Alrighty...I'd like to kick off Oberonics with an excerpt from the beginning of a book I've started - a book which more often than not, strikes me as biting off more than I can chew. But I started it, then edited it, and pretty much like it, and I think the Muses are with me on it. But I can just hear the criticism - "John, you pompous, presumptuous, arrogant fool!" Still, I'd like to know if anyone can guess the identity of the narrator, and if the story "sounds" right, and if you just plain like it or not. The tentative title of this book is "Acirema". About 5,000 words in this excerpt.
1. My Death and Resurrection
It would come as no surprise if no one believed what I am about to write. As a matter of fact, only a fool would believe it. But for the record, everything is absolutely true - undeniably, categorically, swear-in-court true. So let’s get on with the trouble. It’s a corker of a yarn, and there’s none who likes telling or hearing a good story better than me.
Let me start by saying this first chapter of the story is the easiest to believe. As for the rest, I don’t even believe it. These are the events exactly as they happened, to the best of my recollection, and I hope my Patron is pleased with my effort.
All right…now for the beginning of the story – the easiest part to believe.
I am dead…or I was dead. No…reports of my death were not greatly exaggerated. My body encouraged the flora for over a century, more time than I lived. Before now, a strong man could have hit me in the head with a hammer, and I wouldn’t have so much as grunted. I was deader than a senator's speech, and with a daisy of a tombstone to prove it. Dead - no doubt about it.
The day of my death was a beautiful Spring day. I lay in my bed, ill for several weeks. I looked out my window, tired to the bone. I had lost loved ones earlier. Thunder strokes like those will take the tuck out of the best of men. Anyway, I looked out the bedroom window and saw just the prettiest day. The sky was blue with little whiffs and puffs of clouds, and the sun was just rising over the horizon. I thought, “Now this is something like! The hereafter might not be such a great change if I were to board the train right now…that is, if I have enough ballast on the credit side of the ledger. There’s lots of people expect me to receive a pretty warm reception upon my exit. I more than half expect it myself.”
It was with these ruminations that I closed my eyes for a little nap, and immediately, the voice of a man in my room nearly pushed me into the arms of St. Peter, for I knew there was no one but myself in the room.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?’ the voice said.
I opened my eyes, and there, next to the bed, stood a giant of a man wearing sandals and a bright, white robe. The ceilings in the bedroom were sixteen feet high, and the top of this fellow’s head looked to be maybe three or four feet beneath it. It was hard to judge because he was so close to me. And he was not skinny tall; he had the bulk of a buffalo.
Now most might experience a bit of discomfiture at the materialization of a giant in their bedroom, but such was not the case with me. I knew in an instant it was a dream, but rarely had a dream planted itself before me with such vividness. I thought, “This is Goliath. Why am I dreaming about Goliath? And why is he wearing bedclothes? Goliath in bedclothes. I must try to remember this dream when I awake.” But my thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the giant.
“I said…it’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”
I was not in the habit of talking with apparitions, but decided to play along, fully expecting to wake up, and asked the first question that came to mind.
“Are you a Philistine?”
Apparently, the question tickled him, for he threw back his head and laughed. And such a laugh! He nearly laughed the walls out of the room. It rumbled the very foundations of the house. Such a noise as that would bring my daughter very soon, I thought. She’d shake me awake for sure. But she didn’t come, and the giant spoke again.
“In all of my existence, no one has ever asked me that question!”
By then, worry started to set in a bit. Several hard pinches to my arm did not dissipate the giant and my daughter still did not come. I thought, “That’s it. I’m elected. I’m headed for the asylum. My mind has thought one thought too many.” Then I wondered which thought was the culprit. Which thought broke the camel’s back? What was I thinking before Goliath showed up? I looked out the window at the beautiful day and remembered. The Hereafter! Dying! Obviously, those thoughts produced more strain on my mind than I knew. Who knew what other piece of imagination my sick mind would vomit forth? Then the giant spoke again.
