“It’s Mei Lee,” said the woman.
“Of course,” Nina said, recognizing the name immediately, although she wouldn’t have conjured up that name without the reminder.
Next, as her closest friend left her embrace a blond haired man enveloped her in a hug, issuing almost as much affection and understanding as Mei Lee, before another friend took his place. There were so many people that she went from one person to the next, experiencing vestiges of feelings about each of them, although memories about their respective history together failed to coalesce. And at her feet, even more cats and dogs had joined her. Never before had she felt so adored. Never before had she felt so happy. And never before had she felt so at peace. Nina had finally come home…to heaven.
This admission, after saying hello to each person and all of her furry friends, triggered a portion of her memory to return to her. She turned to her best friend, the exquisite Chinese woman with a beauty mark on her right cheekbone, who wore a red-sheened dress, embroidered with black hearts.
“How are you feeling?” asked Mei Lee, which meant “beautiful” in Chinese: an appropriate description of her petite friend. A faint memory informed her that Mei Lee had often allayed her fears and uncertainty during one of her past incarnations on earth, although she couldn’t recall where or when that had taken place.
“Wonderful,” said Nina. Then she realized that Mei Lee had spoken in Chinese, and not only had Nina understood her, but she had responded in English, which her friend had comprehended without any difficulty. And this peculiarity felt…right. After all, why shouldn’t everyone, regardless of ethnicity or language, be able to communicate in heaven?
And then she recalled the accident on earth; how Nick, even though he barely knew her, had risked his life to save hers. Very few strangers would have reacted with such haste. So why had he taken that chance?
“Nick…is he okay? Did he make it? Did he survive?”
Mei Lee tipped her head to the side. “That depends. But then, you could ask the same question of yourself. We’ll get to all that soon enough. Now is time for reflection. Agreed?”
Nina nodded. But she worried about Nick. After enduring the deaths of his family members, only to find himself on the Other Side, he most likely felt frightened. She’d endured that displaced, bewildered frame of mind before, and she wanted to check on him to help assuage his discomfort. But seeing her so soon after the accident might trigger more questions than she could answer. Because in this case, he needed to discover some of those answers for himself.
CHAPTER THREE
“So this is a case of dead man talking, huh?” Nick asked, circling Roland. “I’m a zombie. Is that what you’re saying?” Nick shook his head. “Oh, don’t worry, Colonel. I’m not a big fan of legs, even the kind from KFC. So I don’t think I’ll be craving human flesh any time soon.” He stroked his chin with feigned concentration. “A walking, talking dead man stands before you. So where does that get us?”
Roland sighed as though suffering a tedious ailment.
“Unless we’re ghosts.” He recalled flirting with Nina on that very subject. It almost made him want to smile. But the confusion wracking his brain made that difficult. “We’re not ghosts, are we?”
“No, we’re not ghosts,” said Roland. “We’re spirits.”
“But that’s the same thing. Ghosts, spirits…look it up in the thesaurus. You’ll find it next to apparitions, specters, and—”
“I’ve always enjoyed that diverting mind of yours, but it’s probably best to show you.”
“Sure thing, Colonel. And why do they call you Colonel anyway? I thought you were a businessman. Were you in the Army? Did you storm the beach at Normandy? Fight in Vietnam? Or did you die more recently? What about Iraq or Afghanistan?”
Far from amused, Roland shook his head in exasperation. “Follow me.” He started towards the Greco-Roman building straight ahead.
Nick didn’t believe for one second that he was in heaven. This place, with all of its idealistic atmosphere and shiny happy people, obviously didn’t quite reflect the imagery of the bliss depicted in television shows and in movies, so this had to be an illusion. Better yet, a trick of the mind. In reality, he was still unconscious on a hospital bed.
And while he visited this imaginary place, he planned to enjoy himself…even live it up. Why not? His mind was a safe place. He had nothing to fear. With a bounce in his step, Nick caught up to Roland and trudged up the wide staircase. “If this is heaven, where are the pearly gates? Or is that only symbolism?”
“No, they’re quite real – for people who want or expect to see them.”
“What does that mean? That people can create their own impression of heaven?”
“In a way, yes. It is heaven, after all.”
“Okay, how come I didn’t go through a tunnel? Isn’t that supposed to happen?”
“To some people, yes.”
“How about giving me a straight answer? What’s with all of these ‘yes, but’ type explanations? It’s not turning me into a believer.”
“Much of heaven is based on your perspective.” Roland stopped and turned to Nick. “You do not believe, so how can you see what truly is? You’ll only see a distortion of your own suspicions.” He shook his head in pity. “And for that, I feel pity for you.”
“Okay, so where’s God?”
Roland snickered. “We don’t see the Lord.”
“Why not? Is he too busy wrecking people’s lives on earth?”
“I give you truth, yet you aren’t willing to believe. Therefore, I won’t indulge your jaded comments.”
