Seven Minutes

Call me a skeptic, but I don’t believe in ghosts, spirits, or supernatural mumbo-jumbo. So when I found myself floating above my body one night in 2012, I thought I was dreaming. But this was no dream. It was real.

Jack is my name, a 52-year-old overnight radio announcer living a mundane life in suburbia. Nothing extraordinary ever happens to me until that fateful night. I remember it vividly. I had gone to bed like any day, tired after a long morning at work. But as I drifted off to sleep, something strange happened.

At first, I felt weightless, like being lifted off my bed by invisible hands. Then, suddenly, I was standing beside my bed, staring down at my sleeping form. Panic surged through me as I realized what was happening.

Was I dead? Was this an out-of-body experience?

Try as I might, I could not touch my body as my hands passed through it like mist. I was incorporeal, a mere ghost of my former self. But I wasn’t ready to accept that I was dead. I needed answers.

With no physical form to hold me back, I floated through the walls of my apartment, out into the cool night air. The city sprawled below me, a glittering tapestry of lights and shadows. It was surreal, like something out of a science fiction movie.

As I drifted through the city streets, I realized I could see and hear things impossible for a living person, including the whispered conversations of strangers and the hidden desires on their faces. It was as if I had access to a world beyond the veil of reality.

But even as I marveled at my newfound abilities, fear gnawed at the edges of my mind. What if I was trapped in this state forever? What if I could never find my way back to my body?

I wandered through the city and the country, lost in my thoughts. But then, something caught my attention.

A figure standing on a street corner shrouded in darkness. Instinctively, I drew towards it like a moth to a flame.

As I drew closer, I realized that the figure was not alone. Others were lurking in the shadows, eyes gleaming with bitterness. They were not human, not in the traditional sense. They were something else, something darker.

Fear gripped me as I realized they were aware of my presence. They turned towards me, their gaze piercing through the darkness like daggers. And then, with a sudden burst of speed, they lunged towards me, their claws outstretched.

In terror, I tried to flee, to escape their grasp, but it was no use. They were faster than anything I had ever encountered. With a desperate cry, I felt their claws tear through my essence, ripping me apart.

And then, darkness.

When I woke up, I was back in my body, lying in bed, drenched in sweat. It took me a moment to realize that it had all been a dream, a terrifyingly vivid nightmare. But even as I tried to convince myself that it was nothing more than my imagination running wild, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was real.

As I lay there, trembling, I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to me. Was it just a trick of the mind, a manifestation of my deepest fears? Or had I truly experienced something beyond the realm of the living?

I may never know the answer, but one thing — I will never look at the world in quite the same way again as in that moment between life and death, I caught a glimpse of something truly extraordinary, something that defied all logic and reason.

The studio lights glowed softly overhead, casting warmth on the polished wooden desk. I adjusted the microphone, “Good morning,” I began, my voice steady, as I launched into my unprepared monologue, recounting the strange events that had unfolded the night before.

As I spoke, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was opening myself up to ridicule, exposing my deepest fears and vulnerabilities to the world. But to my surprise, the response from the listeners was overwhelming.

Call after call flooded in, each telling a similar story of a strange, out-of-body experience that had occurred at the same time as mine.

“It was like I was floating above my own body,” one caller said, her voice trembling with emotion. “I thought I was dreaming, but it felt so real, like I was really there.”

Others shared similar accounts, describing sensations of weightlessness and disembodiment that mirrored my own experience. Some spoke of encounters with shadowy figures, while others recounted feelings of overwhelming dread and fear.

As the calls continued to pour in, I felt a strange sense of validation wash over me. I wasn’t alone. Whatever had happened to me, it had affected others as well. And though I couldn’t explain it, I knew it was something significant and that it demanded further investigation.

As my show progressed, I shifted gears from the personal unexplained weirdness of my dream to more mundane matters by diving into the latest news headlines.

“Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, better known as CERN, have made a groundbreaking discovery,” I read, “They have successfully detected the elusive Higgs boson, also known as the ‘God Particle,’ using the Large Hadron Collider. This particle, which is believed to give mass to other particles, has long been the holy grail of particle physics.”