“You are not dreaming and you are not sick.”
As fearful as I was of losing sanity right at that moment, those words of the giant produced an even greater fear. The fear. And before I could ask, the giant confirmed it.
“You have only died.”
Only died. That’s what he said. Only died. Well, I did what any other self-respecting human would do. I denied it.
“I’m not dead. I’m still breathing. I can still feel my body. I can hear and see and think. I’m not dead.”
“Get out of the bed.”
I was about to tell him that was an impossibility due to pain and weakness, when I realized there was no more pain or weakness. In fact, I felt downright robust, as if a marathon would be a good little preparation for some real exercise. Nevertheless, I slid out of the bed very slowly and stood gingerly before the giant, out of habit moving and standing in the way that would produce the least amount of pain, even though there was none.
He pointed back to the bed. I saw myself lying in bed as if asleep. My astonishment knew no bounds, and I straightened up and expressed it.
“I’ll be d — d!”
As soon as those words disembarked, I knew that of all times and places, this was not the time and place for their departure. I started to apologize, to say that it just slipped out, that I really wasn't the kind of man to say such things normally, that really, if he was searching for the most inoffensive of human specimens…but he just raised his hand to silence me, and remained silent himself. He seemed to be waiting for something.
The silence unnerved me, so I asked quietly, respectfully, fearfully, “Will I be?”
“Will you be what?”
“You know…” then I mouthed the offensive word again without uttering it.
The giant only smiled and said, “You’ll know soon enough. Don’t worry.”
It was just the sort of vaporous reply to instill even more fear. Every man knows what he has thought and said and done. But with my new spirit mind and body (I don’t know what else you’d call it), I seemed to be able to recall the events of my life in minutest detail. Why, I could actually see them happening. They paraded before me in all their filthy rags with thick pomposity and above all, pride. I saw myself better than I ever did in life. Oh, the things I did! And I was actually proud of doing them! Oh, the things I thought and said! I could not bear it, but closing my eyes did nothing; I still saw. It would not end, could not end until all was revealed and I knew what a miserable worm I was, bankrupt of all morality and law, wholly wallowing in selfishness and pride, a blight good for nothing but annihilation. I write this as a man who lived what most would consider a good and productive life.
This self-realization overwhelmed me. I fell prostrate before the giant and cried out in despair, “Will you now take me to see Him?”
“Eventually. When you are called.”
“I don’t want to see Him! Send me to hell! I’d rather go to hell than see Him! He knows everything! He knows! I cannot bear it!”
The giant only smiled placidly. “Calm down. Of course He knows. Everyone knows. Even I know. From now on, nothing is hidden.”
I wept bitterly. “I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it!”
The giant put his hand on my back, and I felt lighter and less troubled. “Calm down. You will be fine. What you’re experiencing is what every human experiences when they enter reality. Some really cannot bear shame and humility, but you can. You’ll see. It just takes some time.”
Then the giant moved his hand to my head and said, “Here. See a little of what I did in my life.” And I saw a wirey, bald-headed man whom I somehow knew to be the earthly manifestation of this giant. He was scourging three children in front of their chained parents, some time long ago. He was very angry as he rent their flesh, screaming for them to denounce their faith in God. They would not. He spoke in a language I knew I should not understand, but did, as easily as if he spoke English. He flailed the children to death one by one in front of the parents, demanding that the parents denounce their faith, but they would not. He called in a soldier, he looked like a Roman soldier, and said simply, “Take her.”
The soldier unchained the woman and began to ravish her in front of the husband while the bald-headed man screamed at the husband, “Denounce, and it stops and you go free! Denounce not, and there awaits a battalion of soldiers newly home from a long campaign who will welcome the affections of your wife! Denounce! Denounce!” The husband crumpled and wept with agony as the bald-headed man shrieked at him to denounce his faith. The soldier mockingly pled with the husband not to denounce.
