Revelation
“Holy shit!” Darren exclaimed, cursing for the first time of his life and the last. He slammed his car breaks behind a large semi-truck, losing control of the vehicle. The wheels of the truck pounded Darren’s car; the bottom of the trailer shaved off his roof; and he died instantly when he hit the pavement. It was a story that showed so many times on the local news channel that strangers were tired of hearing the name “Darren” and wondered when the next event would happen - couldn’t the Pope die or something? Friends and relatives, however, were heartbroken, especially Darren’s long-time girlfriend Julie, who was expecting a proposal that night.
His eulogy was short, but it described him perfectly. He was a good person. He was also a people-pleaser, but not a pushover; he took into account his own feelings, but as it happened, most of those feelings were feelings of love for everyone else. Julie was the first to make a personal dedication to him. His parents respected her place in his life, and allowed her to be the first to speak her love for him.
“There was one time that Darren told me a story about something that had happened to him when he was young. At seven years old, he was already taking care of the young and the sick. While he was in the park with his mother - a past time he often recalls, and misses - he found a baby bird at the foot of a tree. As you might know, when Darren was younger he had a really large interest in birds, and wanted to be a researcher for endangered species. He knew, either from his own studies or from watching television when things like this always seemed to happen,” she said this with a smirk, “that the mother bird wouldn’t go near the baby bird, now touched by human hands.” She began to sob, but pushed the long, dark hair out of her face and continued. “The bird lived two long, happy years with him, until a cousin visited and threw it into the ceiling. I think that bird was the first thing Darren truly loved and cared for, and while he forgave the cousin, he was heartbroken and crushed.
“Darren told me this story when I was 20 years old. I may have been young and impressionable, but it touched my heart. I could tell by the way he told it, with such tender love and memory, that he had such a generous heart. It may seem like a silly thing to you, but it was what sparked my love for him, knowing that not only did he care about something deeply when he was seven; he also fondly remembered it and still held that bird in high regard the day he told me about it, 17 years later.” By this point, she was crying, thinking of Darren’s smile and the way he looked into her eyes. The story was special and significant, but it brought fonder memories she didn’t want to share with the attendees, at least not as a group. She would accept their comfort individually, and maybe tell of her feelings then, but at the moment she couldn’t stop the tears.
Darren’s brother led her away and towards the bathroom, where he left her with her sister. Then his mother, unable to control her show of emotion, descended the altar and left the church. It was too dreary in there, she thought; too dreary without Darren. This life will be too dreary…
Darren opened his eyes for the first time in what might have been eternity. Before him, he saw his childhood treehouse exactly where he had left it the first time he moved out of his parents’ house. It was his favorite place, even though it had been broken down and burned several years ago; a neighbor child had fallen out and broken his arm, so Darren thought it best to deconstruct the unsafe structure. It seemed small to look at, but he fit inside perfectly even at his grown stature; he was tall at 6 feet exactly, thin but athletic, with a short brown beard and shorter hair to match. The treehouse should have been only large enough to fit a 12 year old, but he had always squeezed in their throughout high school and even during the first years of college. Now, though, he could stand up with no problem, even spin with his arms straight out. It didn’t surprise him, and it shouldn’t have, because he knew he was dead.
The landscape outside the treehouse seemed to create itself as he thought about it, but he still had the earthly sense that it was there before he saw it. Far ahead, he could see the old $1 movie theatre just waiting to show repeats of the 1968 version of “The Love Bug,” the original starring Herbie himself, Buddy Hackett, and Dean Jones. He didn’t need to wonder how he knew that, because it was his favorite movie of all-time. He knew it would show. You create your own heaven, after all. Nearby, a few of his favorite restaurants and a library just waiting to feed him and consume him; but this made him wonder. Does he need to eat? Is it just that he enjoyed these things so much in life that they are imprinted on his soul and in that way he feels they have to be included in his heaven? Is anyone’s heaven blank? He caught himself thinking too many questions and seeing that the human nature hadn’t left him, that he still questioned everything even though he’s proven there’s a heaven, a place separate from Earth where the soul — and body, or is the image of a body? — goes to rest and be rewarded.
