The first time I died, I was five years old

I’ve died a lot on the job. As a bomb disposal expert, it's the consequence for failure; an occupational hazard we all understand from day one. That it was a suicide bomber that got me didn’t come as a surprise. These days, sadly, the greatest threat in the UK were people like her - desperate non-state actors who had harnessed the sheer power of an explosive device and harnessed it with the advantage of a human being willing to walk it into a room. The first time I died, I was five years old. I was playing hide and seek with my sister. Melanie was my best friend and she always looked after me. I was the baby and my parents loved me more, I was sure of it. But Mel didn’t care. She loved me too. I loved both of them. I loved us all. I loved it when the windows were shut. So when the bomb exploded, I felt simultaneously relieved and disappointed. Relieved because, as we thought, we were pretty safe. It went off before he’d left the house and we were in the loft space. It was a kind of home. We lived up there at night, sometimes in the day too, and waited until we would hear them leaving. At that point we could do whatever we wanted. So the explosion didn’t kill me. It was the falling debris, later, when I was too cold to think. It was the same feeling the day that bomb exploded in the train station. I felt a bizarre sense of relief, like I’d suddenly become ambivalent to the idea, like a toddler who’s been bored with his toy for so long he didn’t care if he lost it, until it went missing and it was all he could think about, without understanding why. When the bomb exploded, the first thing I thought of was Mel. I was six again, lying in the loft, calling for Mel. My vision went white with the impact, then a piercing blue. Later, they’d tell me it was the concussion injury that caused a break in my thinking. Then I realized I was in a train station, not a house. I had a black tactical vest with **bomb disposal** written in an arc in bright yellow. I was back to being 32. I felt cold. I felt both painful heat and painful cold. I felt relieved and scared and angry. But most of all, I felt regret. I realized that I had failed. I had failed at the task at hand. I had failed at the task of living and breathing. Later when I recounted the last minutes of my life, my senior supervisor told me that I had succeeded in my work. I had saved countless lives with my bravery. I thought of the loft space. I thought of the debris. I thought of Mel. I had failed her. I had failed her first. I failed another way. I didn’t just die, I was reborn. Twenty-six years after my first death, I died. But this time, I woke up again. I woke up in a mortuary, shaking, not cold. There was a woman in a white lab coat. A memory that wasn’t mine, yet somehow was, told me she was a doctor. “Hello,” she said. “I’m doctor Sarah.” I sat up. I felt confused. She handed me a tablet. It was a newspaper article. I read it, not that I needed to. I had a memory of the day I had died, just a few weeks ago by the timeline. I was a bomb disposal expert. But only now did I understand. I could die over and over, and I would never end up in the loft space again if I worked for the British bomb disposal unit. The article was from 24 years ago. I died in a house fire when I was five. The neighbors had heard the explosion. The house owners had been away. I wasn’t listed as living in the house. There was some confusion around who I was and where I’d come from. But then my parents identified the bodies of two little boys. I bit my nails. I was shaking. I looked at hand. I touched my face. I rubbed it. They were different. The doctor touched my hand gently. “They think your father set a bomb in your house. It was a domestic dispute. He never intended for your sister to be there.” I’m sure you won’t agree with me, but I hope my father burns in hell. I hope my mother regrets her decisions for the rest of her life. I fell back. I felt heavy. I felt angry. I felt sorry for myself. I was an identical twin. That’s why my parents had wanted me. I hope they regret it. My twin had died. My sister had died. I had died. But I had come back. I’m the one who came back. I want to see the world. I want to make sure I can do my best to protect it. I want to help catch people like my dad. And I want to protect those like my sister. I can’t save Mel. I can’t even grieve her. But I won’t waste my second chance. I won’t waste her second chance. She loved me. I love her. I will always love her. I will never stop loving her. But now, I get to live for her. I get to live for both of us. And I get to make sure I can do everything I can for the people I love, the people I love in the future. I will never forget Melissa. But I will never forget how I died. And I will never waste my chance to live. - E.B. Shaw.

The first time I died, I was five years old

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