He called in another soldier and said, “Join your comrade!” and both the soldiers ravished the woman. The husband hung limply in his chains, beyond tears. The bald-headed man grabbed the husband by his hair and shrieked in his face.
The husband, exhausted and resigned, said calmly, “All that I am and all that I have, I give freely to my Lord, to the last drop of blood.” This enraged the bald-headed man who promptly butchered the husband while the wife wailed. Then the giant took away his hand, and I saw no more.
The giant smiled gently and asked, “Have you ever done anything like that?”
“No,” I said through my tears.
“Then trust me when I say He knows, and He has it all under control. You saw I was an enemy to Him, but later in life, I became His friend. You’re a friend of His too. Don’t worry.” He helped me to my feet, and I felt strengthened.
Then he said, “Let’s go.” He put his hand on my shoulder and we arrived at our destination in a twinkling of an eye. I went through what most would probably consider a registration process, the giant left me, and then I was admitted into paradise where I spent the last hundred some odd years.
Now, I imagine many of my readers have an all-consuming curiosity about the hereafter and what it is like. Unfortunately, my Patron prohibited me from writing about that. He said I could write about…well, let me just tell you the story.
I was in paradise speaking with a couple of friends I’d known in my earthly life, when suddenly, the giant appeared by my side, the same giant who presided over my death. I greeted him and shook his hand.
“What brings you to this neighborhood, friend? Say, you know, I never got your name.”
“It’s Timmy.”
“Timmy?” I chuckled. “Sort of like calling the Grand Canyon ‘The Ditch’, isn’t it?”
He laughed, and we exchanged pleasantries a bit, then he got down to business.
“You’ve been called. I must take you to Him.”
If I had had any blood, it would have shot from my face in an instant. My two friends fell silent. I could say nothing but “A-all right.”
Timmy placed his hand on my shoulder and instantly we found ourselves at our destination, just as before. I heard a voice say, “You may go, Timmy.” Then Timmy vanished, and I was alone. I could see nothing but haze suffused with sort of a glowing light. The voice called my name.
I said, “Here am I. Speak, for your servant hears.” I said that as a kind of joke because I was very nervous and fearful, but I heard not even a chuckle, which made me even more nervous and fearful.
“I have an assignment for you. I’d like you to write a book.”
“A-a book? What sort of book?”
“A book about America.”
“America? W-what should I write about America?”
“Your opinion about whatever you see or hear there.”
“Whatever I….I’m going to America?”
“Yes. I have reconstituted your body. You’ll leave immediately, if you agree to go.”
“Reconsti…you mean to say I’m to be resurrected?”
“Yes.”
“Resurrected? I’ll be human again? On earth? In America?”
“Yes.”
Now I know it is impossible for any living human to imagine the magnitude of that request. Just think a little. Imagine yourself in paradise where there is no pain, no weakness, where even the work is a joy to do, where you can go anyplace and talk to anyone at any time without fear of insult, misunderstanding, backstabbing, or gossip, where every thought, word, and deed is not only an edification to the soul, but a belly-laughing hilarity of pleasure. Imagine that, if you can. Now up against that average day in paradise, put your average day in America. Murder, rape, Congress…it is one vast obscenity of pain, fear, frustration, and discomfort. Imagine my trepidation at the request.
“You needn’t go, if you don’t want to,” said the voice. “I will not force you.”
“I can refuse?”
“Yes.”
“What happens if I refuse?”
“Then you won’t go.”
“I’ll just continue on as before?”
“Yes.”
I did a little of what would be construed on earth as pacing.
“Why do you want me to do this?” I asked.
“It’s enough for you to know that I’d like it.”
“How long will I be there?”
“Until the book is finished. There are some conditions though…”
“What?”