Although Nick didn’t regard this fantasy world as heaven, Roland obviously placed complete faith in his perceptions, and Nick would not insult him just because they disagreed on that point. “So why do I have to walk…anywhere? There were even people riding bikes around here. A kid was skateboarding. In heaven? Really? What about flying? Why aren’t we soaring through the clouds like birds? Which reminds me: what about angels? Where are they?” Upon receiving a blank expression from Roland, he shook his head. “Right, I don’t expect to see them, so I can’t see them.”
“What about that concept seems so unusual?”
“I saw that truck coming right at Nina, and I couldn’t have stopped it just by hoping it would vanish.”
“On earth? No. In heaven? Anything’s possible.”
“So why are we still walking? Why can’t we just…be where we want to go?”
Roland looked him in the eye with a hint of a smile. “Very well.” He clutched Nick’s shoulder with one hand and snapped his fingers with the other.
After a momentary discombobulated sensation, which made his stomach clench and his mind a little dizzy, Nick opened his eyes to find himself inside a great hall. He swayed to the side, off balance.
Roland reached out and held him upright.
“If this is heaven, why do I feel so lightheaded?”
“If you believed, you would be perfectly fine.”
“Okay, whatever.” About forty stories above him, Nick stared at an enormous dome constructed with such precision that it left him in awe. Checking out his surroundings, he noticed marble floors that led to staircases in every direction.
“What is this place?”
“We call it the Hall of Wisdom.”
He turned to Roland. “And how did you do that? What gives?” He grabbed Roland’s shoulder and snapped his fingers. They remained in place. Disappointed, he snapped his fingers again. They didn’t budge.
Roland chuckled. “You’re quite the comic, aren’t you? Perhaps you should have given that line of work some consideration instead of devoting all of your energy to the art world.”
“Never,” said Nick, his jaw-hard set. “I was born to create sweeping landscapes, images of the holidays and the importance of family and…” He had no idea why he’d gotten so upset or why he recited what sounded like a forced line of dialogue from a bad movie. After all, this building a
nd everyone in it was just a figment of his imagination.
And if Nick questioned his dreams of one day having his artwork in every twentieth home in the United States, like his unofficial mentor Thomas Kinkade, it meant that deep down, he failed to spend the necessary time and energy to make his dreams come true. Never mind that, when not taking on freelance graphic art assignments, he spent most of his time in his heat-controlled garage working on Kinkadesque images – but with more of an edge. Nick couldn’t get past the pain and loss he’d experienced, and he needed to be true to all that he’d witnessed, which contributed to his more realistic vision of humanity and the world they lived in.
“I meant no disrespect,” Roland said with utmost sincerity. He offered his hand.
Nick shook it. And a moment later, he found himself in a dark room with an IMAX type-screen straight ahead. The woozy feeling in his head returned with only half the potency of the last trip. Perhaps the more he teleported, the more his body became familiar with the sensation. Then again, he didn’t recall this dazed sensation in any other dream, so why would it affect him now? But if he was in heaven, he wouldn’t be able to feel any physical sensation, because in that instance, his physical form would have remained on earth. From now on, he would anticipate these trips and see if that reduced his lightheadedness.
Nick pointed to the movie screen. “We’re catching a flick?”
The screen flickered to life and an image of a bald baby, covered with blood and amniotic fluid, wailed as the doctor handed the child to a midwife who bundled it in a blue blanket and carried it away.
“That’s one disgusting baby,” Nick said.
Roland turned to him. “That baby is you.”
Nick just shook his head. “Whatever, Colonel. I’m not really into watching home videos.” He turned around and looked up toward where the projection unit should be. But he couldn’t find a glass window through which the film unspooled. “Do you have a remote? I like to fast-forward the boring parts.”
“Yes, how could you remember yourself as a child? How about this one?” Roland snapped his fingers.
Nick’s mother, in her late twenties, had thick, dark rings under her eyes. Strands of blond hair had escaped the elastic band that collected a mass of curly hair into a ponytail. Looking exhausted after coming home from working a shift behind the counter at McDonald’s, she came into focus as she bent over and picked up her five-year old son. Her arms quivered from his weight, but she hoisted him up and kissed his cheeks. “How was your first day of school, kiddo?”
He burrowed his head into his shoulder, wiping at the spot she had kissed.
“Not so good, huh?”
He shook his head.
She nodded in sympathy. “Tomorrow will be better.”
“Where were you? I waited and waited and waited and you didn’t come. You left me there. All alone.”
“But you were with other kids.” Her face lit up. “Oh, you missed me?”
“Mom, I’m a big boy now. I’ll be as big as daddy in one more year.” He held up two fingers. Noticing that he’d miscounted, he said, “Or maybe two years…I’ll tell you when it happens, so you’ll know.”
Her grin broadened. “Promise me one thing, okay? Don’t grow up too soon. Would you do that for me?”
He offered a small smile and nodded. “I remembered it’s your birthday today.”
“Oh, honey. That means so much to me.”
He nodded with excitement. “When do I get to open my presents?”
She laughed. “But it’s my birthday. Don’t I get any presents?”
“After I open them, you can see what I got. Oh, but you bought them for me, so you know what I got, right?” He gave this some deep thought. “I just like opening them. That’s the best part.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, buddy, but you didn’t get any presents. You’ll have to wait until it’s your birthday.”
