A Lifetime in Minutes | Alson.AI

a-lifetime-in-minutes- AI Story Book by Alson.AI

By Alson.AI on Alson.AI

When a college student is struck by a car he drifts into a vivid dream where he lives a loving ten year life with a wife and two children. At first he savors moments like courting his partner and watching his kids grow but soon small details begin to twist and unsettle him. Haunted by a strange red lamp and shifting angles he senses his perfect world is an illusion. A surge of pain and swirling red light pulls him back to consciousness on the pavement, leaving him to mourn a family that felt as real as his own.

It was the last semester of college. A football player hit me—hard. I was 120 pounds. All I’d done was walk across the wrong part of the street. He wanted to drive there. I blacked out. While unconscious on the ground I lived a different life. When I came to... I wasn’t there anymore. I was somewhere else entirely. I met a wonderful young woman who made my heart race and cheeks burn. After months of courting and ousting a few jerk guys, I won her over. Two years later we married and soon welcomed a daughter. I had a great job, my wife didn't have to work outside of the house, and when my daughter was two, we had another baby—a son. My son was the joy of my life, I would walk into his room every morning before I left for work and doted on him and my daughter. My wife stayed home with the kids. I kissed her neck in the mornings. I read bedtime stories. I memorized the sound of my son’s laugh. I watched my daughter learn how to ride a bike. Ten years. A life. Then one evening, I noticed something strange. The lamp. It sat in the corner of the living room, like always. Red base. Gold trim. White square shade. But... the angles were wrong. Inverted. Like it had depth—but not the right kind. It pulled at me. I stared at it that night. And the next day. I didn’t go to work. I didn’t eat. I stopped speaking. I left the couch only to use the bathroom. Soon, I stopped that too. I stared at the lamp for three whole days before it got to my wife and she couldn't take it anymore. She took the kids to her mother’s place just before I had my epiphany. She had begged me to snap out of it, but I couldn’t. I realized.... the lamp is not real.... the house is not real, my wife, my kids... none of that is real... the last 10 years of my life are not real! And then— It grew. It widened. It deepened. My entire field of view was red. Just endless red. And I could hear them—screams, voices, distant echoes. The room dissolved. The air bent. My body twisted inside itself, and I felt— pain. The first thing I said when I woke up was: “I’m missing teeth.” I was on the pavement. On my back. Strangers were surrounding me, some screaming, some crying. I didn’t know them. I didn’t know anything. A cop grabbed me, dragged me to the back of a cruiser, face-down. I was too stunned to speak. He drove me to the hospital because he didn’t want to wait for an ambulance. I was confused. Cold. Alone. That was years ago. The doctors said I was unconscious for maybe a few minutes. Maybe 10, tops. But I lived an entire life in that time. I remember my kids' names. I remember how my wife laughed when she thought no one was listening. I remember the way the light looked in the kitchen in late fall. I miss them like they were real. Because for me—they were. I grieved them. I still do. I still cry sometimes. I used to hope I’d see her in my dreams, but I never do. Not her. Just my son, sometimes. Out of the corner of my eye. He’s always five. He never speaks. But I see him. Just for a second.

near death experience alternate reality time perception grief and loss car accident survival memory and illusion surreal journey