“First, you may not reveal your true identity to anyone. You will assume the name John Smith. Second, you may not reveal anything about the inner workings of heaven. You may write about your experiences with Timmy and this meeting if you like, but nothing else. I expect you to write about what you see and hear in America. I’d like you to write your opinion about America.”
“And then I return?”
“Yes.”
“So…let me see if I have good bead on the target. I am resurrected, I go to America, I live there, hob-knobbing with whomever, write down my opinion of all the hobs and knobs in a book, then I return. That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“What about food, clothes, shelter, that sort of thing?”
“I’ll provide for you everything necessary.”
Well, it was pretty clear that He required only my consent, and what a tussle I had with myself! I had what most would deem desirable on earth the first time around, but my time in paradise just killed the memory by comparison. I felt like He was asking to lower me headfirst into a vat of boiling sewage filled with piranhas while dedicated inquisitors enthusiastically spanked the soles of my feet with nailed paddles. So, like a child at the dentist, I asked, “Will it hurt?”
“No more than the first time,” said He.
That almost goosed a loud and vehement “NO!” out of me. But there is something about standing in the presence of Infinite Love…that little voice within you starts to sing the same notes, then to harmonize, then the choir drowns out all doubts and fear. You have the Almighty and all of heaven garlanding a black hole of certain pain and uncertain joy with boughs of promise. He strips away all pretense to opposition and leaves you with nothing but your will. Will you choose to do it or not? There is no foreseeable harm if you don’t, no foreseeable benefit if you do. If you choose to do it, it’s strictly out of love for the asker, for the skin of the request looks riddled with leprosy, and you can’t see beneath it. Will you do it? Will you believe in the character of Infinite Love?
Well, maybe a pastor or some holy roller would have no trouble with the decision. They’d out with a “YES!” without even thinking…full-throttle support to what they’d devoted their lives. But me…I was as close to a heathen as a man can be without filing his teeth and sporting a loincloth. My earthly sins danced before me, and my unworthiness to exist anywhere within a universe’s distance from that Presence, let alone enjoy His paradise…it just pressed me prostrate.
I moaned, “I can’t…I can’t. How can I?”
“With Me, anything is possible. I have chosen you especially for this assignment.”
Those words strengthened me, and I was able to stand again after a while.
“I have chosen you.”
That reiteration is what swung me. He believed, He knew I was the person to fill His bill, and that’s why He chose me. When a Personage of that grandeur exhibits that kind of confidence in you…well, I found it mighty hard not to want to live up to it.
“A-all right,” I said. “I’ll do it.” I could not see a smile on His face, but I felt one.
“Good. I’m glad.”
There was a moment of silence, then I asked, “Well…what do I do? What happens now?”
“Turn around.”
I did my best, but it was all bright haze, no reference point to tell how far I turned. I just guessed.
“Now start walking.”
“Walking?”
“Yes. Walk.”
“I can’t see anything. I can’t see where I’m going.”
“I’ll guide you.”
So I walked. I don’t know for how long, but it must have been a very long time, because weariness began to set in, a feeling unknown to me for over a century. The first evidences of weariness came at the murky sight of a building a long distance off into the haze. It was as if I stood on a cliff several miles high looking down upon it. I plodded along, and with each step the building grew nearer, and other buildings appeared around it. My legs stiffened and my walking gear seemed to rust and lose a few teeth, and the haze seemed to lodge itself in my spiritual senses. My eyesight grew clearer, but my spiritual sight dimmed to the point of blindness. I could hear birds in the trees, but spiritually, I was deaf. I could feel a breeze, but my spirit felt numb. Eventually, the initial building I saw came into focus. It was a house, and it was surrounded by other houses. It was a small neighborhood. I could no longer walk. I just stood, but the houses grew nearer still. At first, it seemed as if I were floating down to the ground in front of the house, but then I looked at my shoes…shoes! I had shoes on! And they were as big as the house! I was a giant! But I was fast shrinking. Like a comet approaching the heart of a sun, I shrank faster and faster until SNAP! all that I was or would be coalesced and encased itself into a flesh and bone body of muck and slush. It knocked me flat.
