The room was a shambles. Cut off clothing strewn about the floor where it had been thrown or dropped. Bloodied sponges, tubes, and needles littered the table and floor like a child that had just dumped out the contents of his toy chest. Looking for his favorite toy.

The doctor looked around the room. All heads nodded no in response to his gaze. The doctor looked at his watch and said “time of death 3:22 AM”. He gently pulled the sheet up over the man’s face. The nurse called housekeeping and transport to move the body to the morgue.

The man knew he was injured badly. He could not move. There was no feeling just a sense of blackness coming over him.

He could hear the people talking somewhere in his mind. The doctor was somewhere in the far reaches of his soul saying “time of death”.

He was thinking he could not be dead. He was still able to think.

Replacing the sound of the emergency room was the faint sound of a drum. He at first thought it was his heart pounding in his ears.

But it couldn’t be, could it? He had heard the doctor pronounce him dead. As he listened the sound became clearer. It was a drum. There was also chanting. It did not get louder just clearer to his mind.

Just then he heard a voice that filled his whole being with the sound of it.

“Son?”

“Son? Open your eyes.”

The eyes flickered open for a second and ever so gently closed again. In that flicker of a moment that his eyes opened he saw an old man sitting on a reed mat. He was wearing buckskin and smiling at the man. Behind the man was a wide valley. In it were many lodges. Buffalo grazed among the people and there was a drum with people singing and dancing in the sacred circle. They were starting to walk towards where he lay resting on a buffalo mat.

“Welcome home son”

The man lay still on the mat. Sounds came clearer to him now. He could smell sage and grasses and trees. Smells of life filled his senses to the very core of his being.

“How long have I been sleeping Father?”

Smiling, the father said “Your whole life son.”
  

Excerpt
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