“Oh,” he said, disappointed.
“Tell you what: if I get any presents, I’ll let you open one. How does that sound?”
“And I can have some birthday cake, too?”
“You can help me cut the first piece. Sound good?”
He threw his arms her shoulders in a big hug.
“Come on, Saint Nicholas. I brought home some pizza and ice cream.”
The picture froze on his mother carrying her smiling son.
“How about that?” Roland asked. “Do you remember that moment?”
Upon seeing that vision of his mother, Nick felt a flurry of emotions: joy, sadness, guilt. He was thirty-two years old…and he missed his mother. He felt tears building up inside him, but for whatever reason, they didn’t emerge. For that he felt grateful. But he still felt his facial muscles quivering, wanting to do just that.
“Or how about this one?” Roland said.
The picture revealed Nick’s father, a stocky man in his early thirties with glasses perched on his nose. He walked along a path at the zoo and stopped by a clown who contorted balloons into animals. Nick looked six years old.
The clown spotted Nick, and a wide grin appeared on his face. “How would you like an elephant?”
“I don’t want an elephant.”
“Well, how about a dog then? Do you like dogs? How about I make one of them for you?”
“I don’t want a stupid dog. And I don’t like stupid clowns…Mr. Stupid Clown.”
“Nicholas,” his father said, grabbing his forearm and jerking him off to the side. “That wasn’t nice. I want you to apologize.”
Nick folded his arms. “I won’t do it. I won’t.”
Gritting his teeth, his father said in a harsh tone, “If you don’t get back over there and apologize right now, I’m going to thrash your behind. And then afterwards we’ll come right back here, and you’ll apologize. Now which is it going to be?”
Nick looked into his father’s eyes. “I won’t apologize. You should apologize. You did the bad thing. I saw it. You should apologize.”
His father, clutching his son’s arm so tightly that Nick’s arm turned white, swung toward the clown. “I’m sorry for my son’s behavior. And I guarantee that he’ll be sorry soon enough.”
The clown, glancing down at Nick lifted his eyebrows in sympathy as he regarded the boy, but nodded at the man standing opposite him. The picture froze on that image.
“What was that all about?” Roland asked.
“I was a being a brat.” Nick never forgot that moment: the first time he’d stood up to his father. The day before, he’d caught his dad kissing another woman. He’d spent the day in a solemn mood, uncertain how to confront his father about the issue. After lashing out at him, Nick felt ashamed of his behavior, because before he’d found him cheating on his mother, he’d always regarded his dad as someone to emulate: a strong, smart, and caring man. Refusing to follow his father’s instructions felt wrong, and he almost hoped his father had carried out his threat to give him a beating (he didn’t), but he hated that something inside him refused to carry out his father’s wishes.
But the truth tore him up inside, because he didn’t want to tell his mother. At the time, Nick didn’t understand why she would feel terrible if she learned the truth, but he only knew that he felt betrayed. And since his mother was older and smarter, he instinctively knew that she would take it much harder than he did.
So he never told her about that woman, or any of the others he later found out about, which only increased his guilt and persuaded him to love his mother that much more, while convincing him to turn his back on his father, no matter how much his dad tried to charm his son back into his life. Even worse, because Nick had loved and trusted his father so much, from that moment forth, he had a difficult time trusting…himself. As his father’s son, he feared that one day he’d meet a woman he’d want to settle down with and end up cheating on her. For that reason, whenever he sensed that a woman he’d spent time with became attached to him, he’d break it off with her.
“Is that all?
” Roland asked. “Nothing more to it than being a brat?”
Nick shook his head. Why did he want to revisit his past? What could be gained from drudging up memories? After his brother passed away, he made a point of living in the now; don’t look forward, don’t look back. Live for today. But even if he wanted to gain some perspective, why would he want to do so with a complete stranger – in a darkened room, no less?
He had to admit that everything looked incredibly authentic. Then again, many dreams often seemed ultra-real. And like this one, they often didn’t make sense.
It occurred to him that he couldn’t smell anything. And he’d only now noticed that he hadn’t breathed in quite a while. But did he really need to breathe? He looked down at his chest. It didn’t rise and fall. Anxiety kicked in. But he didn’t feel as apprehensive as he would have thought.
He needed to relax and pull himself together. He controlled this dream. He simply needed to go with the flow while remaining in control at all times – just like in real life.
Another depiction formed on the screen: a seven-year old Nick drew in a notebook at his desk, while kids buzzed around the classroom, talking and laughing over each other’s voices as they dropped Valentine’s Day cards onto desks belonging to their secret crushes.
Nick reached in his backpack and withdrew a pink envelope with the name, Ruth, on the cover. He took a deep breath, got up, stepped into the aisle, and set his sights on the desk one row to his right and two seats up. He hurried over, almost bumping into someone, and pitched the envelope on Ruth’s desk before zipping back to his desk. He grabbed his pencil and continued doodling until he saw Ruth, a studious redheaded girl with freckles – and the most unpopular girl in class – return to her seat.
He watched as she opened the card he’d placed on her desk.
Just Like Heaven Page 3
