The Mysterious Bright Light

“What a bright sunny day it is,” James woke up to the sound of birds chirping. He looked over to the other side of the bed and found that his wife, Emma, had already made an early start.

What followed after that was his usual morning routine. James started his day by making notes in his gratitude journal, followed by a shower and then a bite to eat along with a hot cup of coffee downstairs in the kitchen. On the other hand, Emma liked to run around the block for a bit before coming back home for a cold shower and some breakfast. Both of them generally avoided the use of digital devices during this time, which was something they practised after finding their mornings overwhelming with a ton of notifications. At about seven-thirty, they made it a point to head out for work so they could hit the road before peak traffic.

“Do you have your keys, mobile and wallet?” Emma performed a final check before she locked the door behind her.

“Check, check and check!” James responded with a grin.

James sat in the driver's seat and docked his phone on the dashboard while Emma tucked herself in the passenger's seat beside him. James would drop Emma at her workplace and then head over to the city where he worked at a local law firm. Within minutes, they were on the move.

After a while of driving, James' phone started buzzing with notifications. If the past was anything to go by, it was usually trouble at work. He resisted the urge to check those notifications especially with Emma by his side making sure he wasn't being distracted, however, not checking these notifications was increasing his anxiety levels, too.

Finally, when the road ahead cleared up, James quickly took out the phone from the dock and checked the swarm of notifications that had been filling up his screen. At all times, he kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other, trying to scroll through his feed. He also had one eye on the road and the other one busy reading the notifications on his mobile. This behaviour would usually cause Emma to panic, but seeing that the street wasn't busy, Emma let her guard down today.

Their car crossed an intersection and suddenly, out of nowhere, an eighteen-wheeler truck rammed into theirs from the side. James had missed the stop sign and continued driving without looking in either direction. This impact caused their car to topple and roll over multiple times absolutely smashing it from all sides. The now upside-down car had smoke coming out from the engine, its windows were shattered, airbags were deployed and pieces of the car were scattered on the ground. The scene smelled like burnt fuel and the car was a write-off. People gathered around after hearing a loud crash and soon enough, everyone around could hear the sirens of the paramedics that were on their way. The driver of the big rig was found unconscious and injured. Unfortunately, it was too late for the occupants of the car — James and Emma were declared dead at the scene.

Taking a deep gasp of breath, James woke up feeling woozy and his heart was racing like never before. He looked around him and all he could see was nothing — an absolute vacuum of space, no visible light to assist his vision, no sense of time, and silence so strong that it was unbearable to the ears — James was perplexed as he had no memory of how he got here.

Suddenly, a mysterious bright light appeared, radiating so much light he had to hold his hands up to his face. “What is this nonsense? What have you done to me and where is Emma? Are you playing a prank of some sorts?” a startled James asked the Light in a confronting tone.

Without hesitation, the Light responded, “You and Emma died in a car crash earlier today. Emma is transitioning into the afterlife. You, my friend, were responsible for this accident so you need to wait here for your judgement day before we let you in.”

No one knew what happens once a person dies, so all of this information was very overwhelming for James. What overpowered this feeling was the news of his wife's death. Even worse, James was devasted to realize that he was responsible for their death as a result of a mistake he made while driving.

James pleaded before the Light to undo this incident and give them another chance for survival, but the Light didn't respond to any of his pleas. No amount of requests, tears, and cries for help seemed to have any effect on the Light.

However, just when James was beginning to lose hope, the Light said, “I'll give you one chance to redeem yourself and save Emma's life. I'll undo every incident that happened today and reset the clocks back to the wee hours of the morning. You'll see all the events unfold in front of you just like you did this morning. However, there's one catch — you must ensure that Emma doesn't get in the car with you when you head to work. You must drive alone so that you're the only person in the car when the accident happens again at the same location. This is the only way you can save her life. Would you accept this?”

Without giving it a second thought, James agreed to the deal. The light shone brighter than the sun and the next thing James remembers is waking up in his bedroom to the sound of birds chirping outside his house.

