text: He came around, blood dripping from a halo of dyed black hair, and the first thing his mother asked was if he had seen God. “Did you see him boy? Did you see our Holy Father? I bet he gave you a talking to!” she yelled over the sound of the siren. The ambulance hit a bump on the road, almost concealing the slight shake of his head that she didn’t notice. He tried to sit up but I gently pushed him down and told him to relax, while I redressed the bandages around his head. I watched his gaze travel to the landscape beyond the window glass that flashed between black and scorching red. His eyes seemed empty, hollow, like a dead man’s. He should be dead - that’s what a bullet to the head does, right? “You’re a fool, you deserve to go to hell for this,” his mother said. Her nervous eyes glanced back and forth and a silver cross hung from a chain around her neck. She began ruffling through the pages of the bible that she had wasted precious to run and get before letting the ambulance leave. Stray verses and words were mumbled to no one in particular. He didn’t look at her, or at me, or at the barely noticeable bloodstains in his black tee shirt. He just kept looking outside. “So what did God say to you? Did he give you a glimpse of Hell? Suicide is a holy sin, you know that,” the woman continued unceasingly. “Ma’am...” I said softly, but she ignored me. “You’ll end up in a gutter somewhere with no one but God one day, and you better hope he sees a prodigal son in you,” she said. His lips moved but no sound came out. He kept his eyes averted, straight out of that window. He tried again, and this time I held up a hand to quiet his mother, who finally took the hint that he had something to say. The first noise was a rough cough, but then words came, barely audible over the wail of the siren. “There is no God... no God,” he said. His mother, for the first time that night, appeared speechless, but only for a moment. “Of course there is, don’t be stupid.” “No.” He was more forceful the second time. “First there was pain, then darkness, but there was no God, no heavenly lights or flaming depths. There was only Death.” That time she was struck dumb for real. He took advantage and kept going, his voice getting stronger with each word. “I looked into the face of Death and saw him for who he is. There were no skulls or sickles, just... his eyes, they...” The boy broke off, unable to describe his vision, although his own eyes showed it all, even as they gazed beyond what the rest of us could see. Neither his mother nor I spoke until he went on. “He asked me the same question he asks every person who comes to him; why did I deserve a second chance? What made me so special? I told him I wanted to die, that I did this on purpose. He looked at me with those eyes and told me I had to learn to live before I could die, and he sent me back.” Silence filled the ambulance, and it took me several minutes to realize I had duties to perform, and quickly began running checks and applying fresh bandages. As I checked his blood pressure, he looked at me, and I saw that something had filled in those empty eyes. I knew it and he knew it; he was going to be okay.