The Accident

"Slowly inhale through your nose," the recorded voice said, "feeling the tension in your shoulders and upper back, becoming aware of the stress you hold in your muscles, then release the air, blowing, allowing your body to relax."

David Truman had been giving the meditation podcasts his daughter had recommended a try for more than three weeks. The traffic jams on his commute were legendary, sometimes causing him to sit in his Camry for hours, and in order to not arrive home in a terrible mood, he had switched his listening habits from classic rock to mindfulness. And as much as he hated to admit it, it was kind of working.

The first week he hadn't noticed a change. In fact, he found himself much more annoyed by the time he got home. But Samantha, his daughter, pointed out that he probably hadn't been giving it a chance. She was right, of course. Nobody knew David as closely as Samantha did. And since she'd moved home so that she could do her master's degree in psychotherapy, they'd grown closer than ever.

It was nice having his daughter back. Nancy, his wife, had died only two years earlier, leaving him alone in their big empty house. He was still young, only fifty, but David didn't want to start over with someone new. He missed his old life, his old rhythm. He missed his wife. They'd met at work, Nancy two years his senior, a supervisor in another department. One Friday after work, at the local pub near the office, they bumped into each other. Literally. David and Nancy collided and spilled their drinks all over each other. There were apologies, offers of dry cleaning, and more drinks bought to pay back the ones that painted the floor.

It was all the introduction they needed.

The rest was history. Dating, falling in love, getting married, having a kid, growing older.

Cancer.

Damn.

"Your energy fills you, but also surrounds you," the recorded voice said calmly, pulling David back into his relaxed state, "feel your energy fill the space around you."

Sometimes he could just feel what the voice was saying. Like in that moment, David could feel his body, but he could feel something different as well, something more. Maybe it was just the power of suggestion, but right then he could swear that his energy, the part of him that made him him, was much bigger than his body. It filled his car. It was reaching out, touching...

BANG!

The sound of the car hitting him from behind, shaking him from his relaxed state, should have brought him back to the present, but it didn't. Instead, in that moment, his mind, his energy, reached out far beyond the car. For a brief moment, David's energy intertwined with that of another persons. He wasn't sure, but for a second he felt like he was touching...