He was cold, so very cold. The thought of sleep was so welcoming, so inviting but he also knew that it was so very dangerous. Twice he had almost succumbed to its enticing embrace, letting his heavy eyelids start to close, telling himself he'd just take a little rest and then he'd feel better. Twice he'd felt his precarious grip on consciousness slipping away, felt himself sliding and falling ever downwards as if nothing would ever break his fall. Twice he'd felt something or someone grasp him just as he was about to hit bottom. Both times it had slowly and painstakingly dragged him back from the depths of himself and returned him to the precipice so that he might survey the view and see what a long way down it was. Both times it stayed with him there, teasing and tormenting him, until his rising anger had given him the will to cling onto life once more.

He searched in his mind for who his tormentor might be. He hadn't seen a face, but he knew instinctively that if he had, it would be a composite of all the people he had ever known in his life and yet at the same time, be no one he had ever known. He thought of all those clichés about how time slows and your life flashes in front of your eyes at a time like this. He tried to smile as he thought of how he must have had a very shallow life because all he could see was the inky blackness surrounding him. He tried to picture his mother, bouncing an infant version of him on her knee, but all he managed to visualize was the clothes that she might have worn at that time. It was rather a surreal image, reminiscent of one of those old detergent adverts where they used a clever camera technique to mask out the body inside the clothes, leaving them to prance around as if they had a mind of their own. Here he was, fighting for his life and desperately trying to recall the face of his mother and instead he had a blue and white polka dotted dress, complete with full petticoats, doing a passable jitterbug inside his head.

He felt himself start to slip again, start to give in to the lapping waters that beckoned seductively. He felt the panic start to rise and he suddenly felt very alone. He instinctively knew that this time he was on his own, that his fate was entirely in his own hands, that he couldn't rely on some spirit or guardian angel to rescue him this time. He heard himself begin to recite The Lord's Prayer in a faltering voice and from an uncertain memory. It had been a long time since he had called on the Lord (or anyone else for that matter) for help. He found himself unsure as to whether he should stick to the King James version or switch to the revised, politically correct one. In the end he chose compromise, mumbling over the ambiguous words such as "hallowed" and "trespasseth." As the final words of the prayer left his lips, there was suddenly bright light all around him and noise seemed to invade his head as if all the people in the world were trying to talk at once. "So this is Redemption Day," he said to himself and started to wish that he'd been nicer to those Jehovah's Witnesses that used to call around all the time. Maybe if he'd just bought a single copy of The Watchtower, he'd be feeling a little more comfortable about how and where he might be spending the rest of eternity right now.

"Mr. Barston, Mr. Barston, wake up now!" he heard someone say in a sultry, seductive whisper of a voice. He opened his eyes and, squinting through the painfully bright light, he saw the most beautiful woman that he had ever laid his eyes upon. She was clad in a white gown with long golden ringlets cascading down her shoulders. So maybe he had done enough good deeds throughout his life or maybe Hell wasn't that bad after all. He was just trying to figure out whether she came equipped with wings and a halo, or with pointy ears and cloven hooves, when he realized that she was talking to him again. He struggled to bring himself to full consciousness so that he could focus on her every word. "I was just saying, Mr. Barston" she said, "how you have to be careful with immersion therapy the first time you try it or you just feel yourself slipping away." She helped him sit up as she cheerfully asked "Same time again next week?" He hadn't found his response before she acerbically added, "Who knows, maybe you'll be able to manage the full fifteen minutes next time".