I'm 19. I'm male, black, about five foot six, and a hundred forty pounds. I'm dying in the stereotypical fashion of a ghetto loser. In fact, my life was so stereotypical; it's hard to believe I'm not Hollywood.

Yeah! I'm in tatters in a filthy alley in New York in mid October. I just got the shit beat out of me for an unpaid debt to my dealer. I wasn't gonna make it. I was broken beyond repair. Totalled. Strange thing is now is the only time I remember being this lucid. . .as my ebbing life was flashing before my eyes.

It was like I was watching a movie of my past in fast forward. The beatings and insults I got from my mother and older siblings, the fact I was handicapped by everything from fetal alcohol syndrome to being a crack baby. Oh, and we must not forget my momma was a slut who had every venereal disease in the book.

I never met my father. He was probably a one night stand. All I knew was momma's so called boyfriends. The good ones didn't last. She was too much of a hopeless user. The not so good ones used her, often beat her up, and beat me up mostly just for crying. But how could I not have cried with my deprived and depraved life? Oh, and of course I was raped a few times, by a couple of momma's studs. . .or should I say 'suppliers'. The pain was horrendous, the humiliation was worse.

Crack ho bitch.

I spent my life in a haze. I just walked through a fog. My mind was clouded from as far back as I remember. Having no contact that was conducive to my developement, not enough food, the chemical imblances and damage to me from spending all my time in a toxic womb, who knows how many head injuries from the beatings, and smoke from every drug that could be smoked ever prevalent in our rat and roach infested public housing project just didn't make for the developement of another Einstein.

I just lived for the moment. I lived for what little immediate pleasure I could get, or more often; to escape the nightmare that my life had been from the moment I was conceived.

As soon as I found out about it, I wished I'd been aborted. When I asked my mother why she didn't abort me, she screamed, "HOW DARE YOU ASK ME A QUESTION LIKE THAT," and proceeded to give me what seemed to be the thrashing of my life. . .at least up to that point. I never brought it up again.

I guess due to improper nutrition, I never gained much of a stature. I was short and light. A good punching bag. Not that I didn't ask for it.

I had a 'tude. I was a smart mouth. I was also a criminal. I stole things, I dealt, I extorted small children, and I had nothing in my past to be proud of. I just did what I had to do to survive, since I wasn't spared the instinctive drive to live despite how bad my life was, and how often I wished I had never been born.

I was too chicken shit to commit suicide. In fact, I was too chicken shit for anything.

I was also pretty stupid. I couldn't grasp something as simple as multiplication. Long division may as well have been calculus. I couldn't remember any facts or figures unless they had a traumatic effect on my life. Analytical skills were as foreign to me as having a tail.

It was like I walked through life only semi-conscious. I suppose I was. And now that I was dying, it was the first time ever I felt totally awake.

I was completely detached as I reviewed my life. What I was reliving seemed like someone else's past, and I actually wondered how anyone could be like that.

It made no sense. It was me, but I was so depersonalised from the experience. I was an alien to myself. I was also oblivious to the pain of the lethal injuries I sustained, not to mention the cold. I'd been attacked about 8:30 PM, and October nights in New York are not generally very warm. Now may have been an hour later, 30 minutes later. . .I had no clue. I was oblivious to everything, not that I ever really had much of a sense of time. In fact, I never had a sense of anything.

Suddenly I heard two voices. I could tell, one was black, and the other; white. "Well, here he is," said the white voice. It was a pretty accent, and maybe it was a woman. I couldn't tell. I refused to open my eyes. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to witness anything else before I died.

"What a mess. I can't believe people can treat each other like this," said the other. He shared the accent of the white person.

"Andre, I've seen much worse. So have you."

"Hm hm. So how do we go about this? He's still alive."

"Barely. Three broken ribs, right hand crushed, two broken patellas, hairline fracture on the right frontal, internal bleeding, and he wouldn't be able to sire anything even if he wanted to. I'll take care of it. Also a shattered jaw, and half the teeth are gone. He's lucky enough to be in shock."

