Chapter 3

Now, being spirit hasn't been a big change for me. On earth, in my body, I'd always felt like one of those aliens looking out through the big glass window of a spaceship. I never really felt at one with my body. But waking up dead was a doozie, even for me. Now that I have had some time to think about it, I'd say being spirit is sort of like lucid dreaming. You have total control, like when you are awake, but, like in a dream, you can do impossible things: fly, teleport, create realities. Things are more or less linear. The only real change is in how you feel, physically, I mean. You have to focus to feel anything. More on that in a minute, though.

Okay, back in my bedroom on that fateful night, I wake up, which feels, at first, like a big relief. I am not choking or panicked or dying. I feel no pain. It is still dark and I assume that I am laying down because I am exerting no effort, and what else would I be doing? Then I notice the quiet. No--not quiet--more like a lack of sound. No ceiling fan whir, no furnace whoosh, no refrigerator hum, no rush of blood in my ears which I always hear because of my high blood pressure. Dead silence. A vacuum.

It is difficult to convey this next idea. The concept of "emotion" becomes something less concrete when you don't have a physical body. (Not that I knew I was missing mine, yet.) We tend to think emotions come from our minds, but the truth is, our bodies play a bigger role than we realize. As I lay there in the blackness, I started to grasp that things were not as they initially appeared. My mind wanted to feel fear, but there were no butterflies in my stomach. No adrenaline drop. No pounding heart. The best I could muster was curiosity, I suppose. I decided, after a moment, to try and get up, though there was no reason to, at all. Did I need to pee? Nope. Was I uncomfortable? Nope. Did I feel any sort of feelings at all? Not really. But the odd thing was, I was no longer sleepy. Not tired at all. In fact, I was downright exhilarated. So, like I said, I decided to get up. I didn't so much move as "will" myself vertical. It was a thought, an intention, and then I was standing.

I knew I was standing because of the proximity of my field of vision to the ground. Was it ground? Was it daytime? What I saw, or more accurately, experienced, would later be referred to by my fellow dead as "mood lighting". My surroundings were illuminated in a perfectly comfortable way; not too dark, not too bright. I saw a few vague figures in the distance. I looked down and saw grass at my feet, perfectly green and mown. I looked upward; the sky was blue and cloudless. All around, there were trees--oaks--and I saw that I was standing on a porch. It was a wooden porch, like an old hillbilly shanty would have, made of dark and weathered wood with a roof. I suddenly realized that all of this was sort of appearing as I thought of it. I hadn't come to this place, I had--brought it into being.

"Nice!", I heard a voice call, breaking me out of my reverie. I looked up and noticed a young man walking toward me. He had bronze skin and shaggy golden hair. His face was painfully handsome and his gait was easy and confident. "Nice digs, bro!", he said, again.

"Huh?" I muttered. I was not really confused. A growing realization that I had somehow authored this day was pressing into my mind, but I needed time to grasp it all. So I said, "Huh?"

"Yeah, most of the time we get pearly gates and clouds and shit." He continued toward me, speaking as he walked. "It gets pretty old, but this! This is nice!"

"Who is we?" I asked, "And where am I?" At this point the beautiful young man had reached the point where I was standing and stopped in front of me. He stood in an open, unguarded way, eyeing me curiously.

"Oh, man," he grinned, "c'mon, you ain't gonna do that to me, are ya?" He lifted a hand as if to put it on my shoulder, then stopped. His eyes narrowed. "You DO know where you are, right? "

I did know. And the funny thing was, I didn't feel disturbed or sad or bothered about it. I was dead. I was in heaven. I was here with this...oh shit!

"Are you and angel?" I blurted out, simultaneously trying to kneel.

This must have really amused my new friend because his smile returned and then became a hearty chuckle. "Oh, man! Okay, you get it now. Whew! But, no, man, I am not an angel." He motions for me to stand and continues talking. "We don't have ranks around here. We do have jobs, but we can all do the same things. All have the same limitations, too."

"Yeah, but this is heaven, right?" I ventured.

He seemed momentarily vexed by my question, then his face relaxed. "Well...yes...and no," he said. "The best answer I can give you is this: in order for this to be Heaven, there has to be a Hell. For there to be Hell, there has to be a right and wrong as decided by a Creator. Standard religion stuff, you understand?"

I nodded.

"Well, if there was a Creator, He has long since abandoned this project. There was no one special here to greet me when I died, just the other souls. So, if you're asking if this is the Christian Heaven you learned about from momma, I'd have to say, no."

"But how do you know that there isn't a Hell?" I asked, almost daring him to contend. I suddenly realized that my laissez faire attitude about religion was all bullshit. I needed there to be a Heaven and Hell. I especially needed there to be a God.

"Listen, I am sure you have lots of questions and you will get all the answers you could ever want, and some you won't want. But I gotta go check on some more new arrivals. You know the thing you did--with the grass and clouds and all that?"

I nodded.

"Well we don't always get that lucky. Some folks don't think this is heaven, because they believe that they deserve the other place. Things can get a little hairy. Most of us old-timers can choose what we experience...uhh...what we see, but new folks like you..." He arched both his eyebrows this time and looked at me expectantly. Understanding must have graced my heretofore dumbfounded expression because he uttered a terse "Yeah", made a peace sign with his right hand and disappeared.