Introduction

This is a very unusual novel. It's unlike anything you've ever read before.

Six people die and are reincarnated with the full memory of their previous adult lives, and the knowledge allowing them to do it again and again.

You will never look at precocious children the same way again.

That's all I'll disclose at this time.

To help you keep track reading it online, I've formatted the book so you can click on the Chapter links one at a time on the right side of the page.

Happy reading! With no further ado, I present "The Six". Click on the "Prologue" link and get started.

Copyright 1995
Steven Pein

Prologue

Jamie lay there by the side of the road covered with blood. She knew she had to flag somebody down for help, but she barely had the strength to watch the road for cars. Just getting to the main road consumed more energy than she thought was left in her tiny body. She reflected on the past two hours. She was lucky to be alive and she knew it.

In the serenity of her exhaustion, her mind drifted back through her past. She thought about the six diverse souls that fate had thrown together. For the first time in her life she wondered what their lives had been like. Despite all she had learned about them, she realized that she knew very little about the kind of people they were. She wondered if they had looked forward to getting up in the morning. What did they do in their spare time? Did they have hobbies? What kind of movies did they like? Did they believe in God?

A bus driver, a lawyer, a housewife, a farmer... How did their families and friends deal with their deaths? Jamie paused at that thought. It struck her as so ironic that their loved ones probably grieved over their deaths. Would they have grieved if they had known what really happens after people die?...

.....

Headlights glared in Jamie’s eyes. She tried to prop herself up on one elbow so she could signal with her free hand. The car was only a tenth of a mile down the road and it was coming fast. She managed to shift her weight over to her right side and wave her left arm. The car raced by and the taillights disappeared behind her.

This wasn’t going to work. She was just too small to be seen. In one painful effort she forced herself into a sitting position, drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. She hoped it would be easier for a passing motorist to spot her sitting up. She drifted back to her reflections...

.....

Death was a strange thing, wasn’t it? People spent their whole lives fearing it. Wouldn’t it be different if they knew the truth about death?... No! Maybe it wouldn’t be so different. After all, hadn’t she herself felt the fear of death only an hour or so ago? But why? It made no sense to her. Was it because death would foil her mission? Was it because of her own human weaknesses?

Fate had played such a bizarre trick on the six. How could things have gone so wrong? They never asked to bear the burden of their forbidden knowledge; it was just thrust upon them. She wondered what kind of torment they must have known as they tried to deal with it.

A weird thought crossed Jamie’s mind. She realized that every fiber of her existence was entangled with the six. She couldn’t help but wonder what life would have been like for her if Oren had lived. Then again, if he had, she knew she would never have known it. Even stranger was the realization that she wouldn’t even be Jamie if it weren’t for the actions of the six.

.....

Headlights again! She waved her arm as wildly as she could... Please let them see me! Please!.. The car slowed down and pulled over on the shoulder a hundred feet past her. The driver got out and ran back to see what was wrong.

“Jesus!” he exclaimed. “Are you all right, sweetheart? What happened to you? You’re covered with blood.”

“I’m okay. Can you please take me to a telephone?”

He cringed at the thought of her blood-soaked body staining the upholstery of his brand new car. Besides, there was something terribly wrong here.

“Just wait right here, honey. I’ll run down the road and call for help. Are you injured? Where did all that blood come from?”

Jamie couldn’t face the idea of telling the story to him and then having to tell it all over again to the police. She just needed him to summon help.

“I’ll be okay,” she assured him. “Just go ahead and get help. Please hurry!”

He ran back to his car and sped away. Jamie watched as the car disappeared from view. She felt a sense of relief knowing that help would soon be on the way.

She wasn’t certain how much time had elapsed before the police arrived. She must have dozed off.

“Don’t move, dear,” the husky voice warned. “An ambulance is on the way. Where are you hurt?”

Her eyes opened to the sight of a policeman kneeling over her. Somehow she was lying on her back, but she didn’t remember being moved.

“I’m okay,” she insisted. “I need to call home.”

A flashlight beam blinded her momentarily and she raised her arm to shield her eyes.

“Don’t, Paul,” the policeman urged his partner. “Just turn on the headlights of the car. And see what’s taking that damned ambulance so long.”

A moment later everything was bathed in light. The second policeman returned and looked Jamie over from head to toe while he reported to his partner.

“The ambulance is a couple minutes away, Joe. Say, I think I recognize her. Aren’t you Jamie Meyers?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“The child actress?” Joe asked Paul.

“Yeah,” Paul answered. “I’ll call it in right now.”

The sound of the siren was audible. A minute later the paramedics were on the scene.

“What have we got here?” one of them asked while shining a small light into Jamie’s eyes.

“I’m fine,” Jamie protested. “I don’t want an ambulance. I just want to call home.”

Chapter One

1
Henry Alderfer

Sunday, 17 October, 1976
The Minister spoke softly at the funeral. He had never addressed a crowd this large, and he was quite emotional. Hank was a friend for years, but the Minister really had no idea of how many people’s lives Hank had affected until he saw this huge turnout.

“Are you boys going to be all right?” the Minister asked the three hired hands that had been helping Hank run the farm.

“I guess so,” one of them replied. But all three knew they would now have to find work elsewhere. Their lives just wouldn’t be the same without Hank around. To say they had loved the “old man” would have been an understatement.....


Henry “Hank” Alderfer was born in 1895 in a small five-room farmhouse in upstate Pennsylvania. He was the third generation of Alderfers to run the farm. Farming profitably wasn’t easy, especially after W.W.II, when conglomerates started buying up millions of acres and investing in modern equipment. Hank and his wife Joan were virtually on their own from the 1940’s on. Their only son, Mark, would have been the fourth generation to inherit and operate the struggling 150-acre spread. Mark, however, joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 and was killed in a dogfight in the Pacific late in 1944. Mark’s wife Sarah stayed on for a year or so after his death but left for San Diego in 1946, never to contact the Alderfers again.

Life was a struggle for Hank, especially as age crept up on him. Joan died in the mid 1960’s and Hank was never the same after that. He had three hired hands working the place right up to his death at age 81 in 1976. By that time he owed so much in back taxes and liens that the estate barely broke even at the Sheriff’s sale. Hank’s Last Will and Testament, leaving the farm to the three hired hands, amounted to nothing more than a well-intentioned empty gesture.

There were a few good years back in the 1950’s and 1960’s when Hank had managed to save a sizable nest egg for their retirement. He had amassed almost $350,000 by 1962, but that was before Joan’s stroke. She survived three more years, the last two in a nursing home about sixty miles from the farm. Hank visited her almost every evening for the entire two years. He only missed about ten days, three of which were attributable to the flu, and the rest to breakdowns of his Chevy pickup truck. He’d drive over after an early dinner, spend about an hour reading and talking to her, then drive back home each night. He never knew for sure how much she understood or paid attention. She simply stared into space, unable to speak or communicate at all. But that never discouraged Hank. He prayed for Joan every night before he climbed into bed, and he never gave up hope.

Most of the money was spent the first year after the stroke. Hospital care, surgery, medication, and a day nurse for eight months left less than $50,000 by the time Joan transferred to the nursing home. Then the balance of the money disappeared within a year. The nursing home filed a lien against the farm, followed shortly thereafter by liens from the County and School District for back taxes.

Throughout his entire life, Hank hardly ever missed a Sunday at Church. He even found a way to slip five or ten dollars into the plate right up to the very end. Nobody knew for sure where the money came from, but Hank would gladly have skipped meals to make the donations. His father taught him as a lad that God would see to all; that hard work and faith in God is what life was all about. Hank took his father’s words at face value and lived by them. He grew to be a hard-working, God-fearing, righteous man whose friends knew they could take Hank’s words at face value too.

Hank’s funeral was an event that folks around there would always remember. This man who barely had time to sit and smoke a cigar (his only real vice) or chat with a neighbor, seemed to have more friends than anyone could have imagined. Over three hundred mourners turned out for Hank’s funeral. They stood out in the rain in the small cemetery behind the Church. Not one soul even dared to open an umbrella, as if doing so would somehow diminish the homage they were paying him that day.

He was eighty-one years old, and working the farm the very day of his death. At least it was a merciful death; a massive coronary that collapsed him instantly. His head slammed into the tractor’s engine compartment as he plowed the last 30 acres in preparation for next Spring’s feed-corn crop. The doctor speculated that the concussion probably knocked him unconscious, so Hank probably didn’t suffer too much.

The unprecedented turnout was addressed by the Minister at the funeral. He attributed it to Hank’s integrity, sincerity, and love of God and mankind. Indeed, at least one hundred of the mourners were former church-goers who hadn’t been there for years, and another fifty were totally unknown to the Minister; probably members of other faiths, or even non-believers for all he knew. But he did know that Hank was a special kind of man, and he was certain that he felt the presence of God at this funeral.

2
Jack Casey

Friday, 21 July, 1933
It was Friday afternoon and attorney Jack Casey was preparing for a weekend at his Summer house in the mountains. “The Great Depression” it would later be called, but now Jack just thought of it as a three-year lull in the business. He was still making ends meet by representing an occasional injury victim and handling an ever-increasing number of bankruptcies. But the thing that brought in the most cash was his estate work. He had drafted hundreds of wills during his earlier years, and he was named executor in most of them. Estate work was now his golden goose. He took a nice percentage of the action regardless of the financial situation of the surviving families, and that put a lot of bread and butter on his table.

He was born John George Casey in 1903 and had the misfortune of having immigrant parents who weren’t doing very well in America. They were determined to see to it that their son Jack would have a much better life than they. The pressures began almost as soon as Jack started first grade. Being number one was the only way to make his parents happy. He hated school and he would have preferred to drop out and work at the shoe store his parents owned beneath their five-room apartment on Worthington Street in the Bronx. Jack skipped two grades in school and, at only fifteen years old, graduated at the top of his High School class. He went away to Harvard on a full scholarship, and somehow found himself in a Pre-Law curriculum.

