บท 282: The Very Heartbeat

Billie Bob Taylor 

I thought I was dead. 

I must have been dead.

It was the only explanation on why Pa was staring back at me with tears in his eyes. I feared everything I had heard moments prior was simply a fiction of my imagination. They always did say everyone perceived their afterlife in different ways and I figured in death everything I had lied to my heart about desiring came to light. 

That even though I had everything I could ever want, my heart would always crave to just see my father for one last time. 

Yet I soon realized I was not dead when Doctor Otto's face looked down to me. "Bobby, we need you to stay calm," he gently told me as he smiled.