Introduction
There is a very large planet similar to Earth rotating around a distant star in the Andromeda galaxy some 2.5 million light years away, which has four continents, numerous archipelagos, and a range of human and other animals established on its surface. The planet’s natives refer to it as Dragan. The origins of the name are unknown, but probably came from the first human arrivals.
The inhabitants of Earth are not aware of Dragan’s existence until their lives on Earth end and they find themselves waking up to a new existence on Dragan. Every human and animal on Earth experiences this. While the ‘how’ of the process of leaving Earth and arriving on Dragan is known, but little understood, the ‘why’ of the process is completely unknown. Dragans are full of conjecture, but little hard evidence, about the mystery of why the inner essence of a human life separates from an Earthly body and travels through space and starts a new long-term existence light years away. This state of affairs is similar to the absolute uncertainty and lack of evidence humans on Earth have about what happens after life there ends.
Persons of a religious persuasion on Earth would, if they knew about Dragan, claim confirmation of some of their cherished notions of this so-called ‘after-life.’ But once they’ve gone through the process themselves, they are usually, at the very least, surprised at the reality. There is no main city with streets paved with gold or mansions for every single person and saints parading endlessly and eternally around a throne of God. As far as anyone on Dragan can ascertain, there is no God. In fact, Dragans find themselves shorn completely (some would say ‘freed’) from any and all religious belief and practice. There are spiritual practices, but nothing remotely like what was experienced on Earth.
This is not to say that Dragans don’t believe that there is no God (or even gods). In fact, intellectually speaking, many Dragans suspect that there may, in fact, be a supreme being directing things, one of the only explanations they can come up with to explain the aforementioned ‘why’ of things. Other Dragans think that a milennias-old process resulted in highly evolved inner human essences, freed of Earthly bodies, discovering one of the pathways through space and coming to Dragan, where they enjoy an existence of extremely long (could be ‘eternal’) life, the absence of illness, disease, decay, and aging, and other pretty special benefits.
The Dragans, in their communities, spend much time endlessly debating just how long life on Dragan is for each inhabitant, as well as the more central question: If the animal and plant life cycles of birth, maturity, aging, and death was so crucial to the endless cycles of life on Earth, how is the absence of the latter two on Dragan possible?
Trees, plants, animals, and people are born and come to maturity on Dragan, in addition to the humans and animals who arrive after lives on Earth. But no one really ‘dies.’ Trees and plants do fall and are consumed and otherwise used, but humans and animals do not. Enjoy a good steak or some veal or a hamburger on Earth? Sorry, there are some tasty Dragan equivalents, but they don’t come from animals. Yes, bad news: the human ‘after life’ is a vegetarian one. Dragans do enjoy milk and cheese and butter and those kinds of things from cows, so Dragan doesn’t equal Vegan. But it was it is.
I wrote this account of my own Earthly death and experiences on Dragan as part of the attempt at so-called ‘reverse communication,’ a controversial effort of the Terran Society in the Dragan city of Eren. The Society is a group of philosophers and scientists in one of Dragan’s largest cities which is dedicated to reconnecting to Earth, by either making the conduit between Dragan and Earth a two-way street, or at least finding a new route back.
There are people who choose to remain on Earth to help newly deceased people find their way to the conduits between the two existences. They’re called, quite simply, Guides. The Terran Society often gets communications from them, mainly from Transitionals (recently dead humans just arriving on Dragan) carrying notes from Guides to Society members. The Society has, however, never successfully sent anything back to the Guides or anyone else on Earth. It’s not for want of trying. But no Guides arriving on the other side have known of the Society and these attempts until after they’ve arrived here. It’s still a one-way street only.
The Society is at this time attempting a new method, which I’ll describe in detail later. If you’re reading this on Earth, the ‘reverse communication’ was successful in sending a message back. Earth and Dragan are on different planes of existence, not only in space, but also in time and other dimensions. It’s more complicated than mailing a letter back to your loved ones, but the Terran Society thinks it’s possible, mainly due to the existence of the Guides. Personally, I have my doubts. But there’s lots of free time here, so I’m game. It’s at the least an engaging mental exercise.
