Observations placeholder

Shirley MacLaine – Out on a Limb

"So what was that pain you just had?" I asked.

"Oh, just a touch of indigestion, I guess."

“Well maybe," I said, "but maybe it would be good to talk about it."

He didn't seem to want to go into it immediately.  He fumbled and talked about food and what was right and wrong for him to eat and what it was like living with "this goddamn toy contraption I have in my heart.”

I listened. I knew he still hadn't gotten to what he wanted to say.

"This sound stage gives me the creeps," he said.

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

He wiped perspiration from his forehead and took a deep breath.

"Because," he said, "this is the sound stage where I died."

I tried not to overreact. I remembered reading in the papers what an awful brush with death he had had.

"Rex Kennamer saved my life," he said, "and I saw him do it."

"No kidding," I said. "How?"

Like a person recounting a scene that had happened to somebody else, he said:

"Well, I felt myself leave my body. I just floated out of my physical form and I saw them cart my body away to the hospital. I went with it. I was curious. I wondered what was wrong with me. I wasn’t frightened or anything like that because I was fine; and it was my body that was in trouble. Then I saw Dr. Kennamer come. And he felt my pulse and saw that I was dead.

He and some other people pushed down and up on my chest. In fact, they pummeled the shit out of me, . .literally, I believe. They did everything but jump up and down on me to get my heart beating again. Then I saw Rex shout at somebody and say there was no time to prepare me for heart surgery. He commanded somebody to carve me open right there on the spot. Rex took my heart out of my body and massaged the hell out of it. Did everything but toss it up in the air.

I was so curious watching him. He just refused to accept that I was dead. Then I looked around myself and I saw an incredibly beautiful bright loving white light above me.

I wanted to go to that white light more than anything.

I've never wanted anything more. I knew there was love, real love, on the other side of the light which was attracting me so much. It was kind and loving and I remember thinking, ‘That's God.' I tried to elevate myself toward it as Rex was working on my heart. But somehow I couldn’t quite make it. Then I saw a hand reach through the light. I tried to touch it, to grab onto it, to clasp it so it could sweep me up and pull me through it. Then I heard Rex say below me, 'It's beating again. I'm getting a heartbeat.'

At the same moment a voice attached to the hand I wanted to touch so much said, 'It's not time. Go back and finish. It's not time.'

The hand disappeared on the other side and I felt myself floating back into my body. I was bitterly disappointed. After that I don't remember anything until I regained consciousness back inside my body."