The October Amaryllis: Everything Has a Cost

My story began on May 16th, 2020, the day that my heart stopped beating after getting struck by three solid feet of ball lightning; it was the day that anyone else in my place would have died. Whether what I experienced was pure luck or a blessing of some sort doesn’t really matter; some events simply happen and defy any kind of logical explanation; the more you try to explain them, the less you know. In fact, the longer I think about how I survived it, the worse I feel. While everyone in the hospital was scrambling to start my heart up again, I was in the most peaceful place possible; it stretched eternally with no color or form to it, just tranquility. For me, it was just like falling asleep and waking up; it didn’t feel abnormal in any way; it felt like any other day before then. The greatest illusion of all is a false sense of calm. I’d have gladly chosen that state over what came later. But that’s not what this story is about; this is about all the things that happened next, what already happened, and what didn’t happen but was supposed to. I write this now on my deathbed because I know that if I wrote it at any other point in my life, it would come off as nothing more than the ramblings of a lunatic. I swear on everything I hold dear that no words in this book are a lie, and I beg you never to replicate these experiences, no matter how tempting they might be. This, my friends, is the story about how I nearly destroyed everything and everyone without even intending to.