plenty of people, most of them attractive, and everyone seeming to have fun. The DJ was playing music quite loudly. All and all, a party to end all parties. Pretending ourselves college students, as most of the people around seemed to be, we made our way into the crowds. Quickly, I lost my friends. They were off to have fun. I was left to drink and contemplate existence. Not that I minded much. Contemplation was kind of my jam. In the corner of my eyes, I saw some people heading off, away from the party. Taking my tequila, I followed, curiously. After all, we were atop a volcano. They might have found something interesting. Following them into the fog, I found myself lost and confused. I almost slipped and fell a few times. But I made my way further across.

It happened in the middle of the fog. I had no idea where I was. From behind, someone I couldn’t see shoved me, hard. “That’s what you deserve,” they said, as his friends started kicking me on the ground. That was likely all they intended. He likely thought I wouldn’t recognize his voice, and in the fog I couldn’t see who was doing it. As I said, the bullies had gotten more clever. What happened next, I don’t think even they suspected would happen. There was a cracking, and the entire surface shifted a little. The ground gave out from under us, and we fell into the volcano. As we fell out of the clouds, I recognized several of the assailants as old bullies of mine from Elementary and Middle school. Karma, I thought, they tried to hit me in a safe way, and it seems the world itself bent to my will to hit them back harder. Together we smashed into hot rock. I could feel every bone in my body cracking. I was fairly certain we were all going to die down there. No one knew where we were, after all. I wasn’t wrong, of course, but I also wasn’t right. Eric, one of my old elementary bullies, shouted out, “Oh, crap. It’s rising.”

I couldn’t see it. I’d turned during the fall and landed facing the sky. But I was certainly feeling the already blistering heat getting warmer. “I thought this didn’t erupt,” I said.

“It hasn’t in years,” Eric explained. “Besides, it’s supposed to be one of those slow, smooth ones. Easy to get away from.”

I chuckled. It seemed death was coming sooner than I expected. Oh well. I waited for the fires to consume me. It took almost ten minutes, but soon enough I could feel the molten rock overwhelm my flesh, burning through me. I could hear the screams of my assaulters, who were afraid to die. I welcomed it. It was a fittingly ironic way to go, to die by my own willing of the world to obey. The hissing of the steam released as I melted away. Shortly after the pain, I felt nothing. My nerves receptors were no longer. Then, there was nothingness. For a while.

I awoke in the water. Confused. I tried to understand what happened but had no way of explaining it. Assuming it had to be a dream, I swum back to shore, and realized I was nude. Fortunately it was nighttime, so slipping back to our stilted cabin without being seen was easy enough. Or should have been. When I climbed on into the room, Xavier and Bill were awake, looking worried. “There you are,” they said, “We got to tell the - whoa, you’re naked.”

“Very observant. I went for a dip, assuming you guys’d be asleep,” I replied, grabbing the closest thing, a lamp, and holding it over my nether regions.

“We were worried about you,” Xavier said, “When the volcano started erupting, we couldn’t find you. You get dressed, we’ll tell Alicia and Mary not to worry.”

It wasn’t a dream. I didn’t know how to process what had happened, so I lied. “I didn’t realize anything had happened. I wasn’t feeling the party, so I went out on a boat and read in the moonlight.”

Bill chuckled. “Of course you did,” he replied as the two of them left. I grabbed some of my clothes and quickly pulled on shorts and a T-shirt. I needed to figure out what exactly happened. I couldn’t do that if anyone was bothering me with their worrying. Grabbing a towel to dry my hair, I relaxed and contemplated what had happened.

I had died. I was certain of it. I felt my existence melt away in that lava. I’d heard the screams. How had I lived through death? Had anyone else survived, I wondered. Why hadn’t I died?

Bill and Xavier returned. Bill came up to me, “This is from Mary,” he said, before slapping me. “She also says you should really pay attention to your surroundings more.”

I sighed, shaking my heads. “So, what happened? Was it exciting?”

“No, but we learned why so many of the local buildings are on stilts in the water, the flows on this side all solidified before the beaches. Some on the other side of the island hit the water, but no one lives out there and the locals knew what was happening and brought everyone here,” Xavier exposited.

“Well,” I said, “Seems like you had fun. But I’m beat after my dip, mind if I hit the sack?” I yawned for effect.

They both agreed and we turned in for the night. Starting the next day, I decided to experiment with what was going on. To figure this whole thing out. First thing I noticed was the lack of an upset Eric, or any of the others who’d fallen into the depths of the volcano with me. Whatever had happened had happened, and I was the only one to make it out. Ironic, considering I was the only one who hadn’t fought back against death. The volcano had erupted. I did melt. I did die. And yet, I was also here. I had no idea what that meant about me.

First thing I did, after enduring another slap from Mary for worrying them, was head out into the wild. Told my friends it was a run, to get some actual exercise. They believed me, and followed Xavier to some beach party. It was early, and they knew I’d probably be back. I had died, and now I was alive. That left only a couple of things that could have happened. Either, I could heal from a melted blob state, or I could somehow return from death. Both were impossible, but they were also the only options. One of them had to be true. I just needed to figure out which, so I could come up with a plan on how to fix it.

First thing I did was simple. I hurt myself. If I could heal from a melted blob state, I could heal from a normally wounded state. I took out a pocket knife and cut open my leg. It had taken a while for me to un-melt, so I waited, sitting in the woods and watching my leg. After nothing happened for ten minutes, I decided that was likely not the case. Which meant the other impossible option was the only thing that could be. Somehow, for some reason, death didn’t hold me.

A normal person would stop there. Chalk it up to some miraculous fortune and turn their life around in some big way. Not me. I wanted to understand. Needed to understand. Living and dying didn’t really matter to me, not in the face of ignorance. Miracles didn’t happen, and even if they did, they certainly didn’t happen to me. So, rather than leave it be, I went out for a swim. In the ocean, I laid down on my stomach and did the dead man’s float. Only, I didn’t rise up for air. I stayed under until I passed out, then died. Drowning myself, as it turned out, was a lot more painful than I thought it would be. I did not manage to hold my breath until passing out. Instead, I felt the water rush in. Filling my lungs. I felt it all. And only then did I pass out.

I’m not entirely certain what happened after that, though if what I understand about drowning held true, I was glad I passed out. Asphyxiation is rough, from what I’ve heard. However, I remember, some time later, waking up, face still under the water. I pushed myself up for a breath, and it was clean. Couldn’t feel any water in my lungs. The sun was far higher in the sky than when I entered the water as well. Nearly noontime. Then I noticed the final, and strangest of things. My leg wasn’t cut open. It seemed I couldn’t die. Oh well, I thought as I headed back to shore. I needed to meet back up with my friends soon. They’d be worried otherwise. I didn’t think about the longer term implications of what happened for a bit. The next time I thought about either of my deaths at all was when my brother asked me about the real rough looking burns across my back, around a month after break was over.