The body was dying. I knew it. It scarce had strength now to cast more wood on the dying fire. Within it the pulse of existence flickered feebly. But never was the real me more alive. I burned fiercely with the desire to live. I swore I should not die.
Then one morning I awoke. The fire was out. Yet I was not cold. I attempted to rise; my body did not answer. I attempted to speak; no words came. Then I knew.
In the night the body had died. It lay there now, stiff, still. It had ceased to live.
But I was not dead. I could see my body lying there, a cast-off thing. But I was here.
The entity that was I had not perished with the flesh. The will to live was still mine. And I was alive! I was infinitely alive.
My perceptions were a hundred times clearer. I saw, I heard, I felt, as I never had before. And it seemed as if my whole being were concentrated in the one desire—to see Jane, to tell her I still lived.
And then there shot through my brain a terrible, sickening thought. To all the world’s knowledge I was dead. I was no longer flesh, but spirit. I could see Jane, no doubt, but I could never make myself known to her. I had lost her.
The most exquisite torture of soul racked me as the realization came. I was not dead. There was no death; my will had conquered it. But I was hopelessly and forever exiled from the world I had known. That warm familiar world that held love and so many other things, was forever taken away from me.
Hopelessly exiled! Again my will revolted at the thought. Why was I forever condemned to such exile? There lay the body. It had ceased to live, in truth. I had shed it as one does a garment. But why could I not don it again?