Whether you believe what I write here or not is up to you. What’s written here is the truth as we on Dragan experience it. There are, of course, personal opinions here. Ultimately, though, I think you’ll have to experience the journey to and life on Dragan for yourself before you’ll know whether it’s true or not. It is, after all, pretty unbelievable. ★
• 950 Words written by Steve @ 18:52 | 09-Dec-05 in Departure • Critique It
Chapter I ☯ Departure
Braniff International Departure Lounge, New Orleans Moissant Field, Aug. 6, 1966, 18:00
I’m sitting in a chair in an airport. Waiting on yet another flight. Taking a drag on a cigarette, trying to read the States-Item. Hard to concentrate since it’s been such a long day.
The best routing the travel agency could give me home to Minneapolis is a Braniff hop via a torturous route: Shreveport, Fort Smith, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Omaha. At least it’s a pretty comfortable jet, not one of the old prop jobs hopping around the sky. It’s a new British type, a BAC 1-11. The one sitting on the tarmac, my ride home, is painted bright orange and glows like a fireball in the early evening steamy Louisiana sun.
I’m Sean Donnelly. 42 years old. Single. What they used to call a ‘confirmed bachelor,’ wink-wink. I’m a journalist working for the Star-Tribune in Minneapolis. Not a star or anything, but I do pretty well and mostly have fun. I could still be back in Iowa, slopping hogs and mucking out barns, but I’d rather be clean, seeing different sights every day than just an endless procession of cows’ butts. It pays the mortgage, and, being single, I can save and take a nice trip every once in awhile. This particular one was a reward to myself after working over two years with only Sundays off. I have no life outside the press room, really. A colleague convinced me to go south, even though it’s August, to take in the jazz scene and kick back. The fare was reasonable and Pete Fountain and Louis Armstrong were in town.
I loosen my tie. It’s going to be a long evening after a long hot day, mostly spent walking around dripping with sweat, killing time before the flight. It’ll be nice to get back up north where it’s not a hellish jungle. I loved the music and food, but I’m thinking next time, I’ll come in mid-January.
A guy in a blue uniform walks up to the desk, starts talking to the gate agent. Four-striper. I can hear them because I’m sitting close so I can be one of the first on board so I can get a drink before take-off. I treated myself to a first class ticket for this one, as well as a few nights in one of the better hotels. It’s only money and what else do I have to spend it on? Yeah, pathetic, I know.
The four-striper introduces himself to the agent as Captain Don Pauly. They talk about weather and what happened in the hotel near Bourbon Street last night. They talk about how many passengers will be on board. Only a couple of lucky saps like me are with them for the hoppity-hop all the way to Minneapolis.
Two giggling stewardesses come walking up in new, brightly colored pastel uniforms. Things look like they’d glow in the dark. They walk up to the counter and start flirting with the Captain. Two minutes later, another pilot walks up. Almost instantly has his hand on a stew’s ass. He’s tall, younger and good-looking, but obviously not a player for my team. Captain looks like he’s pushing 50, mostly all business, but with a sense of humor. Looks like three stripes on the other guy’s uniform, so he’s obviously the first officer for our flight.
I look around the rest of the lounge. The usual suspects, nothing particularly striking. Smattering of cajuns and military types sitting around waiting for the first hop to Shreveport and either the Red River Arsenal or Barksdale Air Force Base. A hillbilly family who will probably get off in Fort Smith, take off their shoes, and head for the hills. Some businessmen. A woman and her daughter, who is holding a rag doll and reading a book, chewing a wad of bubble gum.
The lounge is decorated in the same shades of pastel colors as the stewardesses and the airplane sitting out on the tarmac. Braniff proclaimed the “end of the plain plane” and made everything cool and mod and hip and with it and coolio, daddio! I don’t care what it all looks like. It’s my ride home.
The flight crew, still giggling and pinching each other, walk over to the gate and down the jetway. The captain is smiling, but remains a bit apart from the other three. They disappear and it looks like we’re finally ready to board.
