The Other Me: A Short Story

By J.L. Shojosh

Lana undergoes a near death experience. Michael’s life, as a baby, is just beginning. What tethers together the two lives? This pseudo-paranormal short story has a few mysteries that beg to be unpacked. From having to contend with notions of the Lazarus effect, to briefly flirting with other dimensional space, find yourself entreated to an odd day, as Francistown folk grapple with life, friends, family and courage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.L. Shojosh
• Release date: Oct 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005095406

J.L. Shojosh

I hope to show the universal humanity inherent in all of us. There's more that we as humans have in common with one another than the differences that sometimes pit us against each other. Through stories, I hope to highlight a few of those commonalities. Love conquers all.

Book preview

Prologue

The pure, unbridled sense of morbidity suffused throughout her entire being. Was she dead? The piercing, nail-drilling pangs, as though having had shrapnel explode in her torso, had brought the poor thing over the edge. Her arms, legs, and her every nook and cranny, were thoroughly bathed in a searing world of pain. Now, though, it no longer gnawed away at her bare-nerve-riddled muscles and bones. In the darkness, detached from the world, Lana seemed to float in a mêlée of her own thoughts. Was she alive? What about the jerk that had burned the red light, and probably saw to her demise, how was he faring? Were her parents there? Was Josh there? A tingle scurried through the veins in her left arm. Despite the lack of pain, something seemed off. Like an inexplicable psychedelic trip, Lana seemed to be deftly dragged along, delving deeper into the rabbit-hole. Her somber world soon stood alit and radiant, like fireworks going off in her eyes. She could now hear everything going on around her. But even more impressively troubling, she could hear the clatter, chimes and chatter of the entire hospital, the beeping monitors and the rolling wheel chairs on the many floors, as they reverberated within her. It was a different form of hearing, since her eardrums were not to be given any credit. Lana Noire felt afloat, in a world of music and dance.

Doctor, we’re losing her…

…point-five CCs of epinephrine. Pads...Clear. Clear. Clear…

It was instant. Lana was catapulted out of her steady stream of suspense, as though sling shot to the sky and back to earth. Lana gazed in awe as an intense smoke of white light obfuscating her sights, speedily parted, like thick nimbus clouds, and revealed her lifeless body. From the upper-corner of the room Lana observed in dead silence, as a mob clustered around her, hovering over her, in frenzied work, with all sorts of contraptions and wires around her disfigured, scarred, and sourly reddened body.

On the other side of the window, a teary eyed group, clutched at each other’s garments, almost as hard as they’d clung onto the slither of a thread often referred to as hope. Mom, dad, Josh, Sue, Charlie, and more, the entire family had come together for the first time in close to a decade. Every now and then, a jolt would wriggle through her being, coinciding with the defibrillator’s discharge. As Lana Noire contemplated being the centre of sheer gravity that brought her family together, though not quite as she’d pictured it, and as she pondered on how she couldn’t even reach out to them…she despaired further. Lana tried and tired but she could feel her essence hallow out into weightlessness. She couldn’t help it. Away she began to drift. It was official. Lana was dying. She didn’t need the doctor to confirm it. A monotonous beep sounded out. A family broke apart, bereaved. A mother slammed against the window in desperate angst, yelling out her daughter’s name, and sliding down, stripped of herself, bare, on the ground. The visuals got blurred for her. Where was she going? It didn’t seem scary, but the mystery filled her with fear, nonetheless…she didn’t want to find out what a world without her loved ones could entail.

Time of death…

1

"You’re almost there Henrietta. Push. Push, my love,