3 Big Questions

Anyway, the next thing I knew, something was pulling me...and I felt it...I FELT...and it pulled me, and tugged me...

I was running down this long, dark tunnel, and there was a bright light up at the end and my ears were filled with this tiny warbling rumble, and in the distance I heard the faint whisper of crystal-voiced angels calling me and comforting me, and whatever it was that was pulling me, yanked me into the blinding light.

Watching the rain falling down to the ground,
Voices may be calling but I don't hear a sound.
Guess I've got to try and be somebody here,
Only know I don't belong, only that is clear.

Did they tell you stories of happily ever after?
Saying you would find all that you were after?
Happiness would find you,
peace would rule your mind,
Love would steal your heart
and you would lead the blind?
Well, I don't know, but I was told...

I was lost and lonely 'cause I thought there was a Plan,
Now I know that isn't true and I am just a man.
I'll focus on the here and now,
I'll be what I will be...
If we would all just LIVE our lives
Then maybe we'd be free...

Did they tell you stories of happily ever after?
Saying you would find all that you were after?
Happiness would find you,
peace would rule your mind,
Love would steal your heart
and you would lead the blind?
Well, now I know, it isn't so...

When I looked up, I found myself sitting at my desk at work, staring out at the rain. I had the oddest feeling that my life just wasn't real. I felt far away, so far away from everything.

I murmured something incoherent, and when I saw where I was, mumbled some vague obscenities. Mary glared at me from the cubicle next to mine.

"What are you complaining about?" she hissed. "You're going on vacation in two hours, and I'm the one who gets stuck with your clients for the next two weeks!"

"Sorry," I sighed. Two hours. The seconds ticked away endlessly. Two hours was like eternity. God, I hated my job. I hated my life. I'd give anything to be someone else.

Time passed by as it always does, and before I knew it I was lying on a beach, alone and as miserable as ever. Maybe even more so. Here I am trying to leave my life behind, at least for a little while, and one of those depressing "What's it all about" songs was blaring out of someone's boom-box, reminding me all over again that my life is going nowhere.

As a boy I treasured
hopes and dreams and schemes.
Now a man I'm measured,
but life's not what it seems.
Drifting, sailing,
lost in the dream.
Searching, wondering,
what can it mean?
I don't KNOW you;
Do you KNOW me?
Can I show you,
or will you show me?
I've looked out there;
I've looked inside,
but there's no place to hide.
So every day I try some way simply to get by.
Drifting, sailing, lost in the dream.
Searching, wondering, what can it mean?
I don't KNOW you;
Do you KNOW me?
Can I show you, or will you show me?

I finally gathered up the courage to tell them to turn the music down, when I noticed some guy was standing there, blocking my sun.

"Jack. Jack, it's me," the shadow piped. The guy reached down to poke me, and I jumped to my feet.

"Look pal, beat it!" I growled. "I know Jujitsu, and I'm not afraid to use it." This was all I needed -- some guy trying to pick me up.

"First of all, my name isn't Jack," I grumbled, and I wasn't about to tell this jerk what my name was.

Great. I had a real joker on my hands. "Oh, and who are you? Shirley MacLaine, I suppose?" I sneered.

I started laughing. "You just said I'm Jack. Then you said you're me -- And you're Bo. You can't even get your story straight, pal."

"Oh, I bet! Look, Bo. Whatever you're selling, I'm not interested. Now, if you don't mind, please, leave me alone!"

Then I noticed this loser was dressed in pajamas. They made him look kind of familiar, somehow, but only in that creepy Deja vu kind of familiar that makes you shiver because it feels so weird.

The guy scratched his head and walked in circles around me. I got in position, ready to defend myself.

"Do that again and I'll break your foot!" I screeched pacing in the sand. I really didn't know Jujitsu, and I couldn't just run off -- all my stuff was here. I was in a quandary.

He leaned forward, real close, and breathed in my face. His breath was not very pleasant, but it was familiar. I reached down, grabbed my clothes and blanket, and tried to back away from this weirdo. But he had me with my back to the boardwalk, and there was no way to get past him without a confrontation.

Then he started singing, if you could call it singing. I held my hands over my ears!

I must admit I never understood,
Is this life bad or good?
Is there a point to anything at all?
Every man lives a life
That's filled with tears and joy and strife.
He climbs great heights,
but then he has to fall.
Is this life a dream?
That's what I say when I sleep at night,
When I'm loving the girl who's holding me tight,
When I wake up and find it's just another day...
Each day ends up like the last,
They fade away into my past,
And all I've found just seems to pass away...
Is this life a dream?
Went on a journey through my mind
Down the deepest caverns I could find
In search of answers that would set me free.
A silver bird spoke to me
In words that echoed silently
The wisdom of ages yet to be: Isn't life a dream...

