It was a cold and rainy night. You had been driving home from work after a long day at the office and you were looking forward to laying out on the couch and finishing your favorite series on Netulu Plus. As you were passing through an intersection, you were crushed by a Semi that ran the red. It was over in an instant. No pain, just darkness. Sudden darkness.
That was when you met me.
"Um... Hi? I'm confused. I thought I was driving..." You mutter, unable to grasp the idea of what had occurred only moments before.
"You were. Now you're dead." I said assuredly, but with a kindness that you found unfitting for the statement.
"Oh.. I. No actually, I don't understand." Your head spun taking in the information. "I can't be dead, I'm still.." You look down and find your body is not beneath you as it has always been, instead the blackness surrounded you entirely. You look back to me and examine me for a long time. I appear to you as more of a figure you vaguely know, than a god or devil. "If I'm dead, are you God?"
I laughed a bit and nodded "You can call me that. Or anything else you'd like. I'm really not picky." I spoke, smiling at the apparition. "Walk with me."
You both began to follow me, as we strolled through the void. "Where are we going?" you asked.
"Nowhere in particular. It's just nice to walk while we talk."
"I wrecked my car... My dad would kill me if I was still alive." You began, thinking back on your life and the people you left behind.
"Good thing you aren't then! And don't worry. He won't blame you. The truck ran the red light." I reminded you.
"My sister. My mom. What happens to my family now?"
I smile wider. "I love that you are thinking of your family. Some people only think about how much money they didn't have the time to spend. Your family will be okay. They will grieve over their loss, but you will not need to worry. Your family will survive without you, until the day they too come to visit me."
"Does that make you the grim reaper?" you asked, still trying to figure out my position in all of this.
"The afterlife is not as convoluted as you thought back on earth, I promise. There is not a grim reaper. There is no Heaven or Hell."
"So what IS there? What's next?"
"You're home. There is nothing to worry about from now on. You are safe." I assured you.
"Then... was any religion right?"
"Well they all got a little bit of it right." I thought for a moment on the subject. "In a way, you will be reincarnated, in a way, you will go to heaven or Valhalla or whatever you call it, and in a way you will go to hell, because a part of you will suffer for the rest of eternity."
"Wasn't I good? Why do I need to suffer?" You ask, beginning to fear the ideas being presented.
"You were good to the people around you, but that does not mean you made no mistakes in life. Like I said, in a way you will be reincarnated. Let me explain; You and I are one."
"That explains nothing..."
"I next will send a piece of myself, as you are a piece of me, back into the world. Now that I have allowed your piece to grow and return, I can send more of myself back into the world. You will stay and your consciousness will merge with my own. You are, by your own words, a God."
"So.. I am God... And I am someone else?"
I chuckle. "You are everyone else. The earth is covered with life, and it all originates from me. Every blade of grass you trampled has a spirit. Every tree chopped down had a name. Every human on earth is a part of something bigger. And that something bigger is now you."
"You mean my friend is me? and my coworker too? But they're so different..."
"Are they really?"
"Does that mean I was Jesus?"
"Yup. and everyone who followed him."
"I.. I was Hitler?"
"And the millions he slew."
"I see..."
"Almost." I nod.
"So, why then?"
"Why is a very vague question, my friend."
"Why are we alive? What is the point of it all? What is the answer to life, the universe and everything?"
"42 of course!... I'm only kidding. The purpose is to allow yourself to grow."I paused, then with a wave of my hand the earth appeared, no larger than a standard globe. I gesture to the ball of green and blue. I made this whole earth to understand everything that you can about life, the ups and downs, the wrongs and rights."
"Why bother? Why put ourselves through life after life of torture? Why would we subject ourselves to the pain of existence? You created the world then you should be able to shape it! Fix it! Make people nicer! This is so wrong!" Your anger bubbles to the surface and I can't help but laugh at your silliness.
"It is wrong. There is so much wrong in the world you left and honestly, it will never be righted. Your world is broken and destroyed because I started this world without understanding why life is so beautiful. And because of that, I destroyed it human by human until it was polluted, rotten, and ready to crumble to sand. By the time that I understood what I was doing, it was too late. I can only see the world through the eyes of the dead. Such as yourself. You bring me back your experiences, your lifespan. You bring me your ideas and your ingenuity. You bring me the answers. I can only send one idea back into the world at a time, and often the best ideas are lost quickly to one of my less pleasant lives. I truly have destroyed the world. It's up to you to help me restore it."
"How can I help restore anything? I'm staying here, I thought... Where is here, by the way?"
"I told you. Here is home. And you will restore the world by rejoining it. I'm about to split you into fragments. Ideas that you have once held true. They will be returned to the earth. Your honesty, your kindness, your love of the world around you will all become new humans. Babes. They will ferment these ideas in their head until they are able to become adults and change the way the world spins, through simply interacting with one another. Life is all about the connections you make. Death is all about divisions."
"I think I understand. So the reason it is torture for some, is because they lived a life that damaged another, and they now have the burden of knowing they damaged themselves..?"
"As we said, Hitler lived every life that he ended."
With this you thought long and hard. "And if I don't want to go back?"
"It's only your ideas that go back. You are home and you will stay. Your life will forever be a short one, and you may well interact with yourself sooner rather than later in another life. I hope that you lived well and treated others with respect. I hope you can forgive yourself for driving through years worth of insects, splattering them across the windshield of your many many cars. I hope that you can forgive yourself for picking the flowers in your yard and watching them wither away in your house. I hope you can forgive yourself for it all."
"How can I forgive myself for the hurt I never knew I inflicted?"
"Because I forgive you. And I am the ones you hurt." I reached my arms towards you and you felt the warm embrace of a hug as you finally became one with me. Every emotion that any human had ever felt was emanating from you at once, but the only emotion that you could truly feel above the others, was love. "I forgive you."
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from Short Stories
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