They announce the flight. I’m hop up and get on board. Need that drink. Stew up front smiles, takes my jacket, helps get me settled. I ask for a vodka collins, she brings it. A procession files down the aisle to the coach part of the plane. I sip my drink. 20 minutes later, the stew buttons up the plane and starts her safety spiel. Engines are spooling up and we’re pushed back. I tune out and take a nap.
Samantha (that’s the stew’s name) wakes me when we approach Shreveport. I’m wrong about the hillbilly family. They get off in Shreveport. The rest of the trip is the same. Up, down, coupla drinks, some dinner. I’m the only one going all the way through; by Fort Smith, the BAC 1-11 is beginning to feel like home and Samantha and I are old friends. The others in first are transients.
We touch down in Kansas City and find out there will be an hour wait. Samantha suggests a leg stretch on the tarmac. I walk to the terminal through more steam heat. Not as bad as New Orleans, but still humid. I get some more cigarettes, look around. Nothing remarkable; I’ve seen the scene before. Terminal announcements. Bored businessmen chatting up even more bored waitresses in the bar. Kids coloring or playing with dolls or running around. The smell of jet fuel, the occasional props firing up. I find a restroom. Same as any other anywhere. I’d rather talk to Samantha, so I sweetheart the gate agent and she lets me back aboard.
Samantha talks to me for 20 minutes, during which I learn it all … dickwad boyfriend, signing up as a stewardess with hopes that she’d be jetting off to Paris, but then being confronted with the reality of jetting off to Omaha and Fort Smith, daddy’s girl, girl voted most likely to do something-or-other. She’s flirting, but I’m too tired to care. She’s not exactly my type. Too blonde and too dependent on men. Her daddy, her boyfriend, the first guy from high school, the airline bosses who assigned her to Dallas and not London. I wonder why she chose to work for Braniff in the first place; they don’t even fly to London. I want to ask if Pan Am rejected her, but decide I’ve still got two segments and I’ll need more scotch and sympathy. Don’t hack off the stew.
People file out from the terminal; it’s time for the Omaha leg. After that, home at last. Samantha tells me it’s a light load. There’s 38 of us, three in first, taken care of by four crew members. The Omaha leg features, in first, a woman about my age, dressed in black who is dead silent and hands her coat to Samantha to take care of, then sits down and stares out the window on the other side of the plane, and a businessman who comes in, sits down behind the presumed widow, barks an order for a whiskey sour and then opens his briefcase on the tray table. Samantha serves drinks, mine first, with a wink. She puts his on his tray and walks away. He doesn’t even say thank you or look up. She gets ready for the usual spiel.
I look out the window. There’s a guy in Braniff coveralls sitting on a baggage tractor staring at the plane. I’m not sure he can see me, but I can feel our eyes lock. He slowly stands up on the tug, raises his hand in a farewell salute. The plane is pushed back. I can see to the north; there are flashes of lightning beyond the airfield perimeter. I look back at the guy on the tug. He’s still saluting as the plane turns away and I can’t see him any more. There’s an air of benediction to his act. For some reason, it irritates and unsettles me. Too dramatic.
Samantha comes to check my seat belt. She says the captain told her the flight crew of a Braniff flight which just landed from Chicago said there’s some bumpy weather on the way to Omaha, but he’ll try to give us a smooth ride by flying to the west of the front. I look back out. A series of lightning flashes light up the night, and I can see a line of very dark clouds up north beyond Kansas City’s downtown skyscrapers. It’s a little ominous, but I’m too tired to care. ★
• 1539 Words written by Steve @ 21:53 | 23-Apr-06 in Departure • Critique It
Chapter II ☯ Disintegration
Kansas City Metropolitan Airport, Aug. 6, 1966, 22:55
As we taxi, I glance at my watch. It’s almost 11. There’s a hold as we wait for an arriving flight and then I see a new Delta DC-9 move down the runway, gather speed and disappear into the darkness, its blinking strobes outlining its turn to the south toward Atlanta as it leaves the ground. We hold a bit, then move out onto the runway and, without a pause, rumble down the strip and get airborne quickly. We’re light and it doesn’t take long, the Rolls Royce Spey turbojets providing a big kick in the pants.