But how very like life this was, and yet very different. At first it confused him. He believed in eternal life, but didn’t think he would be able to feel. His beard was soft though it should have been greasy to the touch; he was in such a hurry the day he died, he didn’t have the chance to wash before he left. What a way to present yourself to God, he thought! He quickly noticed that he couldn’t be physically hurt. Even though he felt the roughness of the wood and the softness of the grass as he descended, barefoot, from the treehouse and onto the world around it, there wasn’t that slight bit of pain he always felt in his knees when they were bent to odd angles. Testing this, he found it to be true: Hesitant and completely unsure of himself, he let himself fall to the ground and didn’t feel the familiar sting on his hands and in his elbows as his entire weight collapsed onto one wrist. Nothing broken, nothing bruised. He could smell, but not bad smells; the bad smells were tested by smelling his usual armpit stink, which at the moment smelled like nothing. Is it possible to not have a smell? Even with the curiousities that come with being human, he didn’t feel human.
His biggest discovery and disappointment was that he couldn’t fly. He didn’t expect wings, but he had kind of hoped that he would be able to fly or at least float on will. It seemed, though, that while some things seemed otherworldly, he still only had the basic functions of a human being. Walking, running, jumping — but not moon-jumping, crawling, lying down, smiling, and after a while he began to feel like a dog. Oh, but smiling was miraculous here. He could only describe it as having 10,000 smiles at once.
He decided then to explore the expanses of his heaven. He didn’t worry about night or day because, as he saw it, he probably controlled them. If he got tired he’d turn off the lights, but until then, he was very excited to see what other parts of his life he brought with him.
It seemed as though everything good that had ever happened to him was lying around miscellaneously. He saw the very first bike he got without training wheels, on which he also taught his brother to ride when he was old enough. It was leaning against the sign post at his middle school bus stop, where he met his best friend Charlie and talked Nintendo with, comparing clues and secret codes. The road took him down to his grandparents’ house. He peeked inside and saw it was empty; the little glimmer of hope that he had thinking they might be in heaven with him died out, and he realized that their lives were so separate from his, they are probably cuddling as young kids in their own heaven. He approached the dress his mother wore at her third wedding, the last wedding, the one where he and his brother finally got to see their biological parents getting married. He didn’t think of his father’s death shortly after, only of his mother’s happiness that she finally straightened up and got a man who she deserved. He went on to the courtyard of his college dorm room where he spent hours in reflection, introspection, and eventual peacefulness, realizing his own place in life and what he had to do to be happy. It was there that he met Julie, his one true love, and the girl he was going to marry.
Then he stopped. Julie. Feelings of lost love and longing flooded over him until he collapsed…
“Hello?” she spoke in an accent foreign to his, maybe British, maybe Australian, but he couldn’t tell in his dazed state. He thought he was dreaming. “Excuse me, sir, are you okay?” He felt his body shake gently, and as he began to regain feeling the fingers gripping his right shoulder became more apparent. He opened his eyes.
“Oh, good, you gave me a fright!” Above him was sunshine; she beamed so brightly, his first thought was that this was Aurora come to wake him from the dead again. A princess. She had long yellow hair, and from what he could tell in his state, a short-cut, tight dress that was probably straight out of the 70s. It was brown and orange and black and yellow striped, so ghastly like the style was back then. His eyes fluttered.
“I fell…” he said weakly. Then there was nothing.
He awoke again in his treehouse, the last few hours amounting to nothing. He remembered waking up here before, finding himself in heaven and wandering his streets, and he vaguely remembered seeing an angel bending over him, but past that, he had no idea how he got back there. Maybe he flew, he thought, and smiled 10,000 smiles once again. He pulled himself out of the treehouse and found himself immediately confronted by the angel he swore he imagined. Maybe she’s my guardian, he thought, if there is such a thing. She looked at him, her face slightly tilted as though she was deep in thought. He saw now with more consciousness that she didn’t shine like the sun, only that she was wearing such bright colors and such a happy face. Metaphorically, maybe, but she wasn’t Dawn anymore, just a strange woman in his heaven.
“So…” she started, startling him into attention.
“Yes, sorry, hi,” he said quickly, extending his hand. “I’m Darren.”
“Well, that’s very polite of you,” she said, as if she didn’t expect this. She smiled, and he wondered if she felt 10,000 smiles or if it was just one. “I’m Anna, and I’m not absolutely sure what you’re doing in my heaven.”