Yeah, and I'd also made a complete mess of myself as far as bodily functions went. I'm surprised they didn't mention the smell. And how could they know what's been done to me? There had been no hands on examination, not that anyone in their right mind would currently get near me in my present condition, unless they had no choice. Or if they were a cop, in which case they probably would have kicked me a few times over to finish me off.

I had not had a good rapport with cops. No need to ask why.

Yeah, I'd spent time in jail. Yeah, got raped there; too. Wonder what other diseases my attackers got from me, that they didn't already have?

No, not really, but. . .

One of the strangers kneeled beside me. Whoever it was, actually caressed my forehead.

A sign of pity? Well, there's a first time for everything.

I started crying again. I should have been in extreme pain from the wracking sobs driving my broken ribs into my lungs or something, but I wasn't.

Suddenly I wasn't in the slum alley anymore. I had cool water rushing over me, but my head was above the water.

Now I did open my eyes.

It was light, and I was laying in a stream. I was unclothed, and the mental clarity I felt was euphoric. I suddenly knew how to do that multiplication and long division that were such an enigma to me. Hell, I knew all about Pythagoras of Samos, and I'd never heard of him. I knew about a lot of other things that I couldn't know, too. The meanings of words, and historical references I was never exposed to. And for the first time in my life, I knew peace.

"Shaka Jackson! How are you feeling?" asked the black voice.

I sat upright. I was quite stunned in being able to do this, and I was not in pain in the slightest.

It was daylight. I was in the prettiest place I had ever been. It was beautiful beyond imagination.

The stream I was in had a clean gravel bottom, and it was very shallow where I was. I was laying on a slope, and where my head had been had only a couple of inches of water running over it. The sides of the stream were covered with grass, willow trees and bramble berries. A forest started in the distance to my right, and to the left was a meadow with tons of trees. The air was clear and clean. Not one car exhaust fume to be smelled. "I'm feeling quite well, considering what I've been through." Strange. I never talked like that.

I looked up, and saw a handsome, refined looking black man with a thin moustache and long beaded cornrows sitting next to a pretty red headed kid. I felt I almost knew them.

"Being that you left your old world behind, you've been renewed to the way you should be," the white kid said. "You'll remember me as Donn Ui'Midir, as soon as you get fully integrated with yourself. Come on and get out of the water and dress yourself."

I almost asked him where he had my clothes, but just before I made a fool of myself by doing that, I remembered that all I had to do was visualise what I wanted to wear, and so it would be. I stood up and in seconds I was in bell bottomed blue jeans, black platform boots, and a black satin shirt. I walked over to them, and sat next to the black man. "Andre, huh?"

"Yup. Andre Courtois, when I was alive. Boeing mechanic who died at 29 during a work related accident. You'll remember everything in a little while. Gods, what a fool you were to ask for this last life. You actually thought you could raise yourself above your circumstances."

I closed my eyes. I was Japanese before this. Riku Watanabe. Brilliant, arrogant company owner who held all to my standards and couldn;t comrehend how anyone could be anything less than myself. Even my death in that life couldn't change that.

Well, now I knew better. "Quite dense of me, no?"

"Little bit," said Donn. "Gods, it was hard to oversee the bits and pieces your life and be forbidden to interfere. It was one of the worst. I couldn't even bear to do too many checkups on you, you masochistic nut case."

I nodded. "Yeah. I got it. I had to live that life to quit blaming people for the way they were. Now hopefully I can move on and not have to do that again."

Donn winked at me. "Not until at least I paint your picture, you foxy thang."

I scowled, and my jaw dropped in shock. "What?!"

Andre laughed. "Ours is a household of artists, and being you are quite attractive; everyone is going to want to paint you, though the lovely Deliah may want you for a bit more than that."

I closed my eyes, and called forth the pre-life memories. "Ah yes. That petite, raven haired genius. Been there, done that, and don't need any more torture, thank you."

Donn laughed. "I'm glad I was spared her worst, but I know what you're talking about."

"We're in Tir na nOg, right?" I asked.

"None other, than. That's where you needed to land," said Donn.

I lay back. "I'm glad you don't have to be Irish to end up here."

"Not in this day and age," said Donn.