We turn northwest and I can see the lights of the city recede behind us. It’s smooth so far, but we suddenly level off. We’re not that high. A chime rings and Samantha reaches for the interphone. She talks for a few seconds, hangs up, then picks up the intercom and announces that we’ll be diverting a bit for weather to keep the ride smooth and that for everyone’s safety, they should stay seated with their seatbelts on until they get the word from the cockpit. She goes to the galley, starts some coffee brewing.
The woman across the aisle is still staring out the window. The businessman takes off his seatbelt and reclines his seat a bit. He’s reading a company memo and his lips are moving. He calls for Samantha, yells a demand for another whiskey sour without waiting for her to come down the aisle.
We’ll be in Omaha pretty quick, so I decide not to nap. I’ve also had enough vodka. I’ll need to be sober enough to drive home, since I left my car at the airport. I look at my watch again and pick up a magazine. It’s 10 after 11.
A sudden jolt gets my attention. Samantha is still in the galley, making the whiskey sour. I look outside. There are flashes of lightning up ahead. We’re still pretty low. Another jolt, then a continuous shudder. We start an up and down motion, the engine noise rising and falling with the plane’s motion. This is beginning to be uncomfortable.
A chime sounds. Samantha appears and answers the interphone. She’s not smiling, not looking at my direction. She hangs up and I hear some rattling around in the galley. She comes down the aisle, checking seatbelts. The businessman argues with her a bit, still wanting the drink. She stands firm, he petulantly buckles up. She glances at me, checks my belt, manages a smile, then disappears into the back. Couple of minutes later, couple more jolts, she’s back. Goes forward, lowers her jumpseat, sits down and buckles in. Very tightly. I’m not particularly worried; this is, after all, a very new, modern jetliner and I’ve been in turbulence before. What could happen?
We bounce again, this time much harder, and then the intercom comes to life.
‘Uh, folks, this is Captain Pauly from the cockpit. We’re experiencing a short stretch of rough weather right now, so we’d like you to stay seated with your seatbelts securely fastened until we’re through it. There’s a gust front coming down from Canada, but the good news is that we don’t expect it to last too long. Then we’ll go ahead and move on up to our regular cruising altitude of 20,000 feet and things will smooth out. Currently, we’re going to fly a little to the west into southern Nebraska a bit. We might be just a few minutes late for arrival in Omaha, but sit back and relax and we’ll have you on the ground soon. I’ve asked our flight attendants to be seated for the next few minutes while we fly through this, but Samantha and Jeannie will be back up to serve you very shortly. We’ll talk to you again in a few minutes. Thanks for flying Braniff International today.’
The bouncing gets worse. We drop a bit, then rise up very fast. My stomach is beginning to regret the vodka. I’m not a nervous flier, like I said. But within a couple of minutes it gets bad enough to make me change my mind. I grip the armrest. It seems to go on forever. It gets darker outside, the clouds lit by flashes of lightning. Inside the plane, it’s dead quiet with just the noise of the slipstream rushing past outside, the engines beginning to strain, the noise and pitch from them rising and falling. The woman still stares outside, but she’s now gripping her armrests tightly. The businessman has actually put his memo on the aisle seat and is staring outside too.
My eyes meet Samantha’s. She’s looking a little white. I smile at her. She manages a brave smile back. I’m thinking it’s a little odd that a veteran stewardess like her would be looking worried. She said she’d been flying for over five years. It’s right about then that things get interesting.
We’re suddenly wobbling side to side. Engines are straining and then backing off even more. I look at my watch. 11:11. It’s an odd time to die, I think, all ones. Wait, what? This is getting a bit surreal.
We suddenly get straightened up and it’s smooth for a couple of seconds. But then it happens.