A few hours later, I signed off for the morning, handing the studio to the morning show. As I drove home and the sun began to rise, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of concern stirring within me.

In the days following, I could find no concrete answers, and the experience remained a mystery. And yet, despite the lack of answers, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was on the brink of a discovery, something that would change how I perceive the world forever.

Lost in the labyrinthine aisles of the bookstore, I stumbled upon a volume that would alter the course of my understanding—the concept of Neuromemory Errors. As I pored over its pages, the words seemed to dance before my eyes, igniting a spark of curiosity that would soon consume my every waking thought.

With each example of collective false memory, the tendrils of doubt tightened their grip on my mind. The Berenstain Bears, the Monopoly Man, the iconic misquote from “Star Wars”—all served as reminders of the fragility of memory, the way our recollections can diverge from reality with disquieting ease.

“But what if there’s more to it than just faulty memory?” I mused aloud. “What if Neuromemory Errors are manifestations of something deeper, something beyond our comprehension?”

As I pondered the implications, a chill crept up my spine, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. Memories of that fateful night flooded my mind, the sensation of weightlessness, the feeling of drifting through the darkness like a specter haunting the world of the living.

“What if,” I whispered to myself, the words barely audible in the stillness of the bookstore, “what if Neuromemory Errors are more than just glitches in our perception? What if they’re glimpses into alternate realities, echoes of lives we’ve never lived, and events that never occurred?”

The thought sent a shiver down my spine, the boundaries between reality and illusion blurring like ink on wet paper. It was a tantalizing possibility that threatened to unravel the fabric of my understanding and reshape the core of my being.

But as the puzzle pieces fell into place, a sense of clarity washed over me like a wave crashing against the shore. Perhaps the out-of-body experience I had encountered was not an anomaly but a doorway into a realm where the rules of reality were fluid and ever-changing, where the boundaries between self and other blurred and merged into one.

Days turned into weeks as I delved deeper into my research, poring over scientific journals and obscure texts in search of answers. But with each passing day, the questions only seemed to multiply, like branches spreading outwards from the trunk of a great tree.

“What if our understanding of reality is fundamentally flawed?” I mused, my thoughts drifting like clouds across the sky. “What if there are dimensions beyond our perception, realms of existence that exist outside the boundaries of our comprehension?”

The notion was exhilarating and terrifying, like standing on the edge of a precipice, poised to leap into the unknown. But deep down, I knew I couldn’t turn away from it, no matter how unsettling it might be.

And then, one morning, as I sat alone in my study, surrounded by stacks of research papers and my dim desk lamp, it happened—a strange sensation washed over me, a tingling at the edges of my consciousness, like a whisper in the darkness.

I looked up, my heart pounding in my chest, and there, before me, was a shimmering doorway—a doorway to another realm of understanding, where the boundaries of memory blurred and the mysteries of the mind beckoned.

With trembling hands, I stepped over the threshold and into a world of vivid recollections and forgotten dreams. Colors swirled around me, sounds echoed in strange harmonies, and I felt a sense of wonder, unlike anything I had ever experienced.

And in that moment, as I stood on the precipice of discovery, I realized that Neuromemory Errors were not just a quirk of the mind. They were a complexity of human cognition, a reminder that our memories are not infallible but malleable.

As my obsession with Neuromemory Errors grew, so did the strain on my professional life.

Each day, I found myself consumed by my research, poring over obscure texts and scientific papers late into the night. The lines between work and obsession blurred, my thoughts consumed by questions of alternate realities and the nature of perception.

But as my focus shifted, so too did the quality of my broadcasts. Listeners grew weary of my increasingly esoteric topics, and ratings plummeted. It wasn’t long before the station manager called me into his office.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” he said. “But we can’t continue to support your show if it’s not bringing in listeners.”

And with those words, I cleaned out my desk drawers and left the building. I felt like I had been cast adrift on an ocean of uncertainty, the waves of doubt threatening to pull me under.

