Just Like Heaven

by Steven Slavick

  Nina shouldn’t have felt sorry for her younger self. Upon entering this room, visitors viewed events from the life they just exited from a distant perspective – one with objectivity. Some of the feelings they experienced during any given situation would certainly return, but with nowhere near the emotional intensity they felt during that moment in time.

  A rush of anxiety now descended upon her, bordering on the same ferocity that swamped her while standing on that stage over ten years ago.

  Mei Lee stepped close and wrapped an arm around Nina’s shoulder, pulling her close until Nina’s head rested on her shoulder. “We should continue this later. When everything’s not so fresh.”

  “No,” Nina said, finding the fighting spirit that always came to her a bit too late and a little less robust than she would have preferred. She raised her head. “I need to see this.”

  Mei Lee looked down at her and nodded. She turned to the screen and clapped her hands.

  “Do you have to do that?” Nina asked. “Clap your hands?”

  “No. It sounds dramatic and makes me feel powerful. Which makes it more fun.”

  That comment lifted Nina’s mood. But seeing the picture on the screen trampled what she’d hoped would be a breath of vitality.

  Her father, decked out in a dark suit, and her mother, a woman with a severe expression and wearing a striking red dress that displayed a svelte figure, stood before Nina who was attired in a black cap and gown on the day she graduated from college. As proud parents hugged or shook hands with their children, Nina’s parents stared at her with stern expressions. Her father said, “What do you mean, you don’t want to go to law school? That has been our plan for over ten years. You’ve always said you wanted to follow in our footsteps.”

  Nina couldn’t look them in the eyes. “I do want to follow in your footsteps. I want to do something I love.”

  Her mother placed a hand on her hip, heaved a sigh, and lifted her other arm in disgust as though banishing Nina. “Back to that singing hoopla again? Holding a microphone and begging people to pay to hear your voice? Let me tell you something, sweet child of mine; it doesn’t take talent to become a famous singer.”

  Nina lifted her head and met their gazes. “I don’t need to become famous. I just want to write songs and sing. I want to do what I love.”

  Her mother shrugged. “It’s useless. I don’t even know why I try.” She turned to her husband. “Talk some sense into her. After all I’ve sacrificed for her, do you still wonder why I tend to drink too much?”

  Nina watched her mother walk away; it was just one of a thousand times she had turned her back on her only child. Nina looked up at her father. “Your turn. Go ahead: tell me how much of a failure I am.”

  “True,” he said.

  “Tell me that I’m not the daughter you wanted.”

  “True.”

  “Tell me how you wasted twenty years of your life on…me.”

  “All true.” Her father balled his hands into fists at his sides and opened them, as though needing to relieve the stress that swept through his body. “You told your mother and me that, after receiving your Bachelors degree, you would enter law school.”

  “True,” Nina said, mimicking her father.

  “That you would take the bar and use our contacts to enter the working world.”

  “True.”

  “And now you’re telling me that you lied? That you had no intention of going to law school? That you only said so to get us to pay for your college education?”

  “True, true, and true.”

  Her father staggered back as though she’d flung a bucket of acid on him. “How dare you defy us.”

  “I defied you twice in my life. But you and mom defied me every day for the past twenty years. I had to live by your rules. But today is my graduation…from living the way you want me to live. From now on, I’m going to live my life. Not the life you want me to have.” She turned around.

  “If you walk away, you’ll never be welcome in our home again.”

  Nina spun back to him. “You still don’t understand, do you? I was never welcome there to begin with.” And then she walked out of his life.

  This time, the image froze on her father’s expression.

  Only now, five years later and with the “gift” of seeing that which she hadn’t seen the first time around since she had left her father, Nina stared transfixed at his appearance.

  Eyebrows knitted with worry, wincing as though second-guessing his actions, her father looked…as though he finally understood his daughter. Tears shimmered in his eyes, and he lowered his head, looking regretful and ashamed.

  It made Nina feel mortified and remorseful. After that moment in time, whenever she needed a shot of courage, she recalled this incident and drew great strength from treating her father how her parents had always treated her. But now seeing the effect it had on him, she realized that the moment where she’d finally broken free of their distasteful treatment she’d inadvertently endorsed their own tactics by adopting them as her own. And although she had never used that same horrible approach with another person, she didn’t know what using this strategy against her father said about her. It threw her self-esteem into disarray.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Mei Lee. “You gave him what he deserved.”

  “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “Oh, now, after five years, it doesn’t feel right?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” Nina refused to let her friend raise her voice without doing likewise: “And I don’t like it.”

  Mei Lee shook her head in disapproval.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I saw the way he treated you. And I saw the way your mother treated you. They acted like you were a little doll, who always had to dress a certain way, act a certain way, live a certain way. You gave them what they deserved.”

  “But they provided for me.”

  “That’s expected of every parent.”

  “I didn’t need to get a job as a teenager.”

  “But you got more than one, so you wouldn’t need their money. Don’t you remember working in the toy store, the record store, the pet shop, the department store, the—”

  “Yeah, but I stole my education. I didn’t earn it. I lied. I cheated.” She didn’t want to hear another word from Mei Lee’s lips, so she whirled around, strode to the door, and walked out on her best friend.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Nick looked around, but didn’t see anything…or anyone. He didn’t even see color of any kind. He stood on a hard surface, but there were no lines in what whatever supported his weight: concrete, brick, wood or anything else that might indicate what he stood upon. It reminded him of the scene in the science-fiction film, The Matrix, where Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, meets with Morpheus, enacted by Lawrence Fishburne. They stood in colorless confines and discussed the world that Neo found himself in: a computer generated fantasy.

  “Enjoying yourself?” asked Roland, appearing beside him without warning.

  “What’s happening? Where am I? And don’t say heaven.” Nick, no longer disoriented now that he saw a familiar face, couldn’t help but feel like he clung to Roland in this land of the void. Something had changed since he’d first seen the Englishman. He felt an attachment to him now. For whatever reason, although Nick didn’t believe Roland’s assertions about heaven, he believed in him. Only he didn’t quite understand why he felt that way. Without his “guide,” he would once more be abandoned. And for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint, that idea frightened him. For that reason, he decided to play along with Roland’s theory.

  “Why are you asking me?” Roland said. “You’re the one in this dream. You tell me.”

  “I’m in the Matrix.”

  “We’re in a virtual world?” Roland asked. “How quaint.”

  “Wait, you said we’re in heaven. If we are, how do you know about The Matrix?”

  “As I’ve stated, we have hobbies on the Other Sid
e. While not engaged with friends and loved ones, we strike out on our own, working, learning, and entertaining hobbies. I was a filmmaker in my last incarnation.”

  “Really? What movies did you make? Were you famous? Hey, did you know Spielberg? I love the Indiana Jones flicks.”

  “God can do anything, Nicholas. He loves us all, so don’t you think He’d grant me the chance to see that which I’ve enjoyed in a past life? But regarding, Mr. Spielberg, I preferred Saving Private Ryan.” His upper lip curled in a half-formed smile. “What did you