In his senior year he knew that Harvard Law School was out of his reach. He was a below-average student with little hope of being accepted, and it was also financially out of his league. Besides, he needed to escape the heckling his mediocrity drew from his Harvard schoolmates. He applied to only four law schools; selections based exclusively on cost. He was accepted by three of them and decided on a small school in Mississippi. He worked his way through law school as a soda jerk in a drug store around the corner from the dormitories. He studied hard and achieved excellent grades. He liked the feeling of power that developed as he began to understand the way society really operated. The lawyers were the elite of society. They had drafted the Constitution, controlled the government, and dominated the political parties. They were the judges and the Congressmen and the Senators. Yes, law was for him.

He returned home after graduating and began studying for the New York State Bar examination. He took a job with a small firm in the area, doing mostly research and errands. He hated it, but he had to pass the Bar before he could do anything about his career. He passed on his first try, and set out on his own six months later. He hung out a shingle on a side street second-floor office in Manhattan, and somehow he made it work. It started with a few wills, then word of mouth caught on and the practice developed rather quickly. In 1930 Jack hired Fred Stoner, a promising young lawyer from Buffalo who was anxious to make his mark in the Big Apple.

…

The phone rang at about two thirty in the afternoon. Fred picked it up as he was flipping through a case folder. “Casey and Stoner,” he answered. “Oh, hi Lieutenant.... No, just getting ready to call it a week. What have you got?” He listened for a few moments, and then said, “I’ll get Jack. I don’t know the guy, but maybe Jack does. Hold on a second.” He put the receiver down on his desk and walked over to Jack’s office. He poked his head in and Jack looked up.

“Lieutenant Freeman on the phone. He’s got a corpse with your business card in his wallet. It’s a guy named Pearce or something. No next of kin that they can find.”

Jack nodded his head and said, “Okay. Thanks, Fred.” He picked up the phone as Fred left the office. “Casey here. What’s going on, Bob?.....Yeah, I did his will about three years ago. Hold on while I yank the folder.”

Jack spun around to a filing cabinet just behind his chair. He rummaged through some folders, pulled one out and spun back around. He opened it and quickly scanned through it.

“Got it right here, Bob. Let me see.....Yeah, this must be him all right. 526 Chestnut St.?” he asked. “.... Okay, then he’s mine. I’ll get over there on Monday morning if that’s all right. I’ve got a bunch of things to do this afternoon,” he lied. “Fine. See you Monday. Have a good weekend, Bob.....Thanks, I plan to.”

He hung up and flipped through the folder. He was pleased as usual to see that he was named Executor. He was even more pleased to see that Ernest James Pearce had no living relatives to cause any trouble on the case. There was a small number 10 envelope in the folder with the handwritten message, “Jack - Open this as soon as I’m dead.” He remembered drafting the will, but he didn’t remember any envelope. His curiosity was aroused and he opened the envelope without further ado. He slid a few pieces of blue-lined notebook paper from the envelope and unfolded them. They were stapled at the top left corner to form a booklet. He saw that both sides of each sheet were written on and there was a crudely drawn map on the last page. He turned back to the first page and began to read.

Ten minutes later Jack shouted from his desk, “Fred, you’d better get in here. You gotta see something.”

“Whatcha got, Jack?” he asked as he walked in.

“Take a look at this letter. I’m not sure what to make of it.”

Fred read the letter once, and then re-read certain parts. He turned his attention to the map on the last page. “It sure seems pretty far fetched to me. Do you think it’s really possible?”

“Well, I think I’m going to find out. Are you up for a little trip tomorrow morning? If what this letter says is true, it’s something I can’t wait to verify.”

“I’m game if you are,” Fred volunteered. “I can take my pickup if you’d like. I’ve got a pick ax and a couple of shovels I can bring along. If I’m reading the map right, this place isn’t too far away from here. About an hour or two at the most.”

“Well, maybe you can swing by my place around eight tomorrow morning,” Jack requested. “I’ll send the wife out to the Summer place herself and I’ll catch up with her on Sunday. How does that sound?”

“Great,” Fred replied. “Wear old clothes and hiking boots if you’ve got them. I know this countryside and it’s pretty rough.”

“Perfect! Then it’s a date.” Jack smiled and Fred winked back at him before turning and heading back to his own office.

Saturday, 22 July, 1933
Jack and Fred were exhausted and bruised as they scaled the rocky cliff in the Catskills. It would have been much easier if it weren’t for the tools they were carrying. At least Fred had the foresight to bring a knapsack with a thermos of lemonade and a box of chocolate chip cookies. They were starving and thirsty when they reached the spot marked on the map with a large “X”. Fred flipped the knapsack over his head and tore into it. They drank directly from the thermos and gobbled down the cookies like they hadn’t eaten in weeks. Then they looked at each other and simultaneously broke out in laughter.

“Let’s get on with it,” Jack mumbled through a mouthful of cookies.

They worked with the ax and shovel for almost 45 minutes, digging precisely between the two old trees indicated on the map. The hole was about 3 feet deep and they were both feeling tired and disillusioned. Fred was first to speak.

“Have we been had, or what?”

“Fifteen more minutes and we’re outa here,” came Jack’s reply.

“Sounds okay to me,” agreed Fred as he lifted the pick ax and swung it right into the center of the hole. They both heard the loud, hollow thump of the ax penetrating the decaying wood.

They looked at each other and Jack asked, “What the hell was that?”

The two of them started frantically digging and picking. In about ten minutes they had exposed an old wooden chest, about two feet long by one foot wide by one foot deep. They paused, looked at each other, then, as if on some unspoken cue, they both reached down and dragged the box to the surface. The ax had hit the box dead center and the lid had cracked slightly from the blow. Jack took the ax and wedged the point into the crack. He then pulled back on the handle like a pry bar and part of the cover broke loose exposing the contents of the box.

They stared in disbelief at the find. Then they looked at one another. Jack fell to his knees and worked off the remaining portion of the cover with his bare hands.

“There has to be $100,000 dollars here,” Fred shouted. “This is gold bullion. Maybe a hundred pounds....”

“More like two hundred,” Jack interrupted. “Where the hell did all this gold come from?”

“It’s got a US stamp on it,” observed Fred. “Maybe it’s stolen. I guess the cops can trace it down. It gives me the creeps just being near it.”

“Who says the cops have to know anything about this, Fred? There’s nobody in the world that has to know about this but you and me. What do you say?”

“No deal! This isn’t our money, Jack. Maybe it’s not even old man Pearce’s money. Anyway, we’re lawyers, and something like this could mean disbarment. I want no part of it, partner.”

It was as if a switch was thrown in Jack’s head. He decided the gold was his and he was determined to keep it. Nobody would ever have to know. Fred was his only problem.

“I guess you’re right, buddy,” admitted Jack. “Nothing’s worth disbarment.” He casually smiled and, with no warning, shoved Fred back over the cliff into the rocky gorge below them. He watched as Fred bounced against the rocks and screamed on his way down the two hundred foot drop. The screaming stopped when Fred was about halfway down. He saw Fred’s body lying twisted and lifeless at the bottom of the gorge, and the smile was still on Jack’s face.

Sunday, 26 January, 1975
The service for Jack Casey was a brief one. There were many respectable politicians and businessmen in crisp three hundred dollar suits. The Pastor eulogized him, thinking to himself the whole time how grateful he was that Jack had died after he had donated the money for the new Sunday School. The odd part about this funeral was that even though a huge number of people came to the service, only a handful followed along to the cemetery. Jack’s ex-wife was there, a couple of distant cousins, and a few business associates who were too embarrassed not to show up at the cemetery.....



After the treasure hunt incident, Jack reported the unfortunate accident to the police. Of course he showed them the letter that the crazy old man had written, but quickly added that he and Fred had only found a rotting old wooden box with nothing in it. “What a senseless, tragic waste of life,” he told the police. “Fred Stoner was a true friend and I’ll really miss him.” The tears that he forced to flow helped make his story all the more convincing.

Jack kept the bullion hidden for almost two years after the incident. He wanted to make certain that enough time had passed before trying to cash it in. He wasn’t about to take any more risks than he had to, but he also needed the time to figure out how to convert the bullion to cash. That involved inquiries, snooping and researching. He finally found an out-of-town jeweler of questionable reputation who agreed to pay him ninety percent of face value for the gold. Jack cashed in about one quarter of the bullion and kept the rest buried in a secret hiding place in the mountains. He put the money to work immediately and he did very well with it. Despite the temptation, he soon became too frightened to risk going back for the rest of the bullion. He knew in his heart that the gold was stolen, and he knew it could implicate him in the death of Fred Stoner if he were caught trying to unload it. Given his financial success from the first chunk of money, Jack quickly reached a point where he didn’t need the balance of the bullion anyway.

Over the years Jack began quietly investing in real estate deals. The Great Depression boosted his buying power, and he was able to remain a silent partner in most of the deals. He didn’t want his wife to know too much about his “business” dealings. He was afraid she might be astute enough to put two and two together. Eventually that didn’t matter anyway, because she left him for another attorney she had met at a New Year’s Eve party in 1938.

After the war, Jack did phenomenally well in the real estate business. He became a major developer during the post-war boom. Millions of GI’s were cashing in on their veterans’ benefits and buying homes as fast as they could be built. Jack and his partners built and sold over three thousand homes between 1946 and 1955. By that time Jack had switched to developing shopping centers. At first it was strip centers, usually incorporating a major food market and a pharmacy, with another ten or twelve stores attached. But as the 60’s rolled in, malls became the rage, and indoor shopping was the only way to go. By the 70’s, Jack was constructing major office complexes and time-share vacation resorts. Nobody knew for certain what Jack was worth when he died, but those closest to him estimated his worth at about $500 million.

The irony of it all was that Jack had never written a will for himself. His ex-wife fought in the courts for some time, trying to lay claim to his fortune, but the outcome was that New York State took possession of everything. The great and famous “Executor” died intestate.

3
Joan Spencer

Sunday, 2 May, 1976
Joan Spencer’s parents sat in the anteroom just behind the Chapel. Their faces were wet with tears, and their noses were bright red from the abrasion of countless tissues over the last three days. They were still in the denial stage. There was just no way that their beautiful little girl could be dead. She had everything going for her.

