ON THE THRESHOLD OF DEATH

I started to sink. It was suffocating, despair was taking hold of me. Water began to enter my mouth and the more I tried to save myself, the deeper I sank. My lungs were burning horribly, and a bestial terror took hold of me. Suddenly, as I could no longer stand it, I gave up. With my arms outstretched, I began to go to the bottom. In front of me, I saw all the scenes of my life pass in a fraction of a second, from my mother's womb to the moment I was living. Every detail of my childhood, my puberty, passed before my eyes like in a movie at fantastic speed, without stopping, and although everything was going very fast, I could remember every moment.