“I have more than once in my time woken up feeling like death. But nothing prepared me for the early morning last June when I came to consciousness feeling as if I were actually shackled to my own corpse. The whole cave of my chest and thorax seemed to have been hollowed out and then refilled with slow-drying cement. I could faintly hear myself breathe but could not manage to inflate my lungs. My heart was beating either much too much or much too little. Any movement, however slight, required forethought and planning. It took strenuous effort for me to cross the room of my New York hotel and summon the emergency services…” –from an account by Christopher Hitchens of his battle with cancer. Here.
I’ve read several of this great writer’s books. His God is NOT Great has become probably one of the top three atheist books ever written (also check his The Portable Atheist), and is certainly as representative in the emerging New Age of Enlightenment as were the writers David Hume and Thomas Hobbes of the Old Enlightenment during the eighteenth century. I’m now reading the fascinating memoir Hitch 22.
