Author's Notes: FORMAT: DAY:HOUR:MIN, e.g. 001:10:45 is the first day, 10:45 AM. Enjoy!

00:00:45.

Why can't I move?

Did I break my neck? Wiggle your toes. No? Why can't I move?

I thought death was supposed to be quick.

00:01:12.

It's so quiet here. Quiet enough that I can hear Iris crying.

Iris, what's wrong?

00:02:30.

Iris is gone.

I miss her already.

00:04:52.

It's late. Joe should be asleep. He's talking to me instead. "You're gonna be all right," he says.

He's crying. I can't see it, but I can hear it.

I wanna be all right, Joe.

00:09:39.

They're starting to think I might never wake up.

I've never been this scared.

00:11:47.

People pay a lot of money to float in sensory deprivation tanks. Like acupuncture: scary on the surface, super Zen underneath. I've never tried it, and I can still feel, but I can't respond to anything. I try to move my hands, to scrunch up my face, to make a sound, but nothing happens. Someone replaces an IV; I only notice because Joe wakes up. It doesn't hurt. Maybe it should.

Maybe I'm just too far gone to feel it anymore.

00:14:22.

As of right now, my dying words are, 'Bye, Felicity.'

00:20:01.

There is no sense of time. It could be morning, it could be night, but I am here, and here is stuck interminably at zero.

Until I regain control, I'm here forever.

01:04:36.

Forever is a fucking long time.

03:00:14.

Someone says "three days" and my blood runs cold.

That's scientifically impossible – even cold-blooded animals are warm, they're just dependent on their surroundings for that warmth – but falling asleep forever seemed impossible yesterday.

Scratch that. "Three days ago."

04:10:20.

Is it possible to die of boredom?

04:22:07.

Iris West is a good person.

She seems to understand my struggle, because she reads aloud a journalism paper this time, and it's drop-dead boring, and I love her for it.

05:00:12.

She's asleep right next to me and I can't even feel it.

I want to.

12:08:56.

Doze, and I'm being told it's Sunday.

Already? They say I got here on Tuesday. I don't know which one. Maybe a week ago. Maybe ten years.

If I could just open my eyes, the passage of time would make more sense.

12:12:04.

A lot of blind people have sleeping disorders. Their circadian rhythms aren't synced with their environment: they receive no visual reminders to stay awake or go to sleep.

I can't see a thing, yet I feel like I could sleep for centuries.

16:03:43.

Maybe I already have.

19:20:45.

Time seesaws here. It slides backwards before lunging forward, projecting back to "before" and fantasizing about "after." Whenever Iris or Joe mentions the date I flinch, but the movement doesn't register beyond my own mind. Nothing registers.

It's like wearing a spacesuit, trying to communicate with a crew locked behind a soundproof door. Nothing wants to work right.

21:23:57.

And absolutely no one can hear me.

30:19:01.

Sometimes I wish I couldn't hear me. Iris provides frequent intermissions. They help. There are strangers here, too, people I've never met before.

There have been a lot of strangers lately, but it's getting quieter.

33:02:45.

And quieter.

37:18:02.

And quieter.

42:01:39.

'Thawne' is a familiar name to me, like an exotic fruit or third-grade teacher. I'll-know-it-when-I-see-it.

I can't see 'Thawne,' and I can't put a face to a name, and it quickly disappears. Iris' introduction glides hydrophobically over my back.

45:05:31.

I dream about the strangest people talking to me. I know they're dreams because Dr. Wells would never spare a moment of his time for a CSI who died – and this I know, I must be; why else would I be this stuck?

I didn't know you could dream when you were dead, but I also didn't realize 'dead' was this disruptive.

I miss being alive.

47:19:24.

Coffee. Rain. The beach. My stash of paperclips. Joe singing when he thinks no one is listening.Iris' perfume. The sound of thunder closing in. A comfy chair that sinks when I sit in it. The crackle of a fresh newspaper. Riding a bike. A mown lawn. Bowling a strike. Eclipses. Running until my lungs hurt. A worn-out, comfortable tee. A call from my mom. The precinct at four AM.

48:04:00.

Four AM is an emotion, not a time.

It's eye-stinging fatigue and stumbling exhaustion. A place in time where there are a lot of empty spaces. No traffic, no congestion. Even the streetlights sag.

I've only been at the precinct this early once. I didn't want to remember it then.

I miss it now, because as awful as that night was, Joe taking me home was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

60:20:03.

I was gone for a long time.

I know this because Iris picks up a conversational thread that unravels beautifully and utterly mysteriously before me. I'm starting to fall behind.

It sinks like a stone in my stomach. I'm starting to fall behind…

72:19:23.

How long must I haunt my family? Haven't they suffered enough?

Or is death really this hollow, this vague, this disquieting place in-between?