He felt a hand run up his spine and looked behind him to nothing. When he turned back, she seemed closer, but just as concerned. He shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“You’re in my heaven. I’m sorry, did you know you were dead? Well, the point is, I’ve never met you, so I don’t see why you’re here.”
“No,” he said, not fully understanding what was going on. “No, this is my heaven. This is my treehouse.” He looked up toward the treehouse and shrugged.
“No, no. That’s the treehouse that my best friend built in grammar school. I was always afraid to go inside, but now that I’m dead, I have no worries.”
He stood, his mouth half-open staring directly at her but not seeing her. His mind was remembering his first step-father building this with his bare hands, and himself happily helping by handing him various incorrect tools and wondering why it wasn’t getting done faster.
“I didn’t mean to alarm you. I was just taking a walk and found you lying on the ground in my fields.”
He still had nothing to say. She seemed so talkative at a time like this, but so very sure of herself. When he looked up, he saw his treehouse, not any treehouse. He saw his $1 movie theatre in the distance, and his favorite flower lining surrounding tree trunks. Do people have the same heaven?
“What is this? Where are you from? What do you see here? Tell me, what do you see? I see tulips, purple tulips, and oak trees, and my bicycle; my mom’s floral shop, my dad’s 1957 Chevy, my little brother’s favorite book. How can you tell me this is your heaven, when all my things are here?”
She was stunned. He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but he was so frustrated at the thought of losing his heaven. If he really was stuck in someone else’s death, how would he get out? How would he find Julie on her death-day? He just got there! How could it slip away so easily. She stared at him intently and moved her chin so her head tilted in the opposite direction. Then she stopped, sighed, and sat down cross-legged where she was standing. He tried not to look down, as she was still wearing the dress.
“Look, we’ve obviously got a problem here. I see flowers, but they’re blue roses. I see weeping willows and fireworks in the sky. I’ve never met anyone here, never. I wanted my heaven to be silent but visually aesthetic. Instead, I get the company of a man who gets stressed out too easily. Oh, bother. How do you even do it?”
He looked down, but slightly to the left of her. “I’m sorry,” he said, truly apologetic. “I don’t feel uneasy inside, but I’m confused. I was walking around and learning my heaven when I suddenly thought of Julie. I was really going to marry her. But as soon as I heard her name cross my thoughts, I felt weak and faint, and when I woke up you were there. I thought you were my guardian angel helping to revive me. Then you talk about me being in your heaven, when I’ve clearly woken up once again in my own. I didn’t mean to yell.”
She looked as though she were considering something; by this point, Darren had learned that she always looked like she was considering something. She bit her lip, then looked up at him. “Then I suppose we’ll have to make do with what we have until you pass out again.” He shot her a stern glance. “Or something, you know, that puts our heavens in their own place again. Whatever.”
With that, she stood up and brushed off her dress, then walked toward the movie theatre. She paused, looked back at Darren, then defeatedly said, “Are you coming? I’d love to have a companion to Herbie.”
Without thinking, he followed her at a steady pace, smirking, thinking, It’s been so long since I’ve seen “The Love Bug.” It didn’t occur to him that she had said “Herbie,” that she was watching the same movie he was, until after they had seen it three times. By then they were laughing and sharing life stories. Since they couldn’t see each other’s heavens, they instead spent what seemed like weeks in the movie theatre watching Herbie, recalling memories about the people they loved, and it was a constant. He found he didn’t need to sleep; indeed, he didn’t think of sleep at all until he was telling a story about a sleepover he had had with his best friend in elementary school, when his friend dared him to call girls from their class and tell them he loved them. He never had the courage to do it, or at least that’s what he told his buddy. Instead, he recalled, he didn’t want to be a liar. He didn’t want to call these girls and make them think something that wasn’t true.
When they left the theatre, Anna started to talk about her husband. He hadn’t died with her, and she was just waiting for him to come along. She mentioned that she didn’t know what he’d do when he found Darren in her heaven, but that they could probably explain themselves as long time friends. It was true, she mentioned, that they’d known each other for at least a few years now.
“You can tell time here?” he asked, astonished.
“Well, I’ve been here for a while, I’m pretty sure. You said you saw Herbie for the first time when you were five, but that you were five in 1985. I saw Herbie for the first time when I was fifteen, but I was fifteen in 1970.”
