The idea for my novel, The Outlaws of Maroon, just came to me out of the blue. I had sat down to write something else, when a childhood memory flashed into my mind. The memory of a place we used to call The Little Woods, something I hadn’t thought about for many decades. I knew at that moment I had a story to write.

I began writing Maroon while my wife was ill. I had to be in the house a lot, to take care of her. After she passed, working on the novel a few hours each day was therapeutic, and helped me onto an even keel.

Then one day I felt suddenly weak. At first I thought maybe it’s a flu coming on. The Kaiser advice nurse told me to come in and get checked out. In the emergency room they said the lower chamber of my heart was not working properly and I would need a pacemaker.

I had sick sinus syndrome. The heart sinus is the part that tells the chambers when to beat (no connection to the nasal sinus). My heart was physically OK, but I needed a new computer. They would install a computer about the size of a silver dollar under my skin, run a “lead” wire between my ribs, and screw the other end into a “sweet spot” in my heart.

It happened very fast. I remember lying on the operating table, a sheet over my face, listening to the cardiologist and his team as he did the procedure. They don’t knock you out for this, it’s like being in a dentist’s chair, even though they’re working on your heart.

I remember thinking about Maroon as I was lying on the table, feeling sad that if I die here I’ll never finish my book, but I had to accept it, there was nothing I could do. I remembered that, according to legend, at the end of his life, the old Chinese Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu left his book the Tao Te Ching with the keeper of the western gate before he passed through, never to return. How fortunate Lao Tzu was.

Then it was over, and I was back home with my daughter and son-in-law. I bent over to pick up the mail, and felt faint. At 4:30 am I was back in the Kaiser emergency room, with my cardiologist and the pacemaker technologist.

The cardiologist explained that they probably missed the “sweetspot”. He would unscrew the lead wire, move it over a quarter inch, and screw it back in again.

But first the technologist needed to do some tests. She stood at her machine with flashing lights, holding a wand in her hand. Just as they expected, the pacemaker was not functioning. They needed to turn off the upper chamber of my heart, in order to get an accurate reading of my lower chamber. She waved the wand at me.

Everything went black. Suddenly I found myself in a dream world. It was like waking up into a dream. I was outdoors, before me were rolling green hills and a blue sky. I remember it almost like a kid’s painting. The sun was in the sky. It wasn’t a scary place, at least not in the short time I was there. Then everything went black again. I felt three shocks and opened my eyes. I looked around the emergency room and said out loud, “Where was I? I was somewhere else.”

My cardiologist explained that people with my condition usually have around 30% capacity in their lower chamber, while I had zero percent. So when they turned off my upper chamber, I flatlined for 10 seconds. I had been dead. He said it wasn’t long enough to cause brain damage.

That was my first near-death experience. This is just the beginning of the story.

The cardiologist then said that, because I’d flatlined and already had all this bad luck, he was not going to take any chances. He was going to do an extra procedure this time. He was going to run a wire from my groin up into my heart, and take over the upper chamber. That would give him extra time to work, just in case something else went wrong.

As it would turn out, the cardiologist would need that extra time, so ironically, my first brush with death—my flatline death—might be what saved my life.

Up in the operating room, it started just like the first time around. Call and response, with the cardiologist as the captain of a very efficient team. It was impressive. I listened to their every word.

They ran the wire, took over the upper chamber, opened my chest. The cardiologist gave a running commentary, stating what he was doing.

“Now I’m going to unscrew the lead. Now I’m unscrewing the lead. Now I’m screwing it back in a quarter of an inch away. I’m going to give it one more quarter turn. That’s it.”

If I ever get through this, what will I do tomorrow? Everyday things like tying my shoelaces and eating a banana and writing. How wonderful they seemed, and how little I’d appreciated them. I felt very glad that I’d gotten this far in life without having done anything really terrible, like killing someone; I’d only done the usual mean things that people do. I realized that if I get through this, I’m just going to go back to my life, I’m not going to make any drastic changes in it.

The cardiologist said to the technologist something like, “OK, let’s test it.”

I tried not to hold my breath.

Silence.

The cardiologist said, “Try it again.”

The technologist said, “It’s not working.”

“Try it again.”

“Nothing.”

The cardiologist, technologist, and team tried different things. I thought about the extra time he had bought by that extra wire. I don’t know how long this went on.

There was a long pause when nobody said anything.

Finally the cardiologist said, and these are his exact words, “Does anybody have any ideas?”

He had run out of ideas and was desperate.

Nobody said anything.

These were the last minutes of my life. I considered myself dead.

When I was little my mom told me that when a person is dying their life rushes in front of them, and that’s exactly what happened to me. My life had its up and downs, but it was what it was and I just had to accept it. I couldn’t do anything tomorrow, because I had no tomorrow. I let everything go. I surrendered. I was ready for death.

Then someone said, “Maybe it’s the lead. Maybe it’s a bad lead. Try a new lead.”

Luckily they didn’t have to send out for spare parts. They tried a different lead wire, and it worked.

Later, the cardiologist said to me, “Medicine is an art, not a science.”

As soon as possible I got back to work and finished The Outlaws of Maroon. I looked for a publisher, but Maroon did not fit into the usual marketing niches.

I decided to just leave a copy with the keeper of the western gate.