[ WP ] You 've been dead for 67 days . You awake to the entire world watching the first human revival . Your revival .

I did n't ask for this. Truth be told, I would have refused it, and they know it. Just because you *can* does n't mean you *should*, assholes. 
 
 I remember taking the Tucker Snow cat from McMurdo station to the Pegasus Blue Ice Runway to pick up a pallet of something or other that the winter-over crew needed. Routine, as these things go. I had wintered over in McMurdo five times, and as an all around facilities maintenance guy, part plumber, part carpenter, part electrician, but mostly HVAC, I was often running back and forth even in the dead of the Antarctic winter night. Wintering over for about two hundred people, cut off from the rest of the world, meant keeping the McMurdo facilities in a state of slumber for the winter months, making sure the howling blizzards did n't wreak too much havoc on the buildings, then as the summer crowd of scientists and technicians and logistical support folks began to arrive, breathing life into them, restoring light and heat and running water, ramping up the desalination plant, and the like. We also plowed a lot of snow, keeping the 5 or six kilometers of roads minimally passable, and doing our best to prevent entire buildings from being buried by the drifting snow. I loved my job. I wintered over worked the first part of the season settling everyone in so to speak, then spent the rest of the year enjoying the New Zealand Summers or surfing in Australia. 
 
 We did n't use this particular route in the winter, so I was actually driving on top of the snow in the Low ground pressure version of the snow cat, more or less navigating by the stars and the few artificial lights I could see from McMurdo and Scott Base. 
 
 The Snow Crevasse was unexpected, but common enough. A crack forms in the snow base, but is covered over by a shell of snow on the surface. We have an engineer team that looks for these things with whatever sonar and probing voodoo they do, and they mark passable trails with flags. Stay between the flags, and in theory you are good. A Crevasse can be hundreds of feet deep, and will swallow a Snow Cat whole. I was never clear on whether I had strayed off the marked path, or if the Crevasse that the cat had fallen into was simply undetected, but I remember falling into it. I remember the engine cutting off, the fact that I was completely buried in the snow that had fallen in on top of me, and I remember watching the glow of the dials on the dashboard fading to black as the batteries drained to nothing. I remember trying to get the radio to work, even though the antenna had snapped off during the crashing descent into a thirty foot deep crack in the ground. I remember that I had counted three days by the dashboard clock before the batteries had finally died and left me in complete darkness silence. I remember being hungrier than I had ever experienced, though I could hydrate by scooping snow in through a hole I had kicked in the rear window. I remember concluding that the snow that buried me must have been somewhat loose, allowing me enough air to breathe. Mostly, though, I remember what having two broken legs feels like. I finally resigned myself to the fact that they were not going to find me. I stripped off my parka, made myself as comfortable as possible, and let the cold take me. If you are going to die, minus the broken femurs, falling asleep and freezing to death has its advantages. 
 
 They found me a month later, I am told. Flew me out on the same plane that brought the first of the technicians in. Took another week to coordinate the extraction of the Snow cat that had become my temporary tomb. From there to Christchurch, then back to the States. This is where they managed to wake me up. How, I do n't know, but the process lasted a month. 
 
 The next two days were pretty hazy as well... I knew I was alive, I could sense people... but the barrier between my conscious mind and the world they inhabited was like a wall of blue ice. I remember wanting to tell them that I was fucking cold... and could I have a blanket? Then things were black for a while, and suddenly I was thrust into the world of the living. Three faces peered at me intently from above. My arms and legs ached, and when I tried to move them, nothing happened. My head was held in a brace, and I could n't turn it. I settled for taking a tentative deep breath. 
 
 `` Mr. Connely, I am Doctor Stevenson. You have been in an accident on the Antarctic Continent-'' 
 
 `` Crevasse..'' I whispered horsely. 
 
 `` You remember?'' He blinked in surprise. I nodded as far as the neck brace or whatever it was let me. He asked me a few questions, like my name, who was president, and the like. I answered between some sips of water through a straw. 
 
 `` You were found about four weeks later. You were frozen solid. We have been experimenting with means by which the cellular damage caused by freezing is reversed as you are thawed. The degree to which we were successful remains to be seen.'' He said evenly. `` Though the fact that you have some cognitive ability is encouraging.'' He shifted his eyes from mine to one of the other people, then back. `` We were unable to save your extremities, however.'' 
 
 Of course, there was shock, denial, anger, and all those classic stages of grief. The days went by, tests were run, and aside from being a quadrilateral amputee, and having slightly degraded vision and hearing, I was pretty much normal. Depressed, moody, angry, and generally unpleasant, but normal. One day, a collared priest came in. Now, I was brought up Catholic, to the extent that on most Sundays as a Kid we went to church before going out to breakfast, and I was confirmed... but I had n't darkened the door a a church since moving out of my parent's house at 19 years old. That said, I still recognized that his vestments were a cut above those worn by parish priests. Turns out he was was one of five auxiliary Bishops in the Los Angeles Archdiocese. 
 
 He was a thin man. Bespectacled with a kind face. He looked generally pained when he looked at my legless, armless form. Truth be told, I liked the guy. I almost regretted telling him I was about as lapsed a catholic as one could be without sacrificing small furry animals or something. We made some halting attempts at small talk. I told him what I knew of my accident and resurrection, of the days in the ice crevasse, before I froze to death, of how these people had brought me back, and what little I understood of that process. 
 
 `` It seems we have witnessed a Miracle of sorts.'' He eventually said. I snorted. 
 
 `` Depends on how you look at it.'' I said. I sort of wiggled the stumps they had left me. 
 
 `` You were dead. Frozen solid. Now...'' He spread his hands. `` I have so many questions.'' 
 
 `` Like, what's it like to be dead? Or, After life type stuff? Did I meet any Angels, was Jesus cool? Did I meet Elvis?'' I shook my head. `` Ai n't none of that, sir. I remember deciding to just drift off to sleep and freeze to death in my sleep, then I remember waking up here... nothing in between. Nothing. Nada. No Heaven, No hell, no purgatory, nothing.'' 
 
 He looked crestfallen, at least at first, then very thoughtful. `` Perhaps as the men here brought you back, God erased your memory of that plane.'' 
 
 `` Padre, sorry to say this, but there is no plane. But I suppose there is an afterlife, and if this is it, then I'd prefer they put me back where they found me. Your'Miracle' has delivered me to a nearly perfect definition of hell. I am a talking piece of meat that ca n't even feed himself, wipe his own ass, or anything.'' I closed my eyes. `` If this is a miracle, You can keep it.'' 
 
 I'm not sure it it was a gesture of mercy, or a protective measure designed to keep me from spreading my message of'Nada' to the huddled, collection plate filling masses. Either way, the pillow coming down over my face was n't much a surprise. 
 
 
 

