This is a fictional story… Maybe.

It’s important to me that you know that the story below is not about me at all, I’m not the secret protagonist here, and more importantly, I never died.

As far as I know.

The story you’re about to read took place in Northern Europe just a few years ago. The identity of the real protagonist will obviously remain preserved and he will be given a symbolic name, Magnus.

You see, Magnus like many people in Scandinavia is an atheist. He doesn’t believe in God, the Devil, angels, demons nor the afterlife for that matter.

Which only makes his story even more surreal.

I’m not going to tell you the story how it happened, not even how it was told to me, all I can tell you is how I remember it.

Born Under the Wrong Sign

Our story takes place circa 1987 in a small town called Umeå in the north of Sweden.

A little baby was born that day, and during most of his childhood everyone said that there was something different about him.

And they were probably right.

Everyone wanted to be different, to be the anomaly. He just wanted to be normal.

He was a free thinker, he wanted different things from the rest, but these things can be a real challenge when you’re born in a country where collectivism wears a veneer of benevolence.

For those who don’t know, in Scandinavia there is law called Jante that…

Well, I’ll let you make your own conclusions:

1. You're not to think you are anything special.
2. You're not to think you are as good as we are.
3. You're not to think you are smarter than we are.
4. You're not to convince yourself that you are better than we are.
5. You're not to think you know more than we do.
6. You're not to think you are more important than we are.
7. You're not to think you are good at anything.
8. You're not to laugh at us.
9. You're not to think anyone cares about you.
10. You're not to think you can teach us anything.

It’s like the ten commandments but with some new 21st century updates installed.

Everyone around Magnus seemed to be proud of those values, but not him. The problem however, is that you can never hide your true instincts.

So every time a teacher, or any other perceived authority figure passes on some information that everyone is supposed to accept and never question, Magnus’s instincts inevitably came to the surface.

The minute someone drops some collectivist notion, Magnus quickly hit them with the same deadly weapon.

A simple yet dangerous word that always knocked his teachers out of their comfort zone.

Varför?

"Why", it's a dangerous word for some people .

After all, what can they say? It was passed to me and I’m passing it to you while you’re still impressionable and your cognitive sense are not yet developed.

They can’t say that.

I never stopped to question that, but I’m trying to pump it in your unformed head while you still believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus.

They can’t say that either.

Instead, all his curiosity met was blank stares and curved brows.

But answers? What answers? it was as if you were trying to play a DVD in a two-system VHS.

It just cannot be processed.

So not only his questions left unanswered but were always met with the same automatic one-size-fits-all programmed reaction:

“You’ll grow up and you’ll stop asking all these questions”.

Because as we all know, curiosity doesn’t reside in one’s mind but in their teeth. The minute a kid grows up a and changes teeth, they’ll stop asking uncomfortable questions, right?

As Magnus grew older, his dissatisfaction only grew worse. He dreaded that supposed sense safety, he wanted something different.

After all, he always saw himself as a risk-taker.

He left his job and started a career as a professional online poker player, a pretty damn good one I might add.

But his alienation issues compiled on him, and before long, he started to abuse some substances.

Then things started getting worse and worse, until one day he hit the floor as the clock stopped ticking.

Gone Too Soon

Twelve minutes, that’s what they said. He was declared dead for an entire twelve minutes.

When you live in a country where it’s virtually impossible to be poor but virtually impossible to be rich, when you have no aspiration nor fears, it’s a hard thing to process for some people.

That in fact may very well explain why the suicide rates are so high in places where the quality of life is equally as high.

These are two things that should be mutually exclusive by any stretch of the imagination, but I guess some people much rather die than live as a replicant cog in a perfectly oiled machine.

It would be ironic if it wasn’t so heart-breaking.

Personally, I just hope those poor souls would’ve packed their bags and moved to another place.

After all, he world is a big place.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Sweden. I lived there twice actually, been there several times and a lot of my personal friends are in fact Swedish.

Things That Can't Be Unsaid

I’m in the subway going back home, my mind still can’t process what Magnus had told us just a few hours earlier.

I look around and everything suddenly seems to hold a new meaning. I’ve been on that subway line countless times, but never had I seen things the way I’m seeing them now.

In the air breaths a sentiment of sadness and loneliness that is too powerful to ignore, not with this state of mind anyways.

You look around, you see everybody sitting alone, without striking a conversation with anyone else.

And you start to wonder.

They all seem so quiet and lonely but when you start talking to them, everyone seems so nice and happy, people long for human contact, they just never thought of taking the initiative.

Even in the bars, you see the same phenomena taking place. You see girls dancing alone with very few guys taking the initiative to approach the girl they really like.

Instead, they tell you that most couples meet either through a common friend or at some house party.

And yet they wonder why the divorce rates are so high.

Drinks to socialize during the week are absolutely and categorically frown upon.

What you should do instead is wait for the weekend to wait in line in the state-controlled System Bolaget to purchase some booze that is infused by some artificially stratospheric prices.

Because prohibition worked so well in the past.

Then you go to the clubs and watch everyone else drowning their sorrows in alcohol by drinking as much and as fast as humanly possible.

All of this was going through my mind in a short sub-way ride while my brain was still deciding what to make of Magnus’s regained memories of what happened after he died.

Before that evening, all we knew is that he lost consciousness and then he woke up in a hospital.

Time and time again he was asked about what he saw. Nothing, he would always answer.

Did you see the light?

That was the undefeated heavyweight joke that everyone seemed to repeat.

But since he was a true atheist, his incident only got him more conviction that supported what he already believed, there is nothing out there.

When it ends, it ends.

A year and half later, something has changed.

A few hours before taking that ride home we were having dinner in his house. A mutual friend who’s into finance interrupted John’s girlfriend to say:

“Life is not short, life is long. You have to save and invest in the future”.

John contemplated for a second and said:

“Life is long, but not for the reasons you think… Life is long, we just spend so much time worrying about useless things, and working for goals that were never in line with our souls”.

He couldn’t hide it anymore. You can see it in his eyes.

He Remembers

He ponders for a second though something clearly weighed on his shoulders and he probably had to share it with someone.

It was as if the new revelations had forced him to face something huge and he didn’t want to face it alone.

“Guys, what I’m gonna tell you now is gonna sound insane, nuts! Hell, I don’t believe it myself”

He says with the conviction of someone who’s well aware of the very bomb he’s about to drop, but can’t help but drop it anyways.

“Are you sure you want to know what I remember from when I was dead?”.

We look at each other, and we say:

Yes.

… To be continued.