Father Young knocked once on the walnut door and entered before the Spencers could respond to the knock.

“Excuse me Bill, Evelyn, but we’ll be starting in about fifteen minutes. Do you want to take another moment alone with Joan before we open the Chapel to the others?”

Evelyn smiled politely through her tears. “Thank you, Father,” she managed to say with a quivering voice. “We’ll certainly want a few more minutes alone with her.” She turned to Bill. His head was down so low that his chin touched his chest. “Shall we, Bill?” she whispered in his ear.

“Yes.”

He stood up without raising his head, turned to his wife and gently took her hand in his. She stood and paused for a moment to look into Bill’s eyes, but he was staring at the floor. Together they walked hand in hand through the door to the Chapel. Father Young said a prayer to himself as he watched the two enter the Chapel, closing the door behind them.

The Chapel was dark compared to the anteroom, and it took several moments for Bill’s and Evelyn’s eyes to adjust. They stood by their only child and wept. In a trembling voice, Evelyn managed to say, “I love you, sweetheart.” She was overpowered by tears before the last word left her lips, and she fell to her knees clutching the cold hand of her daughter. Bill burst into tears at the same moment and knelt to embrace his wife.

“Why?” was the only word he spoke. Evelyn released her daughter’s hand, wrapped her arm around her husband’s back and placed her hand on the back of his head. She drew his head down to her shoulder and buried her face in his hair.

They remained motionless for almost a minute. Then, as if on cue, they stood up together. They reached for each other’s hands and squeezed tightly as they started back for the anteroom. They knew they’d need a few minutes to compose themselves before they could take their positions in the first row of pews in the Chapel.........



Joan Elizabeth Spencer was just seventeen when she died. She was the brightest student her Math and Physics teachers had ever taught; a senior, only a month away from graduating High School with honors, and on her way to M.I.T. under a full scholarship. Her parents were so proud and supportive of her. Bill used to joke about her being one of those rare women who inherited the “math gene”.

She was only an average student through grammar school, and nothing ever indicated that she was of above average intelligence until she started seventh grade. She took her first Algebra course that year and it was as if a new brain had appeared overnight. She demonstrated a unique aptitude for higher mathematics and then for science too. She found herself in advanced science and math courses by eighth grade, and she began to develop incredibly good study habits. She was earning straight A’s by ninth grade, and she began to draw the attention of the school administration. They arranged some special psychological and intelligence screenings through the local educational testing services. She turned out to have an IQ over 160 and a rare gift for abstract thought. She was well adjusted socially, had many friends, and even found time for sports and dating. She was an avid reader, but she preferred technical material over the fiction and romance novels her peers were reading.

The greatest day of her life was the day she received the scholarship to M.I.T. It was a Saturday morning when the letter arrived, and her mother noticed the return address on the envelope. Evelyn immediately became nervous, thinking only about how Joan would react to a rejection notice. She called her daughter down from her room and handed it to her without saying a word. They both stood motionless for a moment, then Joan opened the letter and began to read it. Evelyn simply watched her daughter’s eyes for a clue. They both began screaming in delight at the very same instant. Evelyn grabbed the letter so she could read it herself, then they both began screaming all over again. They hugged and danced around the kitchen like two five-year-olds.

The last half-year of High School was difficult for Joan. She had developed strong feelings for a boy in her class. Mike Trimble was his name. It was her first case of infatuation, and she felt all of the strange, wonderful, confusing, scary and erotic feelings that most girls experienced at thirteen or fourteen. She overreacted to her emotions and was almost ready to abandon M.I.T. just so she could be with the boy she loved. She struggled with her emotions until late March, when Mike dumped her for an eleventh grade cheerleader. It was pure devastation for Joan. She felt suicidal for almost a week, and then it turned to rage and rebellion. Then in mid April something snapped inside her. She decided that Mike simply wasn’t worthy of her and that few men in the world were or ever would be. She decided that she was going to make her way through life never needing anyone. She would decide who, if anyone, was worthy of her love, and she would never be rejected again by any man.

The change in her was evident to her parents and some of her friends, yet she never actually spoke to them about her feelings. She directed all of her thoughts and energy preparing for the next four years at M.I.T. She emerged from her internal conflicts stronger and more self-assured than ever. She was going to be the world’s top scientist some day. A Nobel Prize was a “given” in her mind.

On Thursday evening, April 29, she borrowed her father’s car to run by the library to copy her term paper for Physics class. She was so excited about college. All she could think of was the Doctorate in Physics she would someday display on her office wall. She would be the next Einstein, or.....She daydreamed through a red light at the corner of Preston and Main and was broadsided by a tractor-trailer. She died instantly and was pronounced D.O.A. twelve minutes later at Lawrence General Hospital. She never knew what happened.

4
Raymond Williams

Wednesday, 20 August, 1975
Jasmine Williams sat at her husband’s side in the small hospital room. Raymond had finally been taken out of the cancer ward the week before. Now he would be permitted to die with a bit more dignity, in a semi-private room. The weather in Georgia was sweltering, and the old air conditioning system in the hospital was barely able to cool the room to eighty degrees. Jasmine had brought a small electric fan from home to try to make Ray a little more comfortable. He was on so much medication that it was hard for her to tell if he felt anything at all, but the fan was there just in case he did.

This was Jasmine’s third day off from work. She had requested an emergency leave from the local transit company to spend full time with her husband. The doctors were telling her that Ray probably wouldn’t last the week. To the nursing staff, her composure seemed remarkable, but Jasmine had been preparing herself for this moment for almost six months. Now she was simply acting out a well rehearsed role......


Jasmine could only reflect on the past as she helplessly waited for Ray to die. She thought back to the day they met, twenty-three years ago. She was working as a secretary at the bus repair depot, and Ray was a bus driver who had come to pick up bus number 1912. She remembered he mentioned that 1912 was the year he was born. “That makes me fifteen years younger than you,” she inadvertently let slip. He looked at her with that captivating grin of his and said, “Damn, you look more like you just got out of High School, girl.” That was the beginning of their romance. He was a forty year old divorced father of two, and she was a twenty-five year old wallflower still living with her parents.

Oh, how her parents had hammered her over their romance. They never missed an opportunity to make her feel foolish and used, and they always treated him so coldly when he’d come by to pick her up. One time he came over with his two children, Raymond Jr. and Elizabeth. “Lizzy” was twenty-two at the time, and that provided Jasmine’s parents with a whole new arsenal of ammunition to attack her with. But as they got to know Ray better, they accepted him despite the large age difference. In time, they even came to love him because of the way he loved their daughter.

After six months she wanted to move in with Ray, but he wouldn’t hear of it. They had a loud argument about it at a restaurant one Saturday evening. She felt so rejected and angry that night that she threatened to walk out on him. He pounded his fist on the table and told her, “Young lady, you’d better behave yourself or you’re not going to be married to me.” She was about to scream back at him when she realized what he had said. Then he pulled a small box out of his pocket, opened it, and held it out for her to see the beautiful diamond engagement ring. His expression turned serious and he asked, “Will you be my wife, Jasmine?” Then his captivating grin appeared and she burst out laughing. He followed suit and they laughed for almost two full minutes. Her expression changed. She looked at him with tears in her eyes, took the ring and nodded her consent.

A Justice of the Peace married them two months later. It was a happy marriage, but she was always haunted by the fact that she was unable to have children. Ray’s own children drifted away from him after the marriage. He was eager to adopt a child, but Jasmine would not consent. Ray was happy in his second marriage, and he tried to be a good husband to Jasmine. He was dedicated to making this second marriage work.

Ray’s first marriage was a disaster. He had gotten his high school sweetheart pregnant in their senior year. They got married right away, and they both dropped out of school. Ray worked in a gas station until he was twenty-one, had two children, and realized his life was going nowhere. His wife got hooked on heroine after their second child was born. He ended up throwing her out and taking custody of the children. He had no way to take care of them himself, so he moved back with his parents, finished high school at night, and got a job as a trolley-car conductor. He raised the children the best he could, but his wife straightened out her life, sued for custody of the kids, and won. They were divorced shortly after that, and his ex-wife remarried. Ray finally consented to allow the two children to be adopted by their new father, and he regretted that decision for the rest of his life. They saw him from time to time, mostly when they got older, but they eventually just drifted away and out of contact.

Ray was promoted to trolley-car operator and accumulated some seniority. When the buses started to replace trolley cars in the late forties, he became one of the first black bus drivers in the company. He was so proud to be one of the elite who was no longer confined to the tracks. He was intoxicated with his new-found power to steer around stalled automobiles and to wheel the five-speed monster around the tightest turns. Aside from hopping a curb on an occasional tight turn, he was one of the best drivers the company had. He had a perfect driving record. The only accident he ever had was when a car rear-ended his bus while he was discharging a passenger, but that never got charged against his record.

When he first met Jasmine, he was one of only a few black bus drivers, and was therefore somewhat of a celebrity. In those days he wasn’t permitted to drive the “white neighborhoods”, but he was proud nevertheless. Number 1912 was his baby. He drove that first bus for almost eighteen years, until the brand new, air-conditioned, automatic transmission, V-8 diesel-powered replacement bus inherited the old “1912” designation in a brief ceremony at the bus repair terminal. He was so proud that he drove the new bus straight to his house that morning to show it off to his friends and neighbors. He caught hell from his supervisor, but he never got written up.

Their life together had been a pretty good one. With the two of them working, they had been able to afford a nice house in a good neighborhood. They even managed two one-week vacations each year. They had visited Europe, Hawaii, Alaska, Bermuda, and even Australia over the years. Ray quit smoking and kept himself in pretty good shape. When the cancer was detected during a routine chest x-ray in late 1974, it came as a total shock. Ray was determined to beat it, but it spread quickly. It was apparent to both of them by February that it was going to take a miracle to save Ray’s life. No miracles occurred.....


.....Ray started coughing and Jasmine jumped up to see if she could help. He stopped long enough to turn to her and whisper, “It’s my time, Jasmine,” and then he started coughing again. Jasmine panicked and ran out to get a nurse. When they got back to the room thirty seconds later, Ray was breathing erratically. His head was turned toward the door and he reached out for Jasmine’s hand. As she reached to take his hand in hers, his arm fell limp and he let out his last breath. She knew it was over, but she took his hand anyway and began to weep. She was a widow at forty-eight years of age.