It’s like a giant is standing there in a Nebraska corn field and is highly annoyed that we’re trying to get by him. Lightning flashes violently from his eyes and he draws back his hand and swats us from the sky with a huge undercut. He hits us from below and the right. Hard, very hard. It stuns us. Samantha’s eyes get very big and they’re locked on mine, her face very white. I don’t know what my own face looks like but I’m sure it’s not attractive. My brain feels scrambled.
The plane rolls and yaws to the left and then we hear this terrible, gut-wrenching metallic sound. The plane shudders, the engines are screaming. We’re freakin’ coming apart. I feel it. It’s in my bowels, my spine. My heart is pounding, adrenaline is coursing through my veins. My head is bursting, I suddenly have a massive headache.
My vision is fogged, but my eyes are still locked on Samantha’s. Her mouth is open like she’s screaming, but I can’t hear anything but the roaring of the engines. I glance sideways at the business guy; he’s got his eyes screwed shut, hanging on tightly to the tray table. His memos are flying all over the place. I don’t even see the lady ahead of him since her head has disappeared; I guess she’s put her head between her knees. I look back at Samantha. Samantha is, momentarily, my rock, my sanity.
About two seconds. That’s all it takes. Metal wrenching, everything vibrating. Another big jolt and the breath is knocked out of me. I suddenly grin; I shit my pants. It’s funny. The plane is coming apart, I’ve shit my pants, we’re crashing and I start laughing. I lose Samantha’s eyes. She shuts them tight and screams. I can’t hear anything but the loud roaring of wind. We’re decompressing.
We start nosing over towards the ground and we’re inside a tornado. Everything fogs over and paper, magazines, blankets, clothes, bags, dust, all kinds of crap start flying around. I’m hit on the head by a bag from the overhead bin, but I don’t even feel it. I start bleeding from the ears. I can taste blood on my tongue. My heart pounds away and I can feel the pulse in my head, in my ears; it’s pushing my blood, my life out of my ears. I can barely see, but Samantha is still there in her seat, her face a mask of blood.
My eardrums burst and suddenly it’s quiet and peaceful.
We start corkscrewing to the ground. There’s a sudden bang inside my head and Samantha and the cabin in front of me disappear in an explosion of stars and white light.
My last conscious thought?
‘Nebraska?! Aw, crap!’ ★
• 1405 Words written by Steve @ 21:54 | 23-Apr-06 in Departure • Critique It
Chapter III ☯ Limbo
Near Falls City, NE, Aug. 6, 1966, 23:12 CST
I’m told it’s very rare, but I’m still awake for the next part.
There’s a truly hideous, indescribable screeching in my ears. It’s a noise I can feel, it vibrates deep inside me. I can feel it ripping me apart, tearing me into tiny pieces. The noise is excruciating. I’m not breathing anymore. Parts of me, big chunks, are ripping away from me, falling away with the plane, like pieces of rock crumbling off a cliff.
A whiteness in my eyes is burning like searing phosphorous in my brain. I’m not moving. I’m just along for the ride. My old self, the pieces of what used to be me, is still falling with the plane. I feel this falling away. I feel the weight of the entire plane pulling my old self away from me, draining me. I feel it dangling from my legs, sloughing my body away. It’s heavy, really heavy. Tons. It falls. My pieces fall. But even through the pain, I suddenly feel that I’m starting to rise.
I can’t understand it, but the falling away and the rising is something I’m feeling at the same time. I feel pain and see nothing but intense light, but I’m rising. The parts of my old body that I still feel somehow are falling, dragged down to earth in what’s left of the first class cabin of Braniff International Airways Flight 250. The pieces of the BAC 1-11 corkscrew slowly into the ground. I’m still rising but falling, rising but falling.
Finally, the plane impacts, dragging the pieces that were me into the ground with it. I feel the earth, hard and unyielding, greet us, the plane and my body which seem to have fused into one. We smack into the soil of southeast Nebraska. There’s a final burst of noise and pain and colored light and then I feel a sudden lightness. I’m free of the plane, free of the old body, free and light and airy, free for whatever happens next.