But even as I packed up my belongings and said my farewells, a sense of liberation came over me like a cool breeze on a sweltering summer day. For the first time in seven years, I was free—free to pursue my research without the constraints of corporate expectations or the pressure to perform.

As I returned home, I threw myself into my studies with renewed vigor, the walls becoming a sanctuary for my burgeoning obsession. Days became weeks, weeks into months, as I delved deeper into the mysteries of Neuromemory Errors. I lost track of time, caught in a labyrinth of my making, searching for answers in the darkest corners of the human mind.

But with each discovery, I felt a sense of exhilaration, unlike anything I had ever experienced. The world seemed to shimmer with possibility, every question leading to another, every answer opening new doors of inquiry.

And as the months turned into years, I emerged from my self-imposed exile a changed man. No longer bound by society or the expectations of others, I had become something more.

The year is 2024, and the world teeters on the brink of chaos. The COVID pandemic has ravaged economies, shattered lives, and left a trail of devastation in its wake.

For Jack, now known as “Bastard Jack” among the unhoused, as the media and the politically correct now call the homeless, at an unauthorized encampment along the river, the fallout from the pandemic had been brutal. With his savings depleted and his mind consumed by his obsession with Neuromemory Errors, Jack had become a shadow of his former self.

To the others of the encampment, he appeared little more than a madman, his incessant ramblings about alternate realities and fractured memories falling on deaf ears. But amidst the chaos and despair, one voice seemed to cut through the cacophony of madness—Crazy Charlie, an eccentric recluse with wild eyes and a penchant for conspiracy theories.

To Bastard Jack, Crazy Charlie’s rants about government corruption and the collapse of society found a chord, resonating with the shattered echoes of his fragmented thoughts. As the evening sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows over the makeshift encampment, Bastard Jack and Crazy Charlie huddled around a small fire, their voices rising and falling in heated debate.

“You see, Bastard Jack,” Crazy Charlie began, his eyes alight with the flicker of the flame dancing in the cooking pit, “it’s all a sham, a grand illusion designed to keep us subservient and obedient. They want us to believe that socialism is the answer, and that big government is our savior. But look at Venezuela, look at Cuba—socialism only leads to poverty and oppression.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully, the flames of the fire glowing in his eyes. “But what about the hypocrisy, Charlie?” he interjected, his voice tinged with frustration. “How can they preach equality and justice while discriminating against their citizens?”

Crazy Charlie chuckled darkly, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Ah, you see, my friend, it’s all part of their twisted agenda,” he said. “They talk about equality, but when it comes down to it, they only care about maintaining their own power and privilege. It’s a rigged game, Bastard Jack, and we’re the ones paying the price.”

There was a pause, a silence filled by the crackling of the fire as it roasted a squirrel on a spit, barely dinner enough for one man, split between two.

“You see, it’s all connected,” Crazy Charlie would proclaim, his voice rising as he espoused his outlandish theories. “The government’s been lying to us for years, feeding us a steady diet of propaganda and misinformation. But I see through their lies, Bastard Jack. I see the truth.”

Jack nodded, his mind racing with the possibilities. “What truth?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“The truth is that we’re all just pawns in their game,” Crazy Charlie replied, his eyes blazing with intensity. “Forget Biden and Trump. They’re just puppets, dancing to the tune of their corporate masters. An forget Congress. They’ve been manipulating us from the very beginning, pulling the strings behind the scenes to further their own twisted agenda.”

As Crazy Charlie spoke, Jack felt a sense of exhilaration coursing through his veins. Could it be that they were onto something, that there was more to their existence than met the eye?

“But that’s not all,” Crazy Charlie continued, his voice taking on a somber tone. “There’s something else, something far more sinister lurking beneath the surface. It all started back in 2012, when CERN discovered the God Particle.”

Jack’s eyes widened in disbelief. “The God Particle?” he echoed, his mind racing with possibilities.

“That’s right,” Crazy Charlie confirmed, nodding solemnly.

“But what they didn’t get the chance to tell us is that it tore open the fabric of reality, unleashing forces beyond human comprehension,” he added. “We’re all just ghosts, trapped in the final seven minutes before complete brain death.”