You don't know how grateful I was when he finally stopped singing. But then he lunged forward and stuck my nose under his armpits.

I screamed, "This is disgusting!" But something clicked in the back of my head. "Bo?"

I did. I really did. I remembered this was all a dream. I was so happy that I was just dreaming and I wasn't really stuck in this boring life!

Bo saw it in my eyes. "Oh, thank goodness I finally got through to you. Sorry I was so vulgar, but it was the only thing I could think of that would jar you to your senses. Smells are very closely linked with our deepest memories, you know."

I nodded, but my mind was far away. I remembered how I'd leaped into this Chapter. I shivered.

"Bo, it was horrible. I...I...I was dead. I didn't exist anymore. Well, it wasn't horrible, actually. It...well...I just wasn't anything."

Bo was nodding. "Yeah, I know. So make some kind of judgement, so we can get out of this chapter."

"Well, what's the question?" I stammered, still struggling to regain my thoughts.

I scratched my head. "I don't know. I mean, what about us is reincarnated? Is it the soul that comes back in another body, complete with a whole Karma of past lives...?"

"Well, it's like a report card, in a way. Karma keeps track of all the good and bad things we do in each life. When we're born into a new life, the karma of all our past lives comes with us. Everything that happens in a lifetime happens because something in our karma needs to be worked out. Our souls are born over and over again until we've got straight A pluses all the way down our karma report card -- then our souls are perfected and we become one with the Universe, and rest in eternal peace."

"Well, it's better than the other reincarnation alternative. If the soul dies with us, and only the spirit lives on, then just a deeper part of us survives -- a thread without real individual identity, an extension of an ultimate consciousness -- you know, like when we were waves in an ocean, and crashed and became One with the ocean. So which is it? Does that unique part of us inside that we consider 'us' survive or not?"

"I don't know. All's I remember is that being a wave was awful wet feeling, and when we crashed into the shore, it kind of hurt, as I recall."

I was thinking about it all when Bo pointed out that the beach had turned into a tunnel with that glowing light up ahead.

I felt really nervous. I started shaking. "I don't want to go through there again, Bo!"

Bo had a similar reaction. He was running as fast as he could the other way. But he wasn't making any progress. Both of us were floating towards the light.

Visions of life passed before my eyes. I saw flowers, and springtime, and life so beautiful. And then it grew cold and snow began falling, and the perfect flakes smothered the fragile life that had bloomed.

I couldn't help crying. "I don't want to die. Even if it is just a dream!" I screamed. And my sobs of protest flowed out like a song.

Watching the snow falling down,
Covering the green green ground.
Thought spring had finally come around,
Now winter's back to bring me down.

I want to live...I want to live...I want to live!
I don't want to cry, and I don't want to die,
But I don't want to try no more...

Tired of going from day to day,
Watching the world just fade away.
Longing for another day,
Searching for a better way.

What does it really mean.
To be born and die and dream.
Is life just and endless Scene,
Whose actors throughout time scream:

We want to live...we want to live...
We want to live...
We don't want to cry; We don't want to die,
But we don't want to try no more...

As I looked up into the tunnel of white snowy light, I saw the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, dressed in sheer wisps of light. She was all the happily ever after dreams I'd ever once upon a time believed. My perfect love. The soul mate I have always longed for. And all around me I heard music. It was a beautiful, distant, haunting melody. Voices whispered the words as the vision of beauty held her hand out to me, beckoning me into the unknown.

Once I had a dream.
I saw an angel dressed in white.
She smiled and said don't be afraid,
I will guide you in your flight.
She held out her hand
and led me through the night,
and when I awoke, her words
surrounded me like golden light.

'There's nothing in the darkness
that wasn't there when the lights were on!'
But I can't find anything in this world
to give me hope in the beyond...

Death has blue eyes,
like the skies and the sea.
Life promises us nothing,
and only Death can set us free.
She comes like a whisper,
a silver bell in the breeze.
She comes, oh so silently,
a voice in the trees,

'There's nothing in the darkness
that wasn't there when the lights were on!'
But I can't find anything in this world
to give me hope in the beyond...

Death flows like a river
to an uncharted sea.
Someday I'll sail her waters,
when She comes a 'callin me.
Some may try to hide,
Some walk proudly forth,
But all of them will die,
and no one knows what for...

