EXCERPT :

Now where does he think he's going to stick that thing?

Tammy grimaced as she watched a young man dressed in green scrubs place a tube in a part of her body where a tube was never meant to go.

Ouch! Talk about a pain in the...

But wait. Why didn't she feel the pain? Any pain?

Tammy scanned the room around her, and noticed a variety of metal trays, glowing lights, and blinking machinery. Her attention locked onto a monitor with a straight green line running horizontally across the screen.

Shouldn't that green line be jumping up and down?

She'd seen enough monitors on television shows to know the green line should be jumping up and down. Jumping up and down in rhythm to a little beeping noise. In rhythm to a heartbeat. But she didn't see any jumps or hear any little beeps.

Puzzled, Tammy watched a pretty, young nurse cross over to the machine and flip off the switch. The monitor fell dark, eliminating the green line. She followed the lines running from the machine and realized they ran straight to several parts of her body. Mystified, she frowned down at her form lying on an operating bed. A bad feeling crept through her, leaving an unpleasant burn in the pit of her stomach. No, not a bad feeling. A scary feeling.

"Oh, shit. This is a hospital room."

She glanced down and around at the people in the cramped room. "Sorry. Me and my mouth again. Momma always said I have the mouth of a sailor."

She scowled, wondering how everyone could ignore her apology, and pivoted back to the young nurse. "Hey, don't you think we need to leave the monitor on? I mean, I'm still here, you know."

Again the nurse turned away without answering, leaving Tammy stunned by her rude behavior. "Well now. You sure won't win any Nurse of the Year award. Any relation to Nurse Ratchet perhaps? You know, the bitch of a nurse in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Oh, I get it. You're friends with the guy who stuck the tube in my unmentionable place. Right?"

But why was she in a hospital room? And why could she see her body from up here? Heck, if she didn't know better, she'd think she was...

"Shimmering shakes! I'm floating!"

Flinging her arms in all directions, Tammy made a wild attempt to grasp a nearby florescent light and failed, but her sad attempt sent her into a rolling spin, tumbling head over heels in one place. The tumultuous flipping made her nauseous and light-headed, until she thought she'd upchuck and ruin all those nice white coats. After several agonizing minutes, the rotation slowed and came to a stop, leaving her gasping for air, and her heart thumping hard in her chest. Stretching her arms straight out brought her back to her original position, and she remained motionless for several minutes, waiting for both her stomach and head to settle.

Whoa, baby. What's going on here?

She looked around and wished for something, or someone, familiar. This time she made sure to move slower, testing her movements first.

Yes, I am definitely floating. All in all not a terrible feeling when you know what to expect.

Sighing, she closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and willed her body to relax.

Okay, I'm floating. Like on a cloud. Even though there's no cloud. Relax, Tammy, you can handle this.

Suspended in the air brought a new sensation for the plus-size Tammy. No longer experiencing the weight of gravity was like losing all one-hundred-seventy-eight pounds in two seconds. Finally, a diet she could get behind!

Testing her new skill, she flapped her arms, imitating a bird, and found she could move around the room with the ease of a happy guppy in a wading pond. And after a little more practice, she learned to maneuver her way vertically, too. Tammy grinned and hovered over the heads of four people touching, probing, and examining her body spread out on the table below.

Her lifeless body.

Harsh reality hit her and sent her falling toward the floor faster than if she'd hefted Big Uncle Caleb's lunch bucket.

She was dead. With absolute clarity, she knew she was dead. Passed On, Kicked the Bucket, Bought the Farm, Dead with a Capital "D", Dead. Tammy Lou Robertson, born and raised in the small town of Junction Hill, South Carolina, was deceased. Past Tense, Adios, Farewell, Gone.