Feeling slowly crept back into my body and a feeling of grogginess over took my head, as if I’d been asleep for a very long time. One at a time I painstakingly wriggled a finger, then my toes getting them moving again. I didn’t want to say to get the blood moving, because wherever I was I wasn’t sure I even had blood.

The tingling had resided and faded away as if it had never been there. My next goal: Open my eyes.

I assumed that I was in heaven. I didn’t feel fire nipping at my flesh, or hear the agonized screams of tortured souls so maybe I was in the clear. Yet, I also didn’t feel the overwhelming sense of peace I’d been expecting with Nirvana. I’d always assumed that when you reached the final destination you’d be consumed with joy. You know rainbows, gumdrops, cloud hopping and harp playing. The gist.

Tepidly I moved my head, first to the left and then to the right. I could see light trying to make itself present through my lids, and I also saw movement like shadows on a wall. With some effort I scrunched my nose and lifted my ever heavy eyes, blinking rapidly as my vision was suddenly filled with light. Everything was blurry and muted, like I was watching TV with bad reception. Dully I made out mumbling, which cleared into hushed whispers. I couldn’t quite make out what the people were saying, but from the way it was portrayed it was something urgent. They sounded alarmed and…frightened maybe.

Blinking some more I could finally make out that I was in a room. The walls were an elegant looking beige, while the carpets were creamy like cappuccino foam. An elaborate looking mahogany dresser hugged the wall on one side of the room, which the bed I was lying on leaned against the other.

This definitely wasn’t heaven. I felt jibbed and betrayed but at the same time ecstatic. I felt like I’d been given another chance at life, another chance to fix everything and do everything over. I’d been thrown back into the fish bowl to be caught another time.

New goal: Find out where the hell I was.