'Are you sure Tommy, because it really seems like it is.'
'Have I ever lied to you Mr. T?'
'Tommy I don't know if you've ever lied to anybody.' And still my right foot hovered a foot from the ground. I was twelve olde English inches from literally meeting my maker. Maybe not the closest call ever, but then again not everyone truly knows HOW close they are to death.
'Think about your family, Mr. T.'
'I have Tommy, but what's the point? Won’t they all end up here eventually and then we'll all be together again.'
'Don’t you want your grandson to grow up, Mr. T? To have a life and a love of his own?'
That hurt more than I care to admit.
'If he dies before he's born Mr. T, he doesn't come here.'
'That's a lie!' I screamed.
Tommy's features didn't change.
'Eliza knows about this place, she can keep your family away from here, forever.' He added.
I wanted to scream at him, to throw him to the ground, to tell him that God would make him burn for telling those untruths. The problem was it was all true, instinctively I knew he was speaking the truth.
'I hate that bitch.' I swore under my breath. What circle of hell do they reserve for people that swear on Heaven's doorstep? I nearly and literally almost fell over into the great abyss, only Tommy's steadying hand on my shoulder kept me from going over the edge. 'Nice grab.' I told him.
'You ready to go home?' He asked.
'I thought I was.' I answered truthfully. I turned back. 'Bye mom, I miss you.'
'I'll see you soon.' She said softly, with a ghost of a sad smile on her lips.
Now that I had made up my mind to stay on this side of the death divide, I hoped she didn't mean too soon or else this was going to be a short novella punctuated by my untimely demise.
'Thank you Tommy, you've saved me again.'
'Want a Pop-Tart?' He asked as he pulled me close.
CHAPTER SEVEN - JOURNAL ENTRY 3 - 
As the emergency room lights grew brighter, the field I was in grew dimmer. Like the Cheshire cat, Tommy's grin was the last thing to fade.
My eyes fluttered open, bright light pierced into my soul.
'We have brain function.' I think a nurse might have said.
'Blood pressure is 70 over 20 and climbing Doctor. Another 20 cc's of epy?'
'No we've already pumped him with more than I feel comfortable putting in a rhino. Mike can you hear me?'
'Get…damn…light…out…of…my…eyes.' I rasped.
'Good to have you back.'
I wasn't quite as sure.
'You've lost a lot of blood again Mike. You're making me doubt my expertise. Nearly everything I did on your shoulder came unglued all at once. You were clinically dead for twelve minutes. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it.'
Tracy was squeezing the shit out of my right hand.
'Hurts..' I muttered.
'I bet it does Mike.' The Doc continued. 'We had to go in…'
'No…' I took a breath. 'Hand.'
'No we didn't have to do anything with your hand we…'
'Oh I think he means me Doctor.' Tracy said releasing her death grip on my hand. She began to rub blood back into my purpling appendage.
My head ached as I scanned the room. Travis' red-rimmed eyes were what I caught first. He turned away when he noticed me staring at him. 'Not...quite...dead...yet.' I said in my best Monty Python English accent. 'I… think…I'm…getting…better.' He turned quickly to leave the room, his shoulders bobbed up and down in heavy sobs. I knew what it was like to be a teen, all those hormones surging to the fore and there was always the constant cool that had to be maintained under any and all circumstances. It was nice to see that I had broken through to his humanity, something which I think had been slipping from him, minute degrees at a time.
Justin was next, his eyes were red-rimmed also but they were more the result from whatever poison surged through his body. His words froze me. 'She knows we're here.'
'Justin!' Tracy screamed.
Justin's face fell. 'Mom.' He began.
'You tell that bitch!' Tracy yelled. 'That she can go to hell, and if she comes here I'll send her there personally. Why don't you and your girlfriend go for a walk!' Tracy sobbed.
'Hon…' I said almost grabbing her with my damaged arm. The Doc must have known I wasn't the brightest bulb on the string. This time he made sure that I would not be able to make any sudden movements. My arm, no scratch that, my entire upper half of my body, was immobilized. Tracy stopped her tirade to look at me, the pain and the hurt was etched in her eyes.
'I don't think he was taunting, I think he was just telling us.'
'I don't care Talbot, I just don't.' Tracy stormed out, her shoulders doing a fair impression of Travis' from a few moments earlier.
'Do…do you want me to leave Dad?' Justin asked, his eyes never picking up off of the floor.
I didn't want him to leave. I did however want Eliza to piss off. Was pretty sure she wasn't going to listen though. 'No it's fine.' I said through gritted teeth. The lingering effects of being dead were beginning to wear off and the pain of life was rearing its ugly head.
Next in line was Nicole. She looked worse than Justin. She wore the affliction of loss heavily.
'Hey Peanut. How you doing?'
Porkchop pushed past Nicole. 'I'm doing good Mr. Talbot. Thanks for asking. Wanna see my transformers?'
'Porkchop!' Doc Baker called over from the corner, doing his best to be discreet while also actually monitoring my progress. 'I'm pretty sure he's not talking to you.'
'Dad yeah he is. You heard him right?' Porkchop asked Nicole.
'Well actually…' I began.
'So see this one is Bumble Bee. He goes from this guy into a yellow Camaro.' Porkchop said as he hastily began to do the magical folding and bending of plastic to make the action figure turn into a sports car. Sweat began to bead on his brow as the arm assembly was not being very cooperative. 'Almost got it.' Porkchop said in deep concentration. I would have laughed a little when Porkchop's tongue came out while he was in deep concentration but I knew the pain that would have ensued was not worth the expenditure.
Doc Baker had to physically remove Porkchop from the vicinity. Porkchop was entirely too wrapped up in the transmorphing of his toy to realize that he had actually been moved.
'Dad I've got something to tell you.' Nicole said, her eyes as downcast as her brother's.
'It's alright honey Br…' Holy crap I was half a sentence away from telling my grieving daughter that her dead boyfriend had already told me that she was pregnant. That wouldn't have gone over too well. Nicole picked her eyes up to meet mine. A questioning look fleeted across her features.
'Brendon's dead.' Nicole sobbed flatly. The shock of those words spoken aloud stunned her. Up to this point I don’t think it had been vocalized. Obviously she knew but the spoken word carried its own weight, a finality, a punctuation to an ending.
A new fear wormed into my heart. Would my daughter begin to look at me as the person for whom her fiancee had died. Being Catholic meant I already carried an immeasurable amount of guilt around with me. I didn't want to add to the load. I wanted to reach out and comfort my daughter; the cloth strap bound tightly across my chest thought otherwise.
Nicole moved in for a hug, oblivious to the myriad of machinery and tubes hooked up to me. I wished that an EKG machine was also hooked up to Doc Baker at that point. He looked on the verge of a cardiac infarction, I knew
