You know what it’s like to be a miracle? It stinks.

So’s I goes into the hospital knowing that when I leave, it’ll be on a slab. Suits me fine. There’s nobody to miss me and nobody I’ll miss. Fuck this stinking world anyway. The only people I ever called friends were nothing but drinking buddies, and I only see my mother on her birthday when I go piss on her grave in memory of what an unrelenting cunt she was to me from the day I was born till the day I left that bitch behind for good when I was fifteen years old.

Plus, I like checking in to see if she’s still dead.

So I was ready to check out. Accounts all settled. Paid all my debt. Gave away some knicky knacky stuff I never really gave a shit about anyway. Left a few bags of cash in some odd places for some lucky person to find. Hell knows I don’t know anybody who actually deserves it. So I gave it to the world instead.

I packed my bags and was ready to go to whatever’s next. Hopefully, nothing at all.

Let’s just say that I never once thought I was going to Heaven, and that only leaves one other option, right?

So there I am in the hospital, ready to check out. Pain’s real bad but the drugs here are good. A nice, clean high. Whatever they gave me, I could make a mint selling it on the streets.

Then The Big One hits. Everything in me fucking up at once. Hallelujah, I think. This clusterfuck is finally coming to an end.

And for a long while, everything is quiet, dark, and calm. It’s so peaceful and soothing. It was like being asleep and awake at the same time. Nothing bothered me, nobody was trying to make me do stupid shit, there was no noise, no smell, no ugliness, people being shitty to each other. I wasn’t even breathing and I didn’t care. I could have stayed there forever.

I don’t know. Guess I would have gotten bored eventually. But it was nice while it lasted.

But eventually, light starts coming in from somewhere, and then comes the sunrise. That’s the only way I can think of to describe it. The light grew brighter, I felt stronger, the feeling of growth and power grew in me, and the calm of the nothingness went away and the joy of being alive took its place.

I thought, if this is what all that religion was about, maybe I was wrong about that Jesus stuff.

Naw, fuck him. Where was Jesus when my mom was beating me? Where was He when she would shove her hand down my pants and grabbed my little wiener so she could laugh at my little “shrinky dink”? Where we He when she would lend me out to all her pervert junkie friends like I was VCR?

“Just bring him back in one piece. ” she’d say. “I need him to buy smokes for me. ” And she’d laugh.

Fuck you, Jesus. Too little and way, way too late, you useless hunk of shit.

Anyway, I come out of the coma and I see all these fancy doctor types looking at me like I was a pony they all bet their life savings on and it’s a 20 to one shot. When they see I’m awake, they all start smiling and some asshole from the papers takes my picture and all kinds of hubbub.

And at first I’m enjoying it. Who doesn’t like being the center of attention now and then? The first thing I says when I wakes up “Geez, is it my birthday already? How long was I asleep?”

And everybody laughed, me included, and for a while there it was real nice. Lots of important type people wanted to talk to me, big time celebrity news types interviewed me, doctors from places I’d never even heard of were going on and on about how me coming back from the dead was medically impossible given all my organ and tissue damage and blah blah blah. I didn’t understand most of what they said to me, but I sure liked the attention and how nice everyone was being to me.

So this is what being a celebrity is like, I thought. It ain’t half bad.

But then most of them went away when me being alive stopped being news, and that’s when I learned the first harsh rule of being a modern medical miracle : it doesn’t pay.

Not one red fucking cent. People sold newspapers, TV shows got ratings, lots of doctor types got published, hell even the nurse I thought was my best friend in the world sold me out and moved to Florida.

But me? I didn’t get one dime. None of those parasite bastards even thought to pay my hospital bill. It only took around a week for me to go from top of the news to bottom of the “ward of the state” shit list.

Keeping me alive was expensive, and they never let me fucking forget it.

And that’s when the washouts started. I’d be going along, watching TV or shooting the shit with the orderlies or jerking off or whatever, and then it would be like a rainbow tide from deep inside my head would suddenly swell up and the next thing I would know, it would be hours later and nobody wanted to look me in the eye, let alone tell me what the fuck happened.

Soon I figured out that I was losing more time every time I washed out, and it became harder and harder to think straight or stay focused. I couldn’t even watch TV because I would forget what was going on every time there was a commercials.

I got so tired and confused that eventually, I said fuck it, and the next time the tide rushed in, I just let it take me away. Didn’t put up no fight at all. I figured, wherever it’s been trying to take me, it has to be better than this.

Next thing I know, I’m watching some weird kind of science fiction show about a guy made out of energy who helps people.

Seemed like a decent enough show to me. Decided I’d watch it for a while.

It wasn’t until years later that I figured out where the show was coming from.

It wasn’t much fun to watch after that.