He gulped. “So you’re… Well over 50.”
“Thanks! I guess so. Lucky for you, I died when I was 25. I’d hate to see myself at 50.”
“The music got better, though.” He grinned.
She smiled a knowing smile, and shook her head. “Not possible. Tell me about Julie.”
“Boy, you like to jump topics,” and it was true. He hadn’t yet had a conversation with her that didn’t immediately change topics within five minutes. He’d be concerned, but he gathered that she liked to know about everything and was in a big rush to learn, despite being already dead and having all the time in forever.
“You like that about me! Everyone does.” She nudged him gently, and he caught himself enjoying the softness of her arm rubbing against his.
Julie. “Yeah, Julie,” he started. “I was so in love with her. She wasn’t like other girls who let everything get to them. I had a few girlfriends before her, nothing too serious, but they always complained about everything. It wasn’t just things I was doing,” he commented to Anna’s unsurprised reaction to the complaints. “It was everything. Other people, coffee that was too hot, movies that weren’t spectacular — everything. It gets to a point where you really wonder why you’re spending your time with this person. But Julie was never like that. She was very complementary to everything; and by that I mean she got along well with whatever happened to her. She was pure of heart and mind and had this kind of genuine love for the world.”
Anna smiled. “That’s really sweet. You really seem to love her. Do you ever miss her? I mean, aside from the dramatic day I found you, of course.”
“Of course I miss her. When you say we’ve known each other for years, it surprises me, because I feel like I died yesterday. But when I think of Julie, it feels like I’ve been here for 10 million years and I’m just biding my time until she joins me. When I think of her I have this mixed feeling of pain and happiness. When I got here, I didn’t think you could feel pain in heaven.”
“Darren, you can’t,” she replied, slightly under her breath. He didn’t hear her. “All the same,” she said out loud, catching his attention and bringing him away from lonely thoughts, “I’d be dreadfully upset if I were to lose your friendship. I hope when Julie comes you’ll still come out to play.”
He smiled. “What’s your husband’s name, and will he let you come out to play?” He regretted saying it as soon as she let out the sad, forlorn sigh. “I… Anna?”
“No, no worries. It’s just that, if I’m well over 50 as you say, I wonder if he hasn’t already found someone else to spend his heaven with. We were so young, but he was all I had. I suppose you think that very silly.”
“I was young too, Anna. Julie was only 23, but I’m confident that she’s not making me wait for nothing. I wouldn’t make you wait for nothing, either. I mean… so he isn’t. Can’t be. Not possible.” She smiled.
“I’d like to ask someone, though. Don’t give me that look,” she said when he broke his yawn to stare at her wide-eyed. “It’s not God. I just want to be alone for a while. Is that okay?”
“Of course, you don’t even have to ask.” But he was afraid to be alone without her. He had gotten used to the company.
He picked up one of his favorite books and when she hadn’t returned by the time he’d finished it, he started walking along his heaven looking for clouds. This brought him back to his very first exprience in heaven, when it seemed like the world was being created by his thoughts, but now that he was looking for clouds he couldn’t find any. After spending so much time with Anna, he started to see the night-time fireworks like she did, and it was never cloudy.
As he was walking, he started whispering to himself, then mumbling. He found a sort of peace talking to himself. Before Anna, he could sit still and quiet with no problems, but after her, he didn’t like it. He felt like a statue lost in time, waiting for someone to come marvel at his beauty. It wouldn’t do; he wanted noise. He missed her friendship. He missed her smile, her smirk, those small glances of appreciation when he paid her a compliment. Then he started running further and further away from the center of his heaven. He suddenly thought it very important that he find some clouds. It’s heaven, he thought, It’s heaven! There should be clouds! There should be a gate or a doorway, maybe an elevator like in those awful 90s movies; and if not all that, a book of answers. Maybe that’s what I’ll find, or create, a book of answers. Something that will tell me why Anna doesn’t want to be in my heaven.
He stopped, realizing his concern. What was he running from?
He slowly turned around, allowing his feet to take him back to where he expected Anna to be waiting for him. In front of the treehouse, no, better yet, at the movie theatre. She’d be there, and then she’d turn and look at me, and say, “Where have you been, stranger?” and we’d watch Herbie again and talk more about what makes us happy. He smiled, but it wasn’t 10,000 smiles; it was less this time, and with each smile after it became less and less as he realized he was walking further and further away. It was just a feeling he had, a vast realization that even though he had turned around and followed his own steps, he was walking further away.
And then he broke through the clouds. Behind him were his fireworks, and he couldn’t see exactly how the night sky turned into the day sky, where the clouds ended and the fireworks started. The stars still shone brightly in the clouds; it all seemed like one sky, as if he was on the border of the other side of the world. But he found his clouds.
“What is God?” he said to himself. “Why?” he shouted, just for effect. There was no echo, just the still, stone silence of the clouds. The stars mocked him; he imagined they smiled at him standing there in the same clothing he arrived in, standing here before God and asking Why. Everyone asks Why, and maybe that’s why He didn’t answer. Defeated and alone, no longer feeling the faith he had while he was alive, he turned around.
It seemed to go on forever. It was like a a movie that had several plausible endings but never actually ended until the watcher was thoroughly bored; it was a trilogy that became five books, then ten, then seventeen. He finally regained hope when the clouds turned into night sky again, though just as before he couldn’t see the transition, only that he was suddenly engrossed in darkness.
“This isn’t right,” he said to himself. “The stars are supposed to light up the sky, and where’s the moon? Where’s my nice, soft, freshly-cut grass?” He didn’t want to continue further, afraid of what he might find, but still had the confidence that this was his heaven, and that he could make it what he wanted to. So he walked on until he stubbed his toe suddenly on a large box. “Shit,” he said, realizing that it’d hurt. He had forgotten physical pain. He carefully felt the box over and over until he realized it was a trunk of some kind, sort of like a treasure chest. There were two locks on the front and screws in the back that clearly allowed it to open when unlocked. He didn’t have the key, though, and he wasn’t prepared with any tools. However, it seemed at that moment that opening this trunk was the most important thing in the universe, so that it must be done somehow. He spent weeks banging against the box, throwing it on the ground, jumping on it, picking at it with his fingernails and teeth, doing anything he could think of to get it open. He found himself at a corner so that he could throw the trunk against a wall of some kind, but of course he couldn’t see so he was very careful not to throw the trunk anywhere where he might lose it. Whenever it hit the wall, though, it bounced back and onto his foot. He winced every time, but never learned.
He became very bruised and frustrated and eventually gave up. The greedy desire to open the trunk had so consumed him that he had trouble breathing in such a tight space, or so it seemed to get tighter with every breath. He sat down, his arms lying across the trunk, and the side of his face resting near the locks. He sighed and began to weep for his lost life. He had died and found an amazing heaven, only to lose it for this stupid corner, this stupid trunk, and that stupid desire to find clouds.
He didn’t expect the trunk to open, so when it did, he didn’t believe it was true. He sat there holding it and using it for support as he wept when he heard the two clicks of the locks. A moment later, he sat up, and saw the edges. The edges! he thought. I can see the edges! There’s light in this trunk! Excitedly, he pulled it open, and such a bright ray of sunlight came blasting through, he was temporarily blinded. When he opened his eyes and adjusted them to the light, he saw that it was slowly disintegrating the darkness, that the walls he had thought he felt before were dissapating and turning into nothingness. There was only light. He soon found himself on the edge of a world; the only things beyond him were stars and meteors, so brightly lit that he wasn’t sure they were there. He couldn’t look behind him. He couldn’t take his eyes off the beauty.
Then he heard birds, and finally thought he might be going insane. His sense of humor returned, and he laughed at himself. But he looked at the trunk and saw a small bird hop out and on to the edge. It looked at him and seemed to regard him as something intriguing, tweeted, and then flew off into the galaxy before him.
When he came to, he found himself on the ground, curled around the trunk, sitting on grass underneath a bright cloudy sky. He didn’t remember falling asleep or passing out, but he remembered seeing the bird and thinking something important was happening. What was he thinking? He got up to find his treehouse and movie theatre and wait for Anna. It wasn’t very far from where he was, somehow, but those lapses in distance stopped worrying him after a while. He climbed back up into his treehouse, noticing that the physical pain was still there and that he could at this point smell himself very strongly after having walked so far and for so long, and he waited.
And he waited.
