distance

Most of these stories either start or end with "and then I woke up". The question that is never asked is what did you wake up to, or from? Was it the same world, or were your memories of the world so far distant that this seemed to be the same one? What was the betrayal of pain like, seen from the distance of innumerably infinite galaxies?

When you find out, tell me. Tell me, really, was it the death you feared, or merely the pretence of living?