There is no thinking during all this, no conversation in my head, not after I saw the time, 11:11, and ‘Nebraska?! Aw, crap!’ There’s noise and there’s light and there’s feeling, but there is no thinking after that. There is only the sensation of falling but rising for a time, then finally the separation, then I’m floating down to earth.
‘Aw, hell!’ I suddenly think. Wait, I’m thinking again! That was something. Say that again.
I’m relieved somewhat that conscious thought is still possible after all, that I appear to still be me.
I stay awake as I come to earth. There is simply a sensation of falling, then not falling, but I feel nothing from the impact. No pain, no crushing. I’m not crying, not hurting. I’m alive, but it feels impossible. I’m feeling some things, some sensations, some impossibilities, but not other things. There is lightness and air, but no more pain or noise. After coming down, I lie on the ground for awhile, not thinking again, not really caring where I am.
After a few minutes, my brain starts to function on a higher level again. I start assessing what’s happened to me. And what’s happened is, we’ve crashed. And died. Samantha, the woman, the businessman, the 35 in coach, Capt. Pauly, the other two crew members, everybody. All of us. This is death.
We were sitting there, thinking about business deals and philandering husbands and idiot children and hating the end of vacations and being glad to get out of Kansas City and where’s the damn stewardess with my drink and why do they make them wear those ridiculous get-ups? And then there were some scary bits and now we’re all down there together in some smoking hole underneath a thunderstorm in Nebraska, and we’ve made a pretty damn big mess for somebody to clean up, probably ruined a farmer’s corn crop or something.
And now I’m just lying in the dirt. It’s both real and unreal. I feel disjointed, which I am. Separated from my body. I’m lying a few hundred yards from a smoking crater, the remains of the main part of the plane. I’m confused, dazed, breathless. It’s going to take some time to figure this out.
A few feet to my left, something moves in my peripheral vision. I somehow manage to sit up. Samantha is sitting over there staring at me. She’s sitting more or less facing the flames from the crash, so I can see her clearly. There’s not a mark on her; she’s perfect, not a hair out of place. She is, shall we say in an understatement, surprised.
Lightning is still flashing, rain is falling, hail even. When it finally registers with me that it’s raining is when I notice something really strange; I’m not getting wet. I’m neither cold nor hot. Golfball-size hail is falling but I’m not feeling it hit me. Samantha raises her face to the rain, but her hair is dry, her makeup perfect. That’s when she starts to scream, realization similar to mine breaking over her like a wave on the beach.
I find that I’m able to move. I scramble over to her, start holding her. Her heart is beating wildly, I can feel it, I can feel her pulse pounding through her body in my arms. She keeps screaming. I realize I’m yelling right along with her. We sit on the ground, clutching each other, yelling for awhile. Seems the thing to do.
Someone finally walks up. It’s a woman, in a white and gray dress, wearing leather boots, a leather belt. She smiles at us. She looks about 25 years old or so, but feels much older. She’s calm and stands there looking down at us. We stop yelling and look up at her.
‘Well, that was quite unexpected,’ the woman says.
I find my voice.
‘Tell me about it,’ I say. It’s one of the first indications I have that elements of personality, like your sense of humor, survive your death.
‘You’ve just had quite a trip. Just relax, take a deep breath,’ she says.
I don’t argue with her or even ask questions. It doesn’t occur to me to do so. Samantha has her head buried in my chest, still sobbing. The rain is falling harder, the lightning is worse, the wind howls. But the woman’s dress isn’t wet or blowing in the wind. And we’re not wet either. There’s mud on the ground, but it’s not on us.
The woman walks closer, then sits, Indian-style, in front of us, looking like she’s prepared to wait for awhile; for what, I have no idea.
I tell Samantha it’s going to be alright, even though I don’t know what ‘it’ or ‘alright’ really are. She just goes on sobbing in my chest. I’m wondering why I’m not sobbing with her, but different people react to the process differently.
‘Just take some time. The moment will pass,’ the woman says.
I nod, even though I don’t know what I’m agreeing to.