“What a bright sunny day it is,” he thought. James looked over to the other side of the bed when he suddenly remembered that today was no ordinary day. He had just made a deal with the Light and everything was already in motion. What followed after this was his regular morning routine. Knowing that this could potentially be his last day on Earth was terrifying but he knew what he had to do.

He started by writing some notes in his gratitude journal. He followed that with a hot shower and then walked down to the kitchen for a sumptuous breakfast which he ensured he ate only once Emma was back from her morning run.

After breakfast, James grabbed his laptop, made himself comfortable on the couch and began typing. Emma found this strange since James had a no device policy in the mornings, so she asked James about it but he quickly brushed it off. This increased her suspicions even further and accompanied by the fact that James looked pretty tense, Emma insisted to tell her what was going on, but this time James burst out and scolded her.

“Goddammit, James, what is wrong with you? I only want to make sure you're okay,” Emma said after being taken aback.

James quickly realised his mistake but then also thought that if he provokes Emma, she would get frustrated and wouldn't want to travel with him to work that day. So instead of apologizing, he added more fuel to the fire by bringing up past arguments until things got heated.

What took James by surprise was that Emma quietly retreated and went away into another room. Moments later, she returned with her work bag and said, “James, I don't know what's up with you today, but can we deal with this later tonight? Please just drop me off at work right now.”

Ascertaining that nothing seemed to work, James knew he had to change his strategy. “Sit down, Emma, I need to tell you something,” he appealed.

“What is it now?”

“I don't know how to tell you this but I cannot keep this from you anymore.”

“James, you're stressing me out — what is it?”

“I…I cheated on you.”

Emma's expressions took a one-eighty as she heard this. Emma couldn't bear this news and never in her life expected James to betray her. “I don't want to deal with this right now, James. Just get out of here!” she yelled, with tears rolling down her cheeks.

James knew this was going to be tough, so he tried his best to not break down and resisted the urge to explain everything that was going on. Instead, he managed to take a good look at Emma, who was at her emotional worst at this point, as if he was mentally saying his final goodbyes and walked out of the house.

About an hour after James left, Emma heard a knock on the door. “Hello, is this Emma?” asked the person on the other side of the door. Emma looked through the sidelights and found two cops standing outside, so she promptly opened the door. The cops introduced themselves and asked if they could come in. At this point, Emma was very anxious. She let them in and had them seated in the living room.

After ensuring Emma was also seated, one of the officers said, “Emma, I'm sorry to inform you that James was involved in an accident earlier this morning and unfortunately, the paramedics couldn't save him in time and he died at the scene.”

Emma sat still. She didn't know what to say, and how to take this news. Her day was not off to a great start anyway and after hearing this terrible news, she felt the weight of sadness crush her soul and cast a dark cloud over her.

The officer continued, “I am sorry this happened, Emma. Is there someone we can call?”

“My sister lives nearby,” Emma barely managed to respond after a long pause. The officers patiently waited as Emma struggled to recollect where she had saved her sister's number. Eventually, she found it and handed it over to the officers. One officer dialled her sister's number and informed her about the incident while the other gave Emma company and answered all questions she had.

About thirty minutes later, Emma's sister arrived and rushed straight to her sister's side. The officers felt confident that Emma now had some emotional support with her, so they stood up to make a move. “I'm leaving my number here on the table, Emma. If you need anything, please do not hesitate to give us a call,” said the officer before he and his partner could head out.

Later that night, Emma couldn't get any sleep, so she picked up her iPad to scroll through some photos and revisit the memories. Her heart skipped a beat when she found an email from James after logging in. Immediately, she sat up straight and tapped the notification to open up the email.

James had written down in its entirety what had happened, right from the accident to the deal he made with the Light, to the incidents that took place this morning. He had scheduled this email to be delivered to Emma only in the afternoon after the accident.

Emma wept as she read this email. This morning she was contemplating leaving James after his revelations, and when she learnt that he had passed away, she felt so guilty about it. All the feelings rushed in as all the beautiful moments flashed in front of her. She couldn't believe the lengths James had gone to in order to save her life.

Emma closed her eyes and ebbed away into sleep as she felt a gentle kiss from the afterlife; After all, death just couldn't keep them apart.