5
Ann Willis

Thursday, 2 December, 1976
It was a cold and drizzly day in Indianapolis. Ann Willis parked the station wagon in front of the house and started to open the door. Her reflexes caused her to jerk the door back toward her the instant she heard the approaching car’s horn. “Jesus,” she shouted. “That was close.” She waited a moment for her pulse to return to normal, then looked into the side-view mirror before opening the door to let herself out. She closed the door behind her and opened the rear door to gather up the bags of toys, clothes and wrapping paper. With her hands full, she somehow managed to close the rear door, fish her keys out of her purse, and balance the entire load all the way to her front door. She fumbled to slide the key in the lock and turn it. As the door opened, she and her bundles squeezed through to the inside.

Christmas was only three weeks away. Every year she promised herself she’d do the Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving, and every year she broke the promise. This was only the first shopping trip. There were at least five or six more trips necessary. She and Ted had four children and seven grandchildren to shop for this year, not to mention her and Ted’s brothers and sisters, all the nieces and nephews, Ted’s dad and her mother. This was going to be a fun Christmas with the two new grandchildren, but it was their turn to make Christmas Eve dinner for the Willis clan and that was going to mean a great deal of work.

Ann took off her coat and hung it on the coat rack to dry. She gathered the packages and dragged them into the dining room where they would remain until it was time to box and wrap the presents. She headed immediately for the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Coke. She glanced at her watch and calculated that she had only an hour and a half before Ted got home. She wanted to make beef stew, his favorite, so she had to start right away. She rummaged through a drawer, removed the bottle opener and popped off the cap of the soda. She drank right from the bottle as she started gathering up the ingredients for the stew. She scanned through a mental check-list as she maneuvered around the kitchen; onions, carrots, celery, potatoes, chuck steak, peas.....


Ann was not very happy with how her life turned out. She never dreamed she would end up a housewife. That was the furthest thing from her mind during those wonderful years at College. She had gotten her BA in History back in 1940 and she was just starting several courses to complete her teaching credentials when she first met Ted. He was her Professor in the Elementary Education class. She had noticed him in the hallways during her senior year at College, but she didn’t know his name, and certainly never associated him with “Doctor Theodore Willis” when she signed up for the Education class.

She sat in the first row of the lecture hall, near the middle. Usually she would find a seat as far back as possible, hoping to enjoy the anonymity that comes with distance. She was so enamored of Ted that first day that she hardly heard a word of his lecture. As for Ted, he found it hard to take his eyes off the beautiful young woman only a few yards from his lectern, and he found his train of thought broken several times. As the bell sounded to signal the end of the class, Ted broke the unspoken commandment and approached his new student on a social basis.

“Miss Tasker, was it?” he asked cautiously.

“Yes, that’s right, Professor.” She was visibly shaken by his approach. “It’s Ann, Ann Tasker.”

“Look, I don’t ...that is, I usually...what I.....” His face went red with embarrassment. She stared back in shock. He finally gained his composure. “I don’t make a habit of this. In fact I’ve never done anything like this before, but I couldn’t help notice you in class, and I....well...I wondered if you might like to have a cup of coffee or a soda with me...”

“I’d love to,” she interrupted, rescuing him from his obvious torment. “Do you mean now?”

“Yes, actually. Now is fine. And please call me Ted.”

“Okay, Ted. How about an ice cream soda?” She smiled and he smiled back. She gathered her books and they walked out together. She was floating on a cloud.

That was how it all started. She never did finish his class. She dropped it two weeks later and promised herself she’d take it next semester with a different Professor. They started dating almost immediately, and they both fell head over heels within weeks. She brought him home to meet her family about three months after they met, and they both knew by that time that they were going to spend the rest of their lives together.

They had been married for almost a year before they bought a house. She later calculated that it was probably on their first night in the new house that she conceived Debbie, their first child. Somehow her career had been set aside, although she wasn’t consciously aware of making that decision. It just happened.

The war shook things up at the college. Enrollment took a dive as so many of the eligible young men enlisted. Ted didn’t have tenure, but his department head kept him on part-time until the war ended. He supplemented his income working nights in a bombsight factory in town. They had two more children at one-year intervals, Paul and Joseph. Two years after Joseph, they had Betty, their fourth and last.

Lost in the world of family problems and responsibilities, they started taking each other for granted, and by 1952 they came close to separating. Ann actually had a brief affair at that time, but Ted never found out about it. They agreed to try marriage counseling, and it worked. But something changed inside of Ann that year. She actually did give up her career plans that year. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t already abandoned those plans years before, but she now made it official in her own mind. It brought about a subtle change in her behavior. She devoted herself totally to her family, and that devotion somehow became her reason for living.

She was active in the PTA, went to all the school plays and sporting events the kids took part in, and was a volunteer teacher’s aide until Betty finished grammar school. She watched what she ate, kept herself on the go, exercised regularly, and always stayed svelte and attractive. Even into her fifties, she looked ten years younger than she was.

Things began to change again as the children grew up and left home to start their own lives. With them being so close in age, the whole process of emptying the nest spanned only seven years. With each successive departure, a part of Ann’s soul was stripped from her. The first grandchild helped restore her soul a bit, but it was never really made whole again. As the grandchildren increased in number, Ann’s role changed quickly to baby-sitter and grandmother. It was a role that Ann didn’t really object to, but it made her life seem insignificant in retrospect. Now, at fifty-seven years old, she often thought about what paths she would choose if she had it to do all over again. The thing she wanted and missed the most was respect. She wished she could have been famous and important. She blamed her lackluster life on the fact that fate had made her a woman. She wondered more and more what it might have been like if she had been Andy instead of Ann.....


.....She slipped on her apron and tied it behind her back. She diced the onion and threw it into a stewing pot with salt, pepper and a tablespoon of shortening. She set the burner knob to medium and began to cut up the meat, potatoes, carrots and celery. The doorbell rang. She ran to answer it, but nobody was there. She found a circular stuffed into the mail slot when she closed the door. She pulled it out and read the mimeographed advertisement asking if they were interested in selling their home. She drew a cigarette from her apron pocket and placed it in her mouth as she walked back to the kitchen, still reading the circular. She pulled a book of matches from the same pocket, opened it and tore off a match. She set the circular on the countertop and struck the match on the rear of the matchbook. She didn’t know that the pilot had gone out and the burner had not ignited. She didn’t smell the gas that filled the kitchen.

The explosion was so loud that neighbors down the block heard it. Ann was aware of the bright flash and the searing flames as she was thrown to the floor, but she heard no explosion. Her clothing was on fire and her entire body was in agony from the searing heat of the flames enveloping her. Her last confused thought was about rescuing her tiny newborn baby, Debbie. She was dead within fifteen seconds of striking the match.

6
David Pearlstein

Wednesday, 18 August 1976
Rabbi David Pearlstein’s coffin was open before the service began, and the family members viewed him one last time. They were in a Jewish funeral home about ten miles from the Rabbi’s Synagogue. His wife Rose, his two sons Michael and Eric, their wives, and his two grandchildren paid their last respects. Rabbi Milton Silkovitz was temporarily assigned to the congregation, and he felt extremely out of place. He did not know Rabbi David Pearlstein personally, and this service would be an awkward one for him. He had spent a few hours the prior afternoon interviewing the family and friends, trying to formulate a suitable eulogy. Much to his relief, Michael had requested that he be permitted to give the eulogy at the service and that relieved Rabbi Silkovitz of the largest of his burdens.

“The coffin will be closed in another five or ten minutes,” Rabbi Silkovitz announced. “Then you can take your places in the chapel and we’ll allow the rest of the friends and congregation to enter.” He looked over to the widow to confirm that she understood.

She nodded and said, “Thank you, Rabbi. It’s all happening so quickly.”

Rabbi Silkovitz commiserated with her and the rest of the family. “This is the Jewish way. It’s better to get it over with quickly.”

Some of the family members nodded in agreement. The Rabbi left the family chamber, and after about ten minutes, the family members drifted out into the chapel area and sat down. As they entered, they noticed that the coffin was indeed now closed. The main doors of the chapel were then opened and people flowed in. They followed one another in a single long line to pay their respects to the family members in the first row. They then seated themselves and waited for the service to begin. There were over two hundred people that came to the service, and it took well over thirty minutes for them to get through the line and seat themselves.....


David Pearlstein was born in Germany in 1910. He was the son of a watchmaker, and he decided very early in his life that he wanted to be a Rabbi. He made his family proud as he studied for his chosen vocation. He became a Rabbi at age twenty-seven and was unable to find a congregation in the area. Anti-Jewish sentiment was running rampant in those days, and it was clear to David that he and the family must flee Germany while they still could. But his parents and his two brothers decided that they wanted to stay. His father gave David money to bribe the appropriate officials, and David began a solo journey to America.

The journey took David through Switzerland and into Italy. There he found his way to Spain on a small freighter and ultimately booked passage on a steamship to Mexico. He bribed his way across the US border and came in as an illegal alien. He worked his way back to New York where he met up with a Jewish relief organization that his father had told him about. They helped him get papers and eventually, after the war, helped him gain American citizenship.

Word came to him during the war that his entire family had been sent to concentration camps. When the war was over in Europe, he confirmed the hideous truth about the death camps and the fate of his entire family. He gave up on his faith for a while immediately following that news, but he somehow managed to pull his life and faith back together two years later.

In 1947, at the age of thirty-seven, David finally got his own congregation in a small South Jersey community. His delight was like that of a little child. He could now begin fulfilling what he knew at age thirteen to be his destiny. His Synagogue included a house on the adjacent land, and he moved there in late April. From the beginning, he was a wonderful Rabbi. All members of the congregation were supportive. The matchmakers went to work at once and introduced him to Rose. She was the beautiful twenty-six year old daughter of a prominent businessman in the community. David loved her at first sight, but she took a bit longer to warm up to him. The age difference was a problem to her, and his foreign accent and mannerisms were an annoyance to her. She finally came around in 1950, however, and they were married.