80:15:17.

Every college kid who has taken a philosophy course has come across it. "Plato's allegory of the cave."

Imagine spending your entire life, chained up with nothing to look at but a blank wall. The one thing to keep you from going crazy are the shadows that pass on it. They become your whole world.

You never get to see the people and animals and things that create them, just their reflections. You miss out on a lot.

I really hate this cave.

98:00:01.

Happy birthday, Joe.

I'm sorry I couldn't wake up for it.

101:00:10.

I've tried everything.

Clicking, whistling, snapping my fingers. Gibberish, Shakespeare, sotto voce. Every Dr. Seuss rhyme I can think of, like one holds the answer to breaking the silence. I yell until my lungs are sore.

My body doesn't even twitch.

101:23:02.

You're off to great places!

Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting

Go get on your way!

102:01:04.

Damn.

118:21:46.

Hair stops growing after death, so my dreams of growing a long white Gandalfian beard are promptly quashed by the laws of biology, but I like to dream that I will wake up stronger.

124:10:28.

Happy four-month anniversary.

Time is an illusion.

143:02:45.

I should have learned how to play the fiddle. Legend has it that you can duel the devil and acquire one wish if you beat him at it.

143:23:18.

Hey diddle-diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon.

144:01:16.

It's surprisingly contentious where "Hey Diddle Diddle" originated. Easy enough to place the ontological origin, but much, much more challenging to decipher its meaning. Some think it's a reference to constellations; others suggest it's a bastardization of ancient Greek writings; and still others think it refers to cultish religious chants.

One way or another, it's stuck in my goddamn head.

159:20:07.

Tell me a story, Iris.

Tell me about your day, your week, your month, your year.

God I hope it hasn't been a year.

172:10:15.

Someone plays the Star Wars theme, very loudly, and I'd cry if I could.

Another someone shouts at the first someone to turn it down, but it's festive and maybe the happiest this place has seemed in centuries.

Will people still remember Star Wars in fifty, a hundred, five hundred years?

172:20:34.

Will I?

198:03:56.

I bribed Iris to watch all six movies with me.

If the rumors are true, there's a seventh in the works.

I hope Star Wars guy plays it, full volume, for days.

200:12:30.

It's getting hard to hear people.

At first I think my ears are out of practice when Iris talks to me for the first time in God-only-knows how long. Her voice is fuzzy and distant, bubbling with excitement but also a bit sober, too, because I am a reminder of something gone. I can't hear you, I tell her, over and over, as tears dissolve unshed on my face. I can't hear you.

I really, really don't want to lose my hearing, too.

204:15:04.

Helen Keller was deaf and blind from birth.

How she learned to talk to our cold, dark world amazes me. Without my eyes and ears, I feel a paralyzing stillness, like reality has vanished from underneath me.

I take it back. I'm not ready to die yet.

215:03:42.

I'm in love with you, Iris, and I have been since we were kids. I was in love with you before I knew what the word 'love' meant.

I just never worked up the courage to tell you.

220:13:09.

Please, please give me the opportunity to try again.

234:14:12.

"Heartbreakers gonna break-break-break-break-break and the dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah baby I'm just gonna dum-dum-dum-dum-dum, shake it off, shake it off!"

I love this guy.

238:19:09.

Music gives me a way of passing time. I wish we lived to the sound of music.

Iris loves that movie. We'd watch it on the couch together and I would always, without fail, fall asleep.

"I'd watch it with you now," I want to tell her, but she hasn't been here in a while.

241:02:48.

Where are you, Iris West?

249:18:29.

Where am I?

255:12:04.

He's still playing music. I can't hear it anymore.

260:03:29.

The reaper visits me.

I know it because I can feel it, and the hairs on my arms rise of their own accord, and it is the first and only sign of life to touch me since I feel asleep a thousand years ago.

I can't hear what he's saying, but I can feel him. A hand hovers over my heart. For a moment, I think he'll rip it out.

Then he's gone.

I don't rest easy for a while.

269:22:59.

Humans can survive almost three weeks without food.

The idea of food is still just as tasty as I remember. I guess it takes more than death to wash out the memory of flavors.

274:02:08.

It's very late, and I can't see her, or hear her, or feel her presence, but when her hand brushes mine, I feel the spark.

275:00:02.

Thunder growls at the back of my consciousness, insisting one-word, wake-up, over and over. Wake-up, wake-up, wake-up.

278:13:19.

Let there be light, shallow shadows, people, People? Sound, sensation, ow, YES, deep breath, loud, can't-read-my-can't-read-my-no-he-can't-read-my-poker-face

I rise from the dead with a gasp. "Where am I?"

000:00:23.

I hug Iris for the first time in 278 days.

It's better than I remembered.