People always fear death, but let me tell you, it ain’t shucks compared to resurrection. As a boy, I nearly drowned seven or eight times. High-spirited though sickly, I loved swimming in the river that ran near our house. Drowning is the nearest sensation to resurrection I reckon, though resurrection is much worse. Compared to resurrection, drowning is fresh air at a tea party on a sunny day, because with resurrection, you don’t stop drowning; you drown to life, and you have to keep drowning to keep living.
Imagine traveling like lightning to any spot in the universe by just thinking of the destination. Now I clomp around in this sloshing bag of organs. Imagine a perfect understanding of the knowledge of the universe at your disposal. Now I’m limited to a base of early twentieth century science, and whatever knowledge I’ve happened to glean during my resurrection. Imagine perfect communication with another person, knowing his thoughts and feelings with an empathy which almost makes you wonder whether you are yourself or that person. Now I deal in a jumble of words, inflection, and gestures floating in a soup of emotion and bias. People ought not to fear death, though they may certainly dread the process. No, resurrection is more like what people imagine death to be. At least mine was. I’ll tell you what – just have a friendly contractor encase each of your hands and each of your feet in about a hundred pounds of concrete, then get a taxidermist or some other such professional to pack your mouth, nose, and ears with wet cotton, then get yourself a mechanic to smear grease from the filthiest machine on the planet into your eyes, then jump into the nearest sewage and baste yourself for three days without food or water, then do it all over fifty or sixty times, and then…then, you might just barely approach a smattering of an idea of what resurrection is like.
Well, I was flat on my back and all went black for a time. Then my eyes snapped open and I gasped for breath, as if the Almighty applied a spark to my heart. I lay there gasping for a minute or two, then my breathing leveled out, and I saw the sun in the blue sky, I felt a cool breeze and heard birds, and I smiled in spite of myself. I remembered so many of these days as a boy.
I lay there on the front yard of a house for a while because I didn’t yet feel confident enough to use my body. But then, without warning, I broke wind with enough force to lift me off the ground, and a wave of intense hunger seized me so violently that I felt every bit of Noah’s cargo would have served me only as an appetizer. I stumbled and jittered my way to the front door of the house in front of me and pounded on it, collapsing to my knees right as a woman answered the door.
I could barely squeak out the words “hungry” and “food”. Of course, she misinterpreted the whole thing. She gave out a little gasp when I fell to my back, then reached into her shirt pocket and withdrew a little black box. She held the box in her right hand and pushed on it two or three times with the index finger of her left hand, then held the box up to her ear.
“Hello? Hello?” she said with urgency. “Send an ambulance right away! There’s a man dying here on my front porch. Send an ambulance now! Right now! What’s that? Oh, 115 Stoney Way! Hurry! Wait, he’s trying to say something!” She came to my side and leaned down with her ear to my mouth.
“Hungry…food,” I whispered.
“Wait, he says he’s hungry. Let me go get him something to eat.” She rushed inside the house then returned with square flat box, maybe an inch or two thick, that had the word “Antonio’s” written in red script on its top. She opened the box to reveal four wedge slices of some kind of bread pie that I’d never seen before. It had round meat on it like salami, only much smaller, and mushrooms.
“Here,” she said. “It’s cold, but it’s good.”
Cold? I would have eaten the box with gratefulness. I used my fingers as ramrods to stuff that food down my gullet as quickly as possible. My teeth never so much as grazed the first piece.
“Goodness! Slow down! You’ll choke to death!” the woman said. She held the black box to her ear again. “I think he’s just really hungry. I think he might be all right with a little food. Huh? Wait I’ll ask him.” She turned to me and asked, “Do you have diabetes?”
I shook my head no.
“He says no. What? Oh, yes. I will. I will. Yes. He’s looking better already.” She pressed the little black box with her thumb, and it chirped.