Michael and Eric were born in 1951 and 1952 respectively. They were the apple of David’s eye. He was a doting husband and father, and he always managed to find time for a picnic or a game of catch with the boys. He taught them Judaism in a unique and powerful way. He’d tell them bible stories as if he were right there when it was all happening. He would inject just the right amounts of humor, intrigue and suspense into the stories. Then the boys would ask questions afterward, and he’d explain everything in fine, glorious detail. They grew up to be wonderful, religious gentlemen. They both got married while they were in college, and they both presented David with fine grandchildren.

Rose’s life was just as fulfilling as David’s. She took an active part in the Synagogue and in the community. She was a wonderful and supportive mother to the two boys. Love seemed to flow around the Pearlstein family, but especially around Rose. She was attentive to all of David’s needs. She was there for him on the many nights when he awoke screaming from the horrible nightmares about his mother and father and brothers being gassed or burned to death. She would hold him and stroke his forehead until he calmed down and fell back to sleep.

By 1960 the nightmares were coming almost every night and it got to the point where David was afraid to go to sleep. He would lie awake until the wee hours of the morning, doing everything he could to fight off sleep. He had a mild nervous breakdown that year. He was hospitalized for two weeks and then he underwent outpatient psychotherapy for almost three years. He finally got his demons under control, but it took a lot of hard work on his part as well as the family. Ultimately, it was his deep faith in God that got him over the hump. He was finally able to make some sense of the deaths of his family.

He understood that God had reasons for everything that He did, or allowed to be done. In the grand scheme of existence, every life was a celebration of God. Every death was simply the return of one of God’s children, and ultimately a birth was there to fill the vacuum left by each death. And so, to David it even became clear that the therapy and the healing were also the work of God. God had some divine purpose in everything.

David became an even better Rabbi for the remainder of his years. He was wise and perceptive beyond anything he had been before his breakdown. He had a true and profound bond with God. He was certain that God had spoken to him back in the early 1960’s. He celebrated each and every day of his life from that point forward. He would gladly have sacrificed his own life if God wished it of him. Life’s meaning was clear to him, and as a Rabbi, a teacher, he was chosen to convey this wonder to his congregation and anyone else who might listen.

When David collapsed on Monday, August 16, he stopped breathing. The rescue team’s remarkable skills enabled them to revive him and get him to the hospital. But the damage to his heart was too severe. He lay there with his wife at his side, knowing he was about to die. He shed no tears at all, even though Rose was a non-stop water works. He took Rose’s hand and instructed her, “Be strong for the children and for the congregation. I am finally about to rejoice in the glory of God.” He smiled and he was gone.....


.....The service was a memorable one. Michael gave a wonderful eulogy. There was a seventy-four car procession to the cemetery. After the coffin was lowered into its final resting place, Rose threw the first symbolic handful of earth onto the coffin. As she did so, a sudden gust of cool air hit her squarely in the face, and she was certain that she heard David’s voice whisper, “Good-bye, my love.”

Chapter Two

1

Hank Alderfer was confused. He couldn’t imagine where he was. His first thought was that he must be having a dream. But he didn’t ever remember having a dream and knowing it was a dream until after he awoke. Whatever was happening, it was certainly like nothing he had ever experienced before. He seemed not to be able to feel his body, yet he could see himself. He could see his hands and arms, and he could move them, but when he brought his hands together they passed through one another without any resistance. He thought he should feel scared, but he did not.

He had the sensation of moving rapidly through a corridor. All seemed black to him, yet he thought there must be light somewhere because he could see his own body clearly. His senses told him there simply had to be light, but he could find no source. He then thought that he himself must be the source of light. Maybe his body was glowing in the dark.

He was totally naked. Even his wristwatch and crucifix were gone. Then he noticed that his skin was flawless. There was no scar on his right arm from the plowing accident. He saw no birthmark on his left foot. And there was no hair on his arms or legs. There was no hair anywhere. And then he realized that he had no real coloration either. His body was white and gray. There were no flesh tones. There were no colors anywhere he looked.

He realized next that he felt no pain, no discomfort, not even any urge to urinate. His senses of touch were gone. There was no hunger or thirst. He had form, but no substance. What was he? Where was he?

He remembered climbing aboard the tractor and then having the sharp pain in his arms and chest. He remembered falling from the tractor. But he could not remember anything beyond that. It was as if falling from the tractor was the last thing that ever happened to him. Then he thought that this must be a dream. He had probably passed out. But it just didn’t feel right. You simply don’t dream that you’re dreaming.

His mind began to drift in another direction. There was something else that he was just becoming aware of. It was like a sense of wellbeing. He felt no emotions at all. He wasn’t scared, or concerned, or angry. He was simply without emotions. He thought to himself. What were the five senses? Then he had a vivid memory of his fourth grade teacher speaking to the class about the five senses. Sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing. Then it hit him. They were gone. He had no senses except sight.

He tested his new theory. No, he couldn’t taste anything in his mouth. He couldn’t hear a sound, nor smell anything at all. But he definitely had sight. He looked all around and saw nothing but his own body, so he began to study it in better detail. He scanned his arms, and then his legs. He started with his right foot and scanned his shin and calf, his knee, his thigh.....He was startled to find that he had nothing between his legs. He had nothing at all there. He reached down to his crotch in a reflex reaction. His hand and arm just passed right through his body. Again the thought hit him that he had form without substance. Then he wondered how he could urinate if he had to. But he somehow knew that he would not have to.

The thought returned that it must be a dream, and he focused on his surroundings again. He couldn’t tell if he could propel his body. There was no visual point of reference. He worked his feet trying to spin in a circle, but he felt no sense of spinning or dizziness. There was no sense of gravity, either. He was certain that he was floating weightlessly. He then sensed something he had not sensed before. Were his eyes just playing tricks? No, he was sure he had seen it. It was a pinpoint of light, so small it seemed to disappear as he tried to look at it. He remembered a little trick he had learned somewhere in his past. He looked slightly away from the elusive dot of light and.....yes, he saw it for a brief moment again before it disappeared. Then he began shifting his gaze back and forth ever so slightly. It was an old night-vision trick a friend had taught him when they went camping in his youth. Yes, he could see it. It was definitely there, but he had no way of telling if it was close or far away.

He tried to walk toward it, but he felt futility. He just had no way to know if anything was happening at all. Then he concentrated on moving his body toward it, but it had no effect at all. The pinpoint of light was there, and he knew somehow that it was significant in some way. He remembered what frustration had felt like, and he expected now to begin feeling it. But, frustration did not occur. Then he got distracted again and he focused on his lack of senses. There was something else wrong, but he couldn’t pin it down. Something else besides the lack of senses and substance! He worked through it in his mind. Breathing! That was it! He realized he wasn’t breathing. And then he realized he didn’t feel a need to breathe. He tried to breathe, yet nothing happened. At first he prepared himself for panic, like the thoughts of a drowning man. But panic never came. He was intrigued now. He almost couldn’t imagine living without breathing, but here he was doing just that. Then for a split second he thought that perhaps he wasn’t alive, but he dismissed that thought at once. After all, this was just a dream.

He wondered how long he had been dreaming. He remembered something about dreams taking the same amount of time as if the events had happened while awake. But suddenly time was a strange concept to him. How could this be so? Time was time. Everything was tied to time. Past and future were concepts that had no meaning if not for time. Movement itself was described in terms of time. Yet, he could not now seem to understand time. He could not bring himself to find any point of reference for it. He felt no pulse, saw no watch hands, and he took no breaths. But he did have memory of time. He knew that his memories had chronology. He knew that boyhood memories preceded adult ones. Still, in the present, time was an elusive concept. It just didn’t seem to apply anymore.

There was something about time that he remembered reading once. It was an article in the Readers’ Digest, and it described time as a man-made dimension. It had seemed so silly and incomprehensible when he first read it. Time couldn’t be man-made. But here he was in some kind of dream world where time did not seem to exist.

He tried to re-focus on the one thing that was of real significance to him. There was a pinpoint of light in his strange new world, and he wanted to get closer to it and explore it. But how was he to do that? Then, he had an idea. He scanned with his eyes and again located the pinpoint of light. He began his night-vision trick, darting his eyes around the faint dot, and he worked his feet to try and turn around. The dot stayed in exactly the same position. In his mind that could mean only one thing. He wasn’t turning. He was not able to propel himself.

He wondered if he was interpreting things properly in this dream. Maybe the light was somehow attached to his body. Maybe he really was turning and the light was following along. It amazed him how hard it was to do a simple thing like figure out his orientation with respect to that point of light. He realized that he had to learn new ways of dealing with things. He had to find some point of reference to take the place of time and perception. He thought about it and couldn’t seem to figure out anything else to try. Then he just haphazardly focused on the light and tried all sorts of body movements. He twisted his torso, turned his head this way and that, bent over, and leaned back and forth. Nothing seemed to provide any meaningful information about his orientation with respect to the light.

He was running out of ideas. He decided that maybe he could simply end the dream at will. He told himself to wake up. He made a conscious effort to awaken himself from the dream. He tried to open his eyes even though they were open in the dream. Another realization hit him. He wasn’t blinking his eyes in this dream. He felt no urge or reflex to blink. But, he set that thought aside for the time being, and he began to concentrate as hard as he could on waking up. Wake up, wake up, wake up.

The entire situation was beyond him. He could not figure out how to do anything. He certainly knew this was a dream unlike any dream he had ever experienced in the past. His mind was racing now. He was recapping everything he had tried, frantically trying to figure out new things to try. It was like a game now. His mind seemed to be traveling at the speed of light. He was trapped inside a maze and exploring every avenue left open to him, and yet he felt none of the frustration that his conscious mind would have felt.

Then his thoughts stopped instantly. He felt a warm sense of wellbeing. He was simply floating in this vast unknown world. Just he and the point of light. He thought to himself that this was all so insane. Instead of trying so many different ways of getting to the light, he wished that the light would just come to him.....