Minutes go by; how many, I don’t know. I’m suddenly aware that there are people wandering in the field; some of them I recognize from the plane, like the widow, who is just wandering around in circles. Like us, they’re not wet either, and in seemingly perfect shape, except for being really dazed and confused.
The wind gets worse, there’s debris in the air. As the ability to form more and more coherent thought comes back to me, I begin to realize that we must have flown into a tornado.
The woman is watching the scene around her calmly. She still sits in front of us, her hands folded in her lap. The woman and her daughter, who I saw in Kansas City playing with a doll, walk by in a daze, not seeing us, the girl clutching the same doll. They disappear over a hump in the field, into the howling teeth of the storm, and disappear.
I decide it’s time to get some information.
‘Who are you?’ I ask the woman.
‘My name is Sarah. I’m a Guide. I’m here to help you make the transition,’ she replies. It’s a pretty simple, straightforward answer. The journalist in me begins to assert himself, start forming some questions.
Samantha lifts her head from my chest, tears still streaming down her cheeks. She stares at Sarah. It’s time to get some information.
‘What transition?’ It’s the most obvious first question, I suppose.
‘The transition between the two dimensions of life,’ she says. Again, matter-of-fact, to-the-point. Nothing extra.
‘Oh, THAT transition,’ I say. My natural smart-assedness is still intact.
‘Maybe, you could be a little more specific here? We’re a little … surprised at the moment,’ I say. My journalistic self is also still there, like I said.
Sarah smiles.
‘I’m sorry. I usually prefer to take things very slowly in the first few minutes. But I guess this one is really different and needs a different approach. It’s just outside my experience, you understand. You must have had a job where asking questions, getting quick answers is part of the work,’ she says.
She’s pretty prescient.
‘I’m a newspaper reporter. How about you just take it from the beginning? Who exactly are you, why are you here, what happened to us, and what happens next?’ I say.
Sarah laughs.
‘Okay. My name is Sarah James. I’m a Guide, a volunteer who helps people make the transition between life in the first dimension on Earth and life in the second dimension after that Earthly life ends. There are many of us scattered around. We chose to stay here for a time; some of us like helping people, others just don’t want to leave yet,’ she says. ‘I’ve been doing this for right at 78 years. I helped build the town over there and I like hanging around and watching what happens.’
‘Now, as far as I can tell, you were on a plane which just crashed in this big old storm we’ve been watching all evening. You died, and now you’re ready for the transition, or will be shortly. As for what happens, well, you have several options,’ she says.
This is a bit much, after all. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked so many questions so soon. Samantha buries her head again, starts sobbing.
‘See why I prefer to take things slowly?’ Sarah says.
I’m not sure how I feel, but screaming is still an option. I’m just not sure any sound would come out if I opened my mouth right now. My confusion continues. Samantha is practically choking me, hanging on for dear life. I’m hanging on to her right back. Everything is still quite surreal, to say the least.
‘I am sorry. Sometimes it’s too much, too soon, to take in. Especially when death and transition come suddenly, like yours,’ says Sarah.
There’s that word, death, again. It sounds weird because I don’t feel dead. I’m not dead. I think, therefore I am, right?
Samantha raises her head from my chest, says what I’m thinking.
‘But we’re not dead!’
‘I’m sorry, dear, but your old, Earthly body is dead now. The ‘you’ sitting there right now is your real inner self, what you might possibly have conceived of as your soul or spirit,’ Sarah says.
Curiosity mercifully again wins out over panic.
‘If we walked over there,’ I point to the flames flickering through the darkness, ‘would we … see ourselves?’ I ask. Okay, morbid curiosity, but it’s better than panic.
She hesitates a bit.
‘Well, you would see your remains, yes. But I don’t really think, particularly in this situation, that it’s a good idea, dear,’ Sarah replies. ‘It can be quite disturbing.’
I decide to take her word for it. I just nod my head. Samantha returns to crying in my chest. She’s not particularly curious, prefers panic.
