
10-06-2009, 08:44 AM
I'll post more later...
"I think it is time to face yourself again... Then again, it is always time."
Chapter 1
Some people say that when you die you are reborn; others say that you go to heaven or hell. Still others conclude that when you die there is some very convoluted afterlife involving planets, aliens and a horrible incident with a volcano.
They are wrong of course. The people with the aliens that is, not the other two… No, the other two are painfully and awkwardly correct. This is what makes them so confused while they are alive. They don’t see how both can exist in the same line of reason as the other. The truth is that it’s all in the same neighborhood, just different streets.
Imagine the afterlife as you would any sort of suburban sprawl. In any neighborhood you have those who are good neighbors, the people you are a little suspicious of, the bad side of the neighborhood and the little old lady with a tuna casserole who is quite eager to meet the new faces in town and will you be so kind as to make sure you keep your dog on a leash.
I do hope I haven’t lost you in all of this, because this is a story, one about a young man, a young woman, a small dog who doesn’t survive the first act, and learning. Most good stories are.
We begin at the deathbed of John H. Morris III. He is 102 years old and as near as his doctors can tell he’s dying of boredom. If you live past 85 you really do start running out of new things to do--and anyway, new things aren’t really something a respectable elderly person like John should be doing. This of course is only his excuse as of late--he’s never really been one for new experiences, he never married, never joined the service, and went to a trade school so he could take up the family business of installing central air conditioning in middle class homes. It wasn’t that John was a cynic about life experiences; he just never really felt the urge to get out there and meet them half way.
So John was dying and it really wasn’t that much more exciting than anything else he had ever done. He stared at the tubes running from his nose to a machine that looked like some sort of accordion encased in a large drinking glass, moving in a steady pace just like him. He wasn’t saying anything to his visitor, an elderly woman with cheaply chemically treated hair which was faded and gave the impression of plastic doll’s hair colored with a washable marker. She clucked about the room, occasionally adjusting John to make him “more comfortable,” which in reality was just taking him out of a position he was comfortable in and putting him in a new one to which he had to adjust. Occasionally a doctor would enter the room and say something about “a matter of time” or “we’re just trying to make him as comfortable as possible.” John figured he would be a lot more comfortable without tubes up his nose, but decided to leave that to the doctor since it was his job to decide these things, he wasn’t one to make a fuss.
John wasn’t sure what to expect from death, perhaps a falling curtain, or a large stairway leading to a man with a large book. He wasn’t expecting a bus.
It was a nice enough bus with seats that reclined enough to let you relax and a little foot rest on the back of the seat in front of you, but it was still a bus. As anyone who has ever had to depend on a bus to get you from one location to another can tell you that how long a bus ride feels is directly proportional to how many people are crammed on it. In John’s case the bus ride felt like it took exactly 7 hours and 59 minutes.
The afterlife is not nearly as menacing as some major religions would have you believe. In fact the entire experience is not much like standing before a judge; it’s more like meeting your landlord for the first time, a little tense but certainly not menacing.
“God” has many names on earth, some he prefers more than others but few have ever gotten close. In fact in the history of all humanity only one person has ever managed to call Him by the correct name. Little Bruce Ophenmier once referred to the creator as “Milesworth” but was quickly corrected by shocked parents and Sunday school teachers. That gets into the nature of religion though, and not quite what we are getting at here.
John surveyed the area around him as he stepped off the bus. The afterlife struck him as familiar and bizarre in the same contrasting once over. Houses and apartments of all sizes and states lined up along the side of the well paved pothole-free streets.
Turning to a sweet looking elderly woman behind him in line he asked where they were.
“We’re in the afterlife,” she said sweetly, comfortable with her answer.
“Yes, I gathered that we were dead,” said John, slowly so he could make his point, “but is this heaven or hell?” he took a sliding step closer to the front of the shrinking line.
“It seems to be a little of both,” interrupted the young man standing in front of John, he had the look about him that he thought he knew more than he actually knew, “there are all sorts in this line, for instance the hoodlums five people behind the lady there are obviously not suited to live amongst us,” he took a step forward, “ and those nuns even further back must be getting one of those larger houses,” he stepped forward again looking rather comfortable in his explanation.
John thought about this a moment and turned back to the lady standing behind him, “Don’t you think he’s oversimplified good and evil?” he whispered.
The old woman gave John a smile that told him she was thinking the same thing.
People may spend their entire lives contemplating the nature of what happens after they die, but just because you sit there thinking about it does not mean that the truth will dawn on you. It’s like a blind person trying to understand a rainbow, they know it happens, but they lack the basic experience of seeing it that is required to really understand it.
Taking another step forward until he was directly in front of the sturdy wooden desk that they Creator sat behind John was at a loss as to what he should say.
“It’s both heaven and hell and neither,” the Creator said to John’s unasked question, “in general humanity doesn’t understand good or bad and because of that is incapable of doing either. Here are your keys.”
The creator regarded John with a sort of pleasant tolerance that one would give a dull child and John appreciated it though he wasn’t sure if he should have been insulted or relived, because even though what the creator said made humanity seem like idiot baboons it did let humanity off the hook.
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