There was an overwhelming jolt. He felt himself accelerate with more thrust than the wildest roller coaster he had ever ridden. He was thrown forward at such an incredible speed that his mind could not comprehend it. Yet there were no other physical sensations accompanying the acceleration. There was no wind in his face, and his arms and legs and head were not thrown back. It was as if his body was a rigid structure, yet he knew that this was not the case. This was turning out to be a stranger dream than he had imagined.

The light was directly in front of him. It was still just a tiny, faint point, but he no longer had to shift his eyes back and forth to see it. Was it getting brighter? Yes, he was getting closer to it. Or maybe it was getting closer to him. Whichever was the case, it suddenly made no difference to him at all. The light was getting brighter and brighter. It began to grow in size as well as intensity. As it continued to grow, the intensity became brighter than anything he had ever known. He felt as though he were being hurled into the sun itself, yet there was no feeling of heat associated with this intense light. Then it was upon him, and for one instant it was completely overpowering and blinding. He and the light were one.


2

Jack Casey was trying to figure out where the doctor had gone. He had just been standing there explaining to Jack how liver and kidney failure affected the body. He tried to be as forthright as possible with Jack. He had known him for many years, and he knew Jack was scared of dying. Jack had asked him to explain what was happening, and Doctor Jennings was trying to put everything into lay terms so Jack could understand. Jack was heavily sedated, so his fears were alleviated by his numbness. The doctor was explaining how the continued effects of excess alcohol eventually destroyed the liver and why it was irreversible. Then, like magic, he simply disappeared. No, everything disappeared.

Everything had gone dark. Jack’s first thought was that there must have been a power failure, but then he realized it was the middle of the day, and the sun had been shining in the hospital room window. He was in total and absolute darkness.....No! That wasn’t the case. He could see his own naked body. But, he hadn’t been naked. His pain was gone, also. Not alleviated, but gone; totally gone.

Jack studied his own body and its bizarre lack of color and definition. It occurred to him that he was just having a dream, but he dismissed that notion at once. Doctor Jennings was there in his room because Jack knew it was only a matter of minutes before he would die. His heartbeat had been erratic and weak, his breathing was labored, and delirium was setting in. Jack was feeling uneasy now. Somehow he knew he was dead. He had been preparing himself for death over the last three months. He had been certain that death would be the end of everything. All thought would cease and his body and brain would turn to maggot food. There was no God or Heaven! What was happening?

Where was he? Jack knew he could figure it out if he put his mind to it. He was smart...he was logical...he was a shrewd attorney and businessman. What bothered him the most was that he now knew he had been wrong about death. Everything didn’t just stop. Was he wrong about God, too? Then, if that were so, was it possible there really was a Heaven and Hell? Jack braced himself for a rush of fear, but it never came.

He could not seem to get the image of Hell out of his mind. He slipped right past the question of whether Hell existed, and he began to wonder what Hell would be like. He was floating in a vast blackness, feeling almost nothing, and from out of nowhere the lifeless face of Fred Stoner surrounded him. He tried to turn away from the image, but it followed wherever he looked. He hadn’t thought about Fred for ages, but now he couldn’t tear his mind away. Hell and the murder of his innocent friend were inseparable. He braced himself again and again for that onslaught of fear, but it just never came.

This was crazy. His logic told him that he should be scared to death of what was coming, but he somehow was devoid of emotion. For a moment it occurred to him that perhaps his lack of emotion might in itself be the basis for his own private Hell. But that didn’t make any sense to him, so he tried to pry his thoughts away from the subject. He directed his energy toward figuring out where he was and what was happening. He somehow felt that he was on a journey of sorts. He looked around and saw absolutely nothing. He turned his attention back to his own body. He felt detached from it, and he couldn’t quite understand the lack of feeling. Then he was suddenly aware of something coming rapidly toward him. He looked up and he saw the hideous distorted body of Fred Stoner running toward him with arms extended. Fred lunged at Jack and his hands were groping for Jack’s throat. Jack reacted instinctively. He ducked his head and twisted to one side as Fred’s trajectory carried his body directly over Jack’s head. Jack snapped around to prepare for Fred’s next attack, but Fred was gone. In bewilderment, Jack turned back to look behind him, but Fred was nowhere in sight. Jack thought to himself that it must just be his mind playing tricks on him. He relaxed his vigil and turned back around. To his astonishment, Fred’s body was lunging toward him again, but he didn’t quite have enough time to totally evade the threat. Fred’s extended hand caught Jack in the side of the face.......but Jack was once again astonished. He thought that he must have misjudged his or Fred’s speed. Somehow, Fred had not made contact at all. But he could have sworn that he....

Jack knew there was no time to waste. He had to prepare for battle. He snapped around to face Fred, and he was gone again. Jack was totally bewildered. How can someone just come and go like this? Not just someone, but a dead man. Jack was too confused to think straight. None of this made sense. He spun around in the darkness screaming, “Where are you, you son of a bitch?” But he heard no sound coming out of his own mouth. The confusion increased, and Jack spun around looking for his invisible enemy. And finally he screamed in silence, “Come to me, you lousy dead bastard.” Like a shock wave, he was hurled off in a sideward direction. His first thought was that Fred had crashed into him, but Fred was nowhere to be found.

Jack now spotted the small point of light in his path. He was approaching it rapidly - its intensity growing at an awesome rate. Whatever it was, there seemed to be no way of avoiding it. He braced himself for the impact as he stared straight ahead trying to make out what it was that he was about to collide with. But the collision never occurred. The light got so bright that he thought his eyes were burning out of their sockets. And then he was enveloped by it, and he was a part of it.


3

One moment Joan Spencer was driving along thinking about being the next Einstein, and then everything went dark. Her first reaction was that her sight had failed, and she instinctively stomped on the brake pedal. But there was no pedal. She dropped her head in a reflex movement, looking for an explanation to this peculiar set of circumstances, and she saw her naked body. A rapid series of questions went through her mind immediately. Where am I?...What happened?...Where are my clothes?...Where are mom and dad?...Am I okay?...What time is it?...Where’s my term paper?...Where’s the car?...Am I hurt?...

...She interrupted the helter-skelter thought process to take control of things. She looked around to assess her situation and saw that she was totally alone and in the dark. She saw that she had no clothes on. She looked to see what time it was, and realized her watch was gone. She was suddenly disoriented. She tried to focus herself on her senses but determined quickly that only her sight seemed to work. She wondered if she were paralyzed in some way. She moved her arms and legs and she discovered that it took no effort to do so. As she reached to feel her torso, she felt nothing and she watched in confusion as her hands and arms passed right through her body. Could she be dreaming this?

Then her body itself became the object of her investigation. She noticed she had no hair at all anywhere on her body. There was no polish on her fingernails. She realized that there was no coloration anywhere. Then she carefully looked all around her and studied the total blackness. She wondered how she could see her own body if there were no light anywhere. Then she looked back at her body, drawing her hands together near her breasts. She moved her hands over one another, and even through one another, and saw that there were no shadows of any sort. Her science-disciplined mind told her that her body was its own source of light. She was glowing in the dark. But she knew this was impossible. Then another thought went through her mind. She repeated the last movement of her hands, thinking that perhaps there might be a source of ultraviolet light around her. Her eyes would not be able to see it directly, but it might illuminate her body through fluorescence. But her scientific mind rejected that theory right away because there still would have been shadows. She had to stop again and regroup her thoughts.

She decided to reconstruct her movements just before the darkness struck. She remembered driving to the library. She was going to make a copy of her Physics term paper. She was driving down Preston Street. Then she remembered passing the donut shop. That would have been Walnut Street. She remembered seeing the Mobil station, too. That put her at Preston and Main. That was it. That was the last thing she could remember.

A new thought entered her mind. She must be unconscious. Was she dreaming? Was she comatose? Could she have fainted? She tried to pinch herself, forgetting for a moment what she had previously observed, and her right hand passed through her left forearm. That did it. Now she was getting annoyed. But it struck her that somehow she wasn’t getting annoyed enough. The situation called for alarm, but she felt no real sense of alarm. The situation was scary, wasn’t it? But, she didn’t feel scared. “That’s it!,” she proclaimed. She didn’t hear her own voice. “What the hell?” Again she heard nothing, but her keen mind suddenly made a whole series of scientific observations. She felt no air...She wasn’t breathing...She was weightless...There was no gravitational force...She felt none of the emotions she expected to feel...She was in a scary situation, but wasn’t scared...She heard no sound at all...She detected no heartbeat...She felt no pain...She felt nothing...Her body had no substance...She wasn’t blinking...She couldn’t close her eyes...

She assessed the observations. It could only be her subconscious at work. It must be a dream or something like that. She wondered how she could prove it was a dream. Could she control her own thoughts during a dream? There must be some scientific way to do this! How does one wake up from a dream? Then something occurred to her. She remembered once dreaming she was rolling over a cliff, and then waking up to find she had fallen out of bed. She decided to try it.

She imagined herself lying by a precipice. She concentrated on making her body roll toward the cliff. Roll...Roll...Roll...She was rolling, and the cliff was right there...and over she went. She didn’t wake up. Then she realized that she didn’t let herself hit the ground. That’s what she should have done! She decided to go through it all once more, but this time to let herself continue through the fall until she hit the ground. She imagined herself again near the cliff. She began to roll...She was over the cliff...She imagined the fall...She visualized the ground approaching...She saw the jagged, rocky surface she was going to land on...She crashed face down onto the rocks...

Nothing! She tried it two more times, each time changing the scenario from that of the previous fall. Still she could not wake up. She decided to abandon that tack. She remembered once dreaming that she was urinating and then waking up to find she had wet the bed. It was worth a try, at least. But when she tried, she came to the realization that she could not even imagine an urge to urinate.

She immediately switched over to the scientific observation mode. She leaned over and looked at her crotch. She realized that the whole area was smooth and continuous. The thought went through her mind that she didn’t even have the equipment to pee with. That explained why she couldn’t imagine urinating. She looked at her breasts. There were no nipples. Her mind raced again, trying somehow to process this latest data. She was sexless. Was this just part of the dream?