The wind is finally getting quieter, the hail has stopped, the rain is settling down to a steady downpour. I don’t know how much time has passed. In the distance, I can hear a siren. We sit, the three of us, facing each other, listening to the crackling of the fire, voices, cries, screams in the darkness, the distant siren. It’s disturbingly peaceful. Samantha’s crying is easing. Sobs still are shaking her body, but she’s beginning to relax, to adapt, the panic is losing its hold on her.
Sarah starts humming some kind of tune I don’t recognize. Then she stands up suddenly, walks a little way into the darkness towards the flames, and starts talking to a man who has appeared. He’s dressed in white and gray like Sarah, only in pants and a shirt. He carries a walking stick. They talk for a few minutes. They’re not arguing or anything; it looks like they’re trying to decide something. They finish talking, and the man disappears. Sarah comes back and sits down in her former position.
‘That was my friend Hal. He’s a guide too. Been around here for quite a while. He had the general store in town while I was alive. We’ve never seen anything quite like this before. We were talking about getting some more help from other Guides,’ Sarah says.
‘You can do that?’ I ask.
‘Oh, sure. There are volunteers all over the place. I’m sure they’ve either heard the crash or been told about it and are coming on over. We usually handle the daily, single stuff. Once in a great while, we’ll have a multi in a car crash or something. But this is the biggest thing that’s ever happened here, I can tell you,’ she says. She seems somewhat excited about it.
‘Are you an angel?’ Samantha finds her voice, asks out of nowhere.
‘No, dear. I’m not. I’m a volunteer. I stay here to help guide people through the transition. I used to be a nurse in the town nearby. I enjoy the work for now. Someday, I’ll make the transition myself,’ Sarah replies.
Samantha nods. Her grip on me relaxes a bit.
‘I know it’s not exactly polite to ask, but … how old are you?’ I ask.
Sarah laughs, throws her head back.
‘I was born in 1897 near Omaha. I was working in the hospital at Falls City in 1947. That’s the town we’re close to right now. I was driving to work one day. It was winter, snowing hard, icy roads. I went off the road into a snow bank. The car stalled and I couldn’t get it started again. I started to walk to town, but got lost in the whiteness of the snow, went in the wrong direction. They found my frozen body three days later,’ she says.
‘A Guide came up to me when I left my body. He was a former patient of mine. He had died of cancer in 1938. I was so happy to see him. He was a great comfort to me. Explained things. Showed me what’s what. I decided I wanted to stay here, not make the transition, be a Guide myself. He helped me become one,’ she continues.
‘Now, I wander around the area, and when anyone nearby needs me, I’m there to help them. Tonight, I was at a farm about a mile away when I heard the crash. There’s a man there who’s had a stroke and may not make it through. But I came over here. The noise was so loud, I knew it had to be something big.’
‘I guess that makes you about, what, 69 years old or so?’ I say.
She laughs again. ‘Yes, I suppose that’s about right.’
‘Why do you look you’re about 25 then?’ I ask. Because she does. Look like she’s 25. She’s not my type or anything, but she is attractive and young. Brown hair, petite nose, full lips, slim, decent rack, from what I can see in the flickering light.
‘Well, the second body, what you might think of as your spirit, reaches full maturity and perfection at 25 and pretty much stays there,’ she says.
Okay, now I’m very uncomfortable. The conversation is once again outstripping my ability to adapt to the change in my situation. A range of emotions is flooding me and all I can do is just sit there and hold on to Samantha and ride it out. There are many questions, but I’m not sure I want to hear the answers, or will believe them when I hear them.
‘Are you beginning to feel better, dear?’ Sarah asks Samantha.
‘I suppose so,’ Samantha sniffs. ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’
‘Most people can’t, dear. As I said, it takes time,’ Sarah replies.
‘Um, how long are we going to sit here? Shouldn’t we be doing something?’ I ask.
‘That’s up to you. You have plenty of choices. If you want to sit there for days or weeks, you can. You can wander around. You can lie in the sun when it comes up tomorrow. Or you can go ahead and make the transition, start your new life in the other dimension. Lots of options,’ Sarah says. ‘Lots of options.’ ★
• 2991 Words written by Steve @ 21:55 | 23-Apr-06 in Departure • Critique It