Wow, this is absolutely wonderful!

I don't speak any French so I'm not sure how much has changed from the original version, but this is still a really vivid story. I can imagine being there.

Thanks ! I don't know exactly what story element or writing technique is in cause, but a lot of my readers told me that this story is one of the most vibrant I've written.

The most difficult thing to translate from the French was the use of tenses : the first half of the story is in "imparfait" (imperfect indicative) to give the impression that the narrator was still alive and remembering his past, while the second half was related using the present indicative to give a more hasty rhythm and feeling of urgency to the narration. The abrupt change of tenses occurs at the moment of the loss of neural connexion to indicate its suddenness.

I think the feeling still carried over to this version, even without the tenses.