Joan Elizabeth Spencer was running out of ideas. She should have been angry with herself, but she wasn’t. She didn’t seem to care. Was that possible? None of this made any sense to her, and confusion was not something she was accustomed to. She took an imaginary deep breath and concentrated on coming up with new ideas. A thought began working its way into her mind. It was almost as if it were not originating within her own mind, but somehow entering on its own accord. (the intersection) She tried to focus on the thought (the intersection), but it was evasive. (the intersection) It felt peculiar to her. She knew there was something there, yet she knew she had to wait for it to come to her. (the intersection) It was like waiting for a bus. There was nothing she could do but wait for it to arrive. (the intersection) It was a familiar thought. It was beginning to take shape in her mind...

Pow! She knew the significance immediately as the image formed in her brain. The intersection of Preston and Main. The Mobil station wasn’t the last thing she remembered. She could see the traffic light clearly now. She could see it coming closer. She saw it passing up over the windshield as she approached the intersection. Her peripheral vision picked up the truck on her left side. The light was red! It was red...red...red...red...red...

Joan’s memory unlocked its last few secrets. The truck had smashed into her broadside. Her body got slammed up against the left side of the car. Her faced got squashed against the door glass. The steering wheel crushed through her chest and everything flashed bright white in front of her eyes...

...Joan didn’t need to remember any more than that. She looked at her naked body. The chest wasn’t crushed. Of course it wasn’t. She understood now that it was not a body at all, but only a vestige of conscious memory. It was just a symbol of substance. A form to accompany the memories that still continued after...after...

She tried to postpone the thought, but it seemed to force its own way out. She knew at once that she was dead.

Now she had a whole new set of questions to answer...Was she in Limbo?... Was she in Heaven?...Was she in Hell?...What would happen to her?...Was God here?...Did God exist?...

She switched back to the role of observer. This time she examined her surroundings from a different perspective. Knowing she was dead, she had to figure out where she was. She wasn’t even certain that the term “where” had any meaning. She knew that her body was an apparition. But why was that necessary? How could consciousness remain after death? She set her mind to explaining these mysteries.

Her thought processes were scientifically structured. She could use pure logic and reason to systematically get to the truth. And she had that wonderful gift that not many people shared, the power of abstract thought. She began her way through the thought process.....

She started with the basic knowledge that she was dead, whatever dead meant. The toughest part of the process was dealing with the fact that death was not the end of consciousness. Once she got past the acceptance of that point, the rest was easy for her. She deduced that, if the consciousness lives on, a purpose must exist. Since form existed in the consciousness, the purpose must involve some perception of dimension. That meant that the purpose involved a place of some sort, perceived or real. The place was not where she was, so it must be elsewhere. Then, either she must transport herself to the place, or the place must transport itself to her. In the abstract sense, she knew that either choice was identical. She also knew that purpose meant intelligence, and she knew that the intelligence must be on a plane greater than mankind. She knew that there must be a God or Gods. And she knew that it served no purpose to remain where she was or to continue with her reasoning. God was the highest concept that mankind could understand.

Now she knew exactly what had to be done. She spoke into the silence of her consciousness, “Thy will be done.” And Joan Spencer was transported.


4

Raymond Williams accepted death. He somehow knew that the stories he had heard must have some merit. He knew he had to go toward the light.

The pain was suddenly gone from his chest. Jasmine’s form simply disappeared as she was reaching for his hand. He was overwhelmed by a sense of relief and contentment. He could still see his outstretched hand waiting to touch his beloved wife’s hand, but all else was darkness. His skin glowed, giving off an eerie, white light. He noticed that he no longer wore his hospital ID bracelet. He no longer wore anything. The sudden release of pain made him immediately aware that he was floating. As he looked around, he saw absolutely nothing. He couldn’t get his bearings. He experienced a brief moment when he thought he was spinning around like a top, but the feeling disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

His thoughts turned to Jasmine. He felt a strong surge of sadness coming on, but it didn’t come. Then he reassured himself that he had gotten all of his affairs in order before he died. He knew he no longer had to concern himself with the world of the living.

His attentions turned to the business at hand. He had to go toward the light. But, what light? He moved his head and eyes in a panoramic scan of his surroundings. There was nothing to be seen except himself. He thought to himself that this couldn’t be right. There had to be a light out here somewhere. Then it occurred to him that he himself was the only light source to be found. That puzzled him a bit. Was he supposed to go toward himself? What sense did that make? Almost automatically, he reached up to scratch his head. His hand passed right through. “Jesus,” he said. At least, he thought he said it. He heard nothing when he spoke, so he tried again and got the same result. But he decided he was going to speak anyway, even if nobody could hear. Speaking was the best way to keep his thoughts straight.

“Jesus, are you out here someplace?” he asked. “It’s me, Raymond Williams, and I just died. I’m trying to find you, Lord, but I don’t see anything.” He turned his head, as though that might help him be heard. “What am I supposed to do out here?”

He started to think about his predicament. All of his powers of reason seemed to be failing him. He just couldn’t accept the fact that there was no light. He had played the scene out so many times in his mind before he died. It was always so easy, and always the same. He would just suddenly appear in this long corridor, see the light, and walk over to it. So, what was he supposed to do now?

“All right, then,” he declared. “I’m just gonna have to think this one through a bit. There can’t be anything special you gotta know to die, can there?” He was pretty sure he knew the answer to that even as he asked it. “Lord, with your help I’ll figure this thing out and I won’t have to waste any more of your time.”

He decided to survey things a bit more carefully than he had before. “I gotta hold my arms down while I look for the light. The light must be real far from here, and the glow coming off of me must be making it hard to see.” He remembered how he could never see the stars when he was near the front porch light, and this light he had to find might be no brighter than those stars were.

He scanned the entire area. Twice he thought he caught a faint glimmer of light, but both times he was mistaken. Or was he? He remembered something from a TV show he had seen. It was about the human eye. Something about “dead spots” on the retina. He thought he should scan again, and this time he should circle the area a few times with his eyes if he even thought he saw a distant twinkle.

He scanned the area slowly while he mumbled to himself. “Where are you, light? You gotta be out there someplace. I’ll find you if you’re out there.” He scanned the entire area and saw nothing. But he didn’t feel impatient, even though he thought he should. So he scanned again and again. On his fifth or sixth try, he found the faintest distant twinkle and turned to face it squarely. It was so faint that half the time he couldn’t see it. Was it just his imagination? No, he didn’t think it was. “Dear Lord, I found you.” In his mind’s eye he clearly saw the distant twinkle as the headlights of God’s bus coming to pick him up for his trip to Heaven. “I’m waiting for you, Lord. If I can’t go to you, I guess you gotta come to me.”

The “bus” seemed to approach faster than he expected. He just watched patiently as the “headlights” got brighter and brighter. Then he had the sudden realization that it wasn’t a bus at all. He had never in his wildest dreams imagined a light so bright as this one. It was still pretty far away, only barely larger than a distant star, but the intensity was incredible. He felt like he was looking at the sun through a telescope. He expected it to hurt his eyes, but he felt no pain or discomfort at all. He glanced down at his own body for a moment, just to make sure that he wasn’t going blind from the light. There was no image burned into his vision like there sometimes was after a glance at the sun or a flashbulb. Somehow this light didn’t desensitize his vision. He directed his eyes back to the light and could hardly believe how much brighter it had become in the second or two that he looked away. He felt a strange sensation all of a sudden. It was like the light stopped coming toward him, and he was now thrust forward toward it.

As the light seemingly sucked him in, Ray rejoiced and shouted into the soundless depths, “Hallelujah!”


5

Ann Willis was screaming in agony from the flames enveloping her body. She inhaled the scorching flames and felt the burning of her lungs inside her. She could think only of saving her precious new baby girl, her sweet Debbie.

But, just as suddenly as it happened, it was over. She was confused and disoriented. Where was Debbie? No, Debbie wasn’t a baby. Debbie was all grown up. What had she been thinking? The pain was gone. What happened? Fire! It was fire. It was in her lungs exploding like it exploded outside of her. She was in the kitchen, wasn’t she?

She sorted out the details the best she could. She remembered going to the door and coming back to the kitchen. She lit a match....

“The gas!” she exclaimed. “It was the damned pilot again.” But how could the pain be so severe? She thought that she must have inhaled the gas before she lit the match, and....yes that had to be it. It literally felt like she exploded from inside her lungs. But why doesn’t it hurt?

She remembered that she had covered her face with her hands, and she couldn’t move. She was on the floor, and the pain was so severe. How could anything have hurt that much....

She suddenly thought back to the pain. But it was gone now. She didn’t understand. She realized that she was still holding her hands in front of her face. She was covering her eyes, yet she could see light. She pulled her hands back away from her face and stared out into the blackness of.....

The blackness of what? Where was she? Was she in a hospital? What was going on? “Ted,” she called. Or at least she thought she called him. She didn’t hear her own voice. She called out again, but she couldn’t even feel her voice inside. She felt no air escaping from her throat. She felt no air at all. She wasn’t breathing. There was no air to breathe. She thought for a second and realized she didn’t feel a need to breathe. But it should have been an involuntary reflex. She knew that breathing was a reflex, damn it!

And why was there suddenly no pain? She remembered the stew. She had to make the stew. Ted would be home soon. No, this is crazy. Where was she?

Her mind was traveling a million miles an hour. She was certain that she was completely losing it. She couldn’t stop thinking. Then it suddenly struck her that she could see. She had to figure out where she was.

She turned her attention to her surroundings. She looked all around, finding nothing but her own body suspended somehow in mid-air. But her body was naked and distorted. She was pale and gray. Even her breasts...No these weren’t her breasts. She scanned her entire body more closely and saw all of the lack of definition and the.....Was she a plastic doll? She looked like an undressed Barbie doll. Yes, that’s exactly what she looked like! But she had no sense of herself being there. It was so strange. Then she reached to touch herself and.....No, this can’t be! “Ted, please help me.” Again there was no voice...no sound at all...no air...no body.

Her brain was in total overload. She felt that she might faint….no….she reasoned that she might faint. She felt nothing. She was in a world where nothing made any sense at all. It was all dreamy and distorted and nondescript. Then, with some confidence, she decided that this just wasn’t real. This was a dream. She would wait until she awoke and then deal with things from that point. She decided that she wasn’t going to waste any more time dreaming. She thought for a moment and realized that she couldn’t control what she was going to do from within a dream. What kind of dream can this be?