I actually chewed the second piece a little, and was about to bite into the third when a raging thirst swept over me. I gestured frantically at her and croaked out, “Water! Water!” She left and returned with a large glass of water, which I drained in seconds and asked for more. Before she had left and returned with the glass refilled, I had finished the third piece of the bread pie. I drained about two thirds of the second glass before I started actually swallowing the water instead of just pouring it down my throat. Resurrection is a powerfully hungry and thirsty business.
She returned with the glass refilled as I was starting on the last piece at an almost leisurely pace, actually tasting it, and it was not bad. I drank, in a normal manner, about a quarter of this last glass of water. I set the glass down on the porch, then leaned back on my hands to rest and let the new fuel build up my combustion.
“Are you feeling better?” the woman asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you for your hospitality. I suppose that’ll teach me to let my fortifications run so low.” I was still a bit hungry, but no longer to the point of insanity, and no longer thirsty.
“Here, why don’t you come on in here and splash some water on your face and freshen up a little. You still look a little shaky.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I believe I will.”
She guided me into her home and down a little hallway which had a door to the right. She lightly knocked on the door and said, “Right here. Take your time.”
I stepped through the door and into a water closet with a commode and a sink with running water. My first thought was that these people must be rich. In my day, there were not many who could afford this amenity in their homes. I splashed some water on my face, and then looked into the mirror.
It is the oddest feeling to see your own face after not seeing it for over a century. There are no mirrors in paradise, you know, except the One. And seeing yourself reflected in that Mirror is like gazing at a rotting corpse, so not many are keen on it. But there was my face in the mirror above the sink, like an old friend, maybe fifty or fifty-five years of age – young, but not too young – just before Father Time starts to embrace you as one of his true children. I ran a hand through my salt and pepper hair, smoothed my mustache, pinched my nose, and pulled my ears, preening like the fool I used to be. I straightened my tie and tidied up my suit. It was a coal black pinstripe suit, not the best of material, but I still looked good in it. I stood up straight with my thumbs under my lapels and appraised myself. Not bad for a man fresh from the dead. I complimented the Almighty on the beauty of His handiwork, but I don’t think He felt altogether complimented. I quickly exited the water closet and turned my mind to other matters.
“Are you feeling better? Do you need anything else?” asked the woman of the house.
I said, “I’m feeling much better, thank you, ma’am. You’ve been so kind to me…I wonder if I could trouble you for some more food? Maybe some fruit or a sandwich? If it is not an imposition…”
“You wait right there.” She left and came back in about ten minutes with a sack of food. “Now, there’s a turkey sandwich, a ham sandwich, two apples, two bananas, an orange, and two twinkies. That ought to hold you.”
Thanking her profusely for her generosity, I asked her for directions to the nearest library.
“There’s one over in Westerville. That’s probably the closest. There’s a bus stop just down the street that goes to Westerville.”
“Bus stop? You mean like a streetcar?”
“Well, yes…only it’s a bus...just turn right down at the end of the street. There’s a sign on the right side of the street where you wait for a bus.”
I felt my pockets for money and asked how much it cost, and explained that I’d misplaced my wallet. The woman left and returned with a handful of change.
“There. That should be more than enough to get you where you need to go.”
Again, I thanked her profusely and asked her name.
“Beth. Beth Anderson”
“Well, ma’am, I certainly won’t forget this, and if it becomes possible for me to do you a good turn, I’ll certainly be quick to do it. Thank you.”
So I turned and stepped off the woman’s porch, thanking the Almighty for His more than adequate provision. I had clothes, enough food to last a couple days, and though I had only change, I felt richer than Midas. That’s what the confidence of the Almighty can do for a man.
I noted the number on the woman’s house, and then the name of the street. Then I saw the sign for the bus stop, just down the street on the right as the woman said, and I headed off for my first day of earthly life in over a hundred years.