'There's nothing in the darkness
that wasn't there when the lights were on!'
But I can't find anything in this world
to give me hope in the beyond...

I was drawn more than ever towards this Vision. I would prove the song wrong. I would venture into the Unknown and find hope in the Beyond, for that hope was Love. But as I stepped slowly forward, I could hear Bo's voice in the distance singing another refrain to the song, trying to shake some sense into me, trying to keep me from walking into the light...

There are no angels of light,
No happily ever after
There's only this life
With its tears and its laughter.
I have no time for fear...
There is no Heaven above,
And as long as I'm here,
I've got to share all my love...

Because there's nothing in the darkness
that wasn't there when the lights were on.
And there's nothing here in this world
to give us hope in a Beyond...

I refused to listen and walked into the tunnel, reaching out to touch the angel's hand. I could not look away from the blue, blue heaven of Her eyes, for she was Perfect, and I was hers forever.

And I realized suddenly it was Jill's face that I saw, and yet as I stared into her eyes, all of Womankind flowed within her. Billions and billions of faces and identities all reaching back through Time until She was Eve and I was Adam and We were the only Ones that existed, and she was part of me and I was part of her, and we were in the Garden of Eden, and Life was Love and Love was Life and my heart was about to explode, and the eternal moment burst as her gentle fingers wrapped around mine and we stepped into the Light.

There wasn't anything physical around me. But I could feel, or sense, or something. There was a part of me that was still alive.

I tried to focus on whatever it was that was still alive in me. I concentrated with everything that I was.

And as it became more real to me I "saw" that I was soaring through the universe. I whizzed through space and time and all of reality, unbounded and unchained. I was free.

It was exhilarating in a way. But as I passed through time eternal, I saw the pain and suffering and the tears and the torment, and I felt so sad.

I saw people living and dying. And their children lived and died, for generation after generation after generation, and for the first time I felt the awesome wonder of billions of lives spreading through thousands upon thousands of years, and I could not believe that the same things just kept happening over and over and over, and a song was blowing through the air, washing the tears from my bodiless face...

War and fighting,
everybody's right.
Searching, stumbling,
blinded by the light.

Reaching for Truths and Reasons,
but they keep on changing, like the seasons.
And I don't know how it keeps on going,
on and on and on and on...

It's a crazy world we live in.
Everybody's trying to get by.
Believing what they have to believe in:
Heaven, Hell, truths and lies.

Everyone's alone,
reaching out for something or someone
to believe in what they do,
to comfort them through,
and it's so hard to do...

Reaching for Truths and Reasons,
but they keep on changing, like the seasons.
And I don't know how it keeps on going,
on and on and on and on...

I tried to shake away the overwhelming sadness that was washing over my existence, and as I looked below I saw a little boy blowing out the candles on a birthday cake.

There's nothing purer than that moment of silence when a child truly believes his wish will come true. But I heard his wish, and I didn't ever want him to know that it would never come to be.

Every year I blow out the candles
and wish for the same thing:
Happiness for everyone...
But time hasn't changed a thing.

Every year is like the last,
the future becomes the past.
People cry and children die,
and I still don't know why.

I wanted to reach that little boy, but I couldn't. And I watched him sit down in the middle of billions and billions of people who hurried by, bustling on their way to some unknown destination. I was fascinated, for I knew that boy was me in my past.

He sat on the ground and he refused to get up. "Come on," his mother whispered, tugging at his arm.

The boy swallowed carefully and remained as he was. He felt his mother's warm hand relinquish its grip, and felt instead his father's on his shoulder; it was firm but understanding. The boy looked up slowly.

"Look, I know it must seem strange to you now," the father said softly. "You're just a boy." He smiled and his gaze carried up past his son to the faces slowly passing by. The boy's gaze followed carefully, then withdrew.

"Look at them," his father pleaded, the grip extending about the waist, still with genuine warmth. "It's hard for a little boy to understand, but there really is something going on here. It may look to you like a blur of confusion and strange faces, pushing and shoving in every direction, but there really is something."

"What?!" the boy demanded, glancing up at the spinning colors that floated about in every direction.

"This line goes in many different directions. Because you are a little boy, you walk straight along with us, but when you get older, you can take the diagonal lines, slanted lines, backlines, bylines -- whatever you want. Now see, didn't I say there was something going on."

The boy nodded and looked up at the people standing everywhere; it still seemed confusing, but his thoughts disappeared as his mother took his other hand, and the three walked peacefully ahead.

"John, why don't you listen to your mother!" the angry voice echoed through unobservant faces.

The boy called back annoyed, "I don't want to walk with you, that's all. I'd rather walk with my friends."

"Well, don't stray too far away," the older voice warned as he remembered his own younger years. "It's a long and winding Line," he thought as he watched his son's blurred figure through the people.

I blinked again, and the mass of people was still the same blur of color, but the boy was older still.

"For twenty years we've been waiting in Line," another voice complained. "There's got to be something more than this, John. There has to be!"

John looked back at his friend with compassion. "But this is all that there is. We have to wait in Line..." John's eyes drifted far up ahead, past the endless bobbing faces, and he wondered how far up his parents were. His thoughts slowly returned to the nagging words.

"Come on, John. You've been walking all this time, too. Haven't you at least wondered what's at the end of the Line?"

"Well, sure. Everyone has. But it doesn't really matter." John remembered his father's reassuring voice from so long ago echoing through his mind. "There has to be a reason for all this

waiting. And how could you be thinking these things now. You've found a wonderful reason to wait in Line. You have someone to love, and you're going to start a family now and..."

The friend shook his head sadly. "That's exactly why it's so important to figure this out now...So I don't drag other people into this mess with me!"

I stared down from my strange vantage point and tried to hear what John's friend was saying. His voice reached my ears in the words of a melancholy song.

As a boy I dreamed
someday I'd find a wife;
start a family of my own,
everything would be alright.

But I don't want nobody
staring up at me.
Starry-eyed he'd start to cry,
"Dad why?

Why do the people cry?
And all that I love just die?
Why does time always pass me by?
Why, oh why, oh why?
And why are there no answers, why?"

I blinked, and John's friend was crying. "There is no answer. It's pointless, I tell you. It's not worth it!" His voice lowered suddenly, and he drew closer. "I've seen a door out of this horrid Line. Back a ways. I'm going through. Do you want to come?"

John hesitated. "Come on, be sensible. What else is there besides the Line? We all have our purpose for being here."

The other looked back. "Yeah, look at all these people, John. People stretch back and forth forever. Now do you really think they ALL have purposes?"

"Hey, wait!" John urged, but it was too late. His friend disappeared in the mist of faces.

The young man was suddenly an old man. He stepped along with unseeing eyes. Echoes of thoughts drifted aimlessly through his brain. "No one really knows what lies at the end of the Line. Some have wandered back and say they've seen from a distance, but how can anyone really know until they've passed through the Gate?"

He stared ahead, unsure whether he had heard the voices or had said the words himself sometime long ago. He just stepped along as the Line moved slowly forward.

The old man reached out his aged arm, but there was no one ahead of him, and the arm fell limply to his side. His heart surged with excitement, fear, and wonder as he heard the Voice behind the Gate call his name.

He turned hesitantly to look back at the endless faces stretching out behind; they stared emptily ahead. He turned toward his long awaited destination; took a deep breath, and stepped forward.

As the old man stepped forward through the Gate, I was stepping with him. We were crashing down from the heights of life, plunging into the unknown beyond. I knew I would find out what we had been waiting in Line all our lives to see.

Down below I saw a dusty road that stretched from Heaven to Hell and passed through life. I was falling toward the Road. As I fell, I could hear another song rippling through the me that was still alive in the Beyond...

Searching through the madness
for a reason to it all,
I see the children crying,
and I'm hearing voices call.
War and pain and suffering,
look out I'm gonna fall,
falling again...

When I get to Heaven
and I'm standing at the Gate,
They're looking at their watches
and they're saying that I'm late.
Don't I get an audience
with the Master Great?
Take a number, get in line,
you're gonna have to wait,
waiting again...

Then they throw me down to Hell
and I'm burning in the Fire.
The Devil laughs at me
as I'm sinking in the mire.
'Give your soul to me boy,
and I will set you free.'
I choose the pain and turn away,
no lies will capture me,
ever again...

When I get to Heaven
and I'm standing at the Gate,
They're looking at their watches --
forget it boy, you're late!
Don't I get an audience
with the Master Great?
Take a number, get in line,
you're gonna have to wait,
waiting again...

I looked up from the dusty road, coughing and gasping. I should have felt great. I was about to find out what lay beyond the realms of life. But from the song that had shaken my soul, I knew this Scenario was not going to be pleasant. I knew it would feel like I had felt so many times in my life. Like I still had to wait to find out what was going on, even here, when life was over. I was going to wait, and then I'd still never find out any answers! And then I saw the creatures lurking in the shadows up ahead, and I knew what I had to do.

"Look, there, another one thrown outside the Gates," one of the creatures laughed.

"Oh, Master will be so pleased," the other agreed, his dark grisly body rippling with excitement. They fidgeted with long, sharp, tapering fingers, waiting in the shadows that lay to the side of the road, beneath the jagged, towering mountains.

I licked my parched lips, and winced at the sun's brightness. I wiped beads of sweat from my eyes, and with a sigh, continued on down the dusty road towards my inevitable fate.

"Here he comes!" the creatures snorted, and I continued towards the shadows where they thought they were hiding from me.

I held out my hands in surrender as I approached them, but they leaped out of the shadows and pulled me into the darkness. I winced at their icy grips around my arms.

I shuddered, and with a last breath of determination, pulled free of their clasp. "Lead on, then," I said softly, and angrily, following them down into the mountains. Unfortunately I knew where the dream was taking me, and I just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

"Look, Master, we've found another one that They have cast out," the creatures groveled.

The towering figure before me danced with fire. "Kneel, Traveler!" he yelled, and the walls seemed to shudder, and the flames rose and thundered.

"I know who you are," I said slowly, staring at the ground. "Do what you will to me."

The fiery figure flared in anger. He reached out a burning sleeve to knock me to my knees, but as he touched my head he winced, and the room roared in a blaze.

"Fools!" he screeched. "He is mine on the outside -- scarred and barren. But his heart is pure. Get him out of here. NOW!!!"

They pushed me out of the chamber, and up through the rocky corridors, and out into the burning light.

I wiped the dirt from my lips and watched the two creatures scamper back into the darkness.

I blinked in the bright light and looked back down the Road to the shining Gates, and through the misty haze to the Golden City.

They shrugged and walked away, leaving me on my knees, peering inside. I opened my mouth to yell something, but closed my lips with a sigh. "God, you're not even going to laugh at me as I dreamed You would?" I whispered to the dirt beneath my feet. "Make all my arguments about why You were wrong to make life so hard and cruel for them seem like folly; make it seem as if I was the one who was wrong? You...you are as silent now as You always were."

I wiped the tears from my eyes and turned to face the road. My gaze followed its winding path out, out forever, and all along both sides I saw life with all of its billions and billions of lives, and I turned back to the Gates and a song was raging in me...

They don't know you like I do,
They don't see what you put them through,
but I do...
It's time to open up their eyes,
and show them all you say are lies.
But we could run and scream and hide,
and you'll still take us for a ride,
with your lies.

They don't know you like I do,
They don't see what you put them through,
but I do...
You...

I stared at the dusty road and tried not to look off to the sides where the people cried, and their pain filled me with such a great sadness that, by this point, I was pretty much completely devoid of all feeling.

I got to my feet, and tottered on with my hands clutching my ears, trying to drown out the pain-filled cries. I could feel a voice of hope and promise trying to reach me from somewhere so far away. But it couldn't penetrate through the Pain.

I stumbled on, lost and alone, and I couldn't stop myself from falling into the Void, and another song was floating from soul, trying to reach a God who has always been silent.

You can take me down,
show me round,
I won't be found.
For I, I must go there,
filled with cares,
I'm going down.

I don't know just what you mean;
I can't hear above the Screams.
You say that there are hopes and dreams;
they're only lies, foolish lies.

Life takes us for a ride,
there's just no place to hide,
Someday we all must die.
Why do the children cry;
can't we all just fly
up through the sky...
up so high...

I don't know just what you mean;
I can't hear above the Screams,
You say that there are hopes and dreams;
they're only lies, foolish lies.

"Well, you're sort of dead," he corrected. "I, technically don't exist, except in your dream. Right? Or...well, that Id guy said I'm your active consciousness. So I'm unconscious right now, while you're having a field day inventing this bizarre dream. But then I'm supposed to be your 'guide' too, so I guess I'm stuck wherever you are...which means I'm dead, too. Geez, Jack. You know, as your active consciousness I'm perfectly content with just living. I don't know why you have to obsess yourself with this quest for Answers to such 'deep' questions. Look where it's gotten us. Oooh, this being dead thing is giving me the creeps....I don't like it at all!"

"That's what I just said. Now, how do we get out of this chapter. It is really creepy being dead, even if it's just a dream...and this Chapter just doesn't seem to ever end."

I didn't either, but we both found the idea of being able to jump through a Chapter rather inviting, even if it was only a Sub-Chapter. It was like we would be able to put something behind us. And the sooner we got through this whole being dead thing, the better. We leaped without looking back.