This just wasn’t working for her. She knew she was a bright woman. She was not going to let this get the best of her. She was not a Barbie doll, despite what her eyes revealed to her. It was time to figure this out logically and calmly. She would just start back at the beginning and sort it all out. There had to be some logical explanation. If it somehow turned out to be a dream, or a nightmare, then so be it. Who cared if you wasted energy in a dream? It didn’t matter, did it?

She chose to begin at the point she entered the house with all the packages. Now she would simply reconstruct everything step by step. Yes, that was the way to handle this. That’s how a man would do it....She was suddenly stunned by that last thought. Had she really thought that? She couldn’t believe it. How a man would do it?

She thought it all out slowly and precisely. She was amazed by how vivid and detailed her memory was. She reconstructed her route through to the dining room and into the kitchen. Carefully she traced her steps through the gathering of the ingredients for the stew. She remembered turning on the gas, and then she remembered the doorbell. Then it was back to the kitchen, the cigarette and the match. She paused to consider the issue of time. How long had the gas been on? Could it have been long enough to explode the whole kitchen? The doorbell! Yes, she had to somehow measure the time from the doorbell to the striking of the match. She remembered in detail how she opened the front door expecting someone to be there. Nobody was there, and she thought it might be a prank. She stepped outside, didn’t she? Yes, she did. She stepped outside and looked both ways. She saw nobody, and she was convinced that it was a neighbor boy playing a trick on her. How could she have forgotten such a detail the first time through? But, that wasn’t important now. How long had it been? How long was she outside?

She remembered looking back and seeing the flyer in the mail slot. No! First she ran and had a look at the side of the house, and then back to look at the other side. She had seen nobody, and she was sure it was a prank. That is, until she noticed the flyer in the mail slot. What did the flyer say? Oh, yes, it was an ad from the realty company. That’s when she knew it wasn’t a prank. But, wait! It was drizzling and part of the flyer was sticking out, and it was wet. Oh, God, what does this have to do with anything? She concentrated and got herself back on track. She did read the whole flyer. She was just finishing reading it when she got into the kitchen. Then she took out the matches....No, she took out the cigarette, then the matches. She pulled the match from the book and closed the cover.....she always closed the cover...Oh, Ann, please stick to the point!....She struck the match, and...

She had to tally up the time. She went through it all one more time, assigning an estimated time to each step of the way. When she was done, she came up with almost four minutes. Was that possible? But, was four minutes enough time for the gas to fill the room? She thought about this in more detail. She remembered that the pilot had gone out several times before. She remembered when Ted was in the kitchen that one time when she turned on the burner and noticed that it didn’t light. She lit a match that time and there was a small explosion that singed her eyebrows. Ted went crazy and called her every word in the book for stupid! He even lectured her about what to do if the pilot went out. Shut off the gas and open the window! But how long was the gas on that time? She was certain that it was only fifteen or twenty seconds....A half minute maximum. Oh, God. She realized what four whole minutes could do. She started to reprimand herself, but stopped. What was the point?

Focus, Ann! Focus! She had to assess what had happened to her. The kitchen must have been filled with gas. She didn’t smell it. She should have smelled it, though. Didn’t Ted say they put something in it to make it smell really bad? She realized that she must have taken a breath or two of the gas before she lit the match. The explosion! She had to concentrate on the explosion. No, there were two explosions! She got knocked down, right to the floor. Then she felt the pain, and the flames. She could feel the flames. She remembered she wanted to scream. She started to take a deep breath so she could scream out, and the flames were there. She inhaled the flames. She felt the second explosion from within her. It was like someone had punched her in the chest from the inside......

She paused with the realization of what had happened to her. She thought for certain that she would collapse from the ordeal of re-living these horrible events, but she wasn’t exhausted at all. It was beginning to make sense to her. She knew what had happened. She knew she could not have survived it. She stared straight out into the blackness of wherever she was. And that moment she knew for certain that she was dead. But, the most remarkable realization was that it didn’t bother her.

She wondered what would happen now. Was this it? Did death just mean floating around in darkness with a Barbie doll, glow-in-the-dark body? This required some additional thought.

She pondered her fate for a while. God should be involved somewhere, shouldn’t he? Was there a God? Worse yet, was there a Devil? She thought back to those scary days as a young girl in church. The minister scared her so badly with his talk of burning in Hell. She had so many nightmares about it. But, it didn’t matter! She had to get a grip on herself. She was not going to Hell. She was going to Heaven. But how? Where was Heaven? Where was God?

This would take some sorting out. She had to concentrate. She tried to move. She tried walking and reaching out with both arms. But she couldn’t see anything or feel anything. Was she moving or not? There just wasn’t anything to look at to know if she was moving. A point of reference. Yes, that’s what it’s called. She had to find a point of reference. She looked all around and could see nothing but her own Barbie figure. She thought to herself that she must be missing something. There had to be something to see, or some way to go, or.....

Heaven and God captured her thoughts. God was supposed to be here for her now. Her next life was starting, and it was supposed to be spent in the Kingdom of God. This can’t be it. This just can’t be it. Why wasn’t God here for her? Then it occurred to her that maybe God was there. She turned her head up, as if looking toward the sky, and she called out in her silent non-voice, “God, please come and help me. Take me away to Heaven.”

She knew the moment she said it that it would be so. She felt her body respond immediately. She felt peaceful and calm, and she knew she was on her way to Heaven. As she saw herself approaching the overpowering light, a thought occurred to her. It was almost comical, but she couldn’t help but mouth the words.... “Sometimes you just have to ask.”


6

Rabbi David Pearlstein was surprised. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t exactly sure how it should have been, but he knew this was wrong. He remembered his Torah studies, but he just couldn’t remember the details that the Scriptures had spelled out. No, what was really wrong was that he had formulated in his own mind exactly what death would be like, and this was not consistent with his formulation. He thought that his surviving family and friends would have to recite Kaddish, the mourners’ prayer, for a month after he died, or his soul wouldn’t even be eligible to enter Heaven. His soul must lie totally dormant for eleven months and a day. Then, and only then, would his soul be re-awakened in the Kingdom of God. But nowhere was it mentioned that he would have consciousness outside of Heaven. He thought he was either going to find himself in Heaven, or simply not exist.

He knew that it made no sense to dispute the facts. Things were what they were. But deep inside he wondered if he had spent his life as a false prophet. This was an overwhelmingly unpleasant thought to him. At least it should have overwhelmed him. It certainly would have while he was alive, but somehow it was just a disappointment to him now. He was so sure of himself in life. God had spoken to him, hadn’t He? In life, he taught everyone around him that life was a celebration of God. If he were wrong about death, could he have also been wrong about life? No, he was certain that God had spoken to him. This was all just too wrong.

He reflected on his religious beliefs. He certainly believed that God worked in unexplainable ways. God might have wanted the Scriptures to inaccurately describe death. But why? David thought about this for a moment. Then he decided that it was not his place to question or challenge God. But here he was in this.....this..... He realized that he hadn’t even taken the time to evaluate his surroundings. He was too caught up in his own confusion.

He began to look around. Sight seemed to be the only sense that was working. He couldn’t touch and feel, and he couldn’t hear anything, even when he tried to speak. His body was some sort of apparition, and there seemed to be only nothingness around him. He was floating or drifting. He felt a slight sense of motion, but he couldn’t find a fixed point anywhere to verify that he was moving. He turned his attention back to his death-body. What a strange apparition it was. It was its own source of light, like the hands of a watch when the lights go out. Why was there a body at all?

There had to be some purpose in all of this. Maybe he had wrongfully interpreted the Scriptures, but he knew in his heart that God was real. He just had to be real! The only alternative would have been that David had wasted his whole life misleading his flock. But that was simply not a viable alternative to him. So David had some decisions to make. Here he was, wherever here was, and he needed to figure out what he should do. But, maybe he shouldn’t do anything. “Stop this debating,” he silently reprimanded himself. He only knew what he knew. He decided to assume that his beliefs about death were perhaps just distorted. That was a better way for him to look at things. After all, his forefathers had argued over the meaning of the Scriptures almost since time began. Interpretation! Yes, it must only be a matter of interpretation.

He contemplated the bible stories he was so fond of telling. Now he thought back to the Hebrew words and their hidden meanings. Hebrew was filled with double meanings. And the Scriptures had been written and re-written; interpreted and re-interpreted. Who could know what the original intent was? He began to repeat to himself, in Hebrew, all of the biblical passages he could remember on the subject of death. The problem was that he didn’t think in Hebrew, but translated it into Yiddish instead. Yiddish was his native tongue.

Although he had studied Hebrew for so many years, he was all too aware that he really wasn’t an expert. He began to doubt himself. Had he never really understood the word of God? But, he continued his efforts to remember the Hebrew words of the Scriptures. He knew so much of it from rote. He had spoken the words so many times throughout his life. But now he was being much more literal in the translation of each line. He probably knew half of the Old Testament by heart. He worked his way through the entire Bible, translating as he went. When he was finished, he was suddenly overpowered by what had transpired. He wondered how long it must have taken him to do all that. In his mortal time frame, he estimated that it would have taken weeks to go through it all. Then he realized that time no longer seemed to have meaning. And he suddenly wondered why he felt no hunger or thirst. But, of course, he quickly realized that he knew the explanation for that.

He directed his attention back to the immediate problem at hand. What should he do? Then a thought occurred to him out of the blue. Maybe his soul had been dormant for eleven months and a day. Maybe it was just now re-awakened. That must be it! He felt a sudden joy in the knowledge he had just gained. And he knew exactly what to do. Without a moment’s hesitation he began to pray.

As he prayed, he felt the sudden force of God embracing his soul. He was certain he would soon be with his mother and father and brothers. He prayed in Hebrew and the words no longer needed translation. He saw the bright portal of Heaven open up to him before his very eyes. And, with a spectacular flash of blinding light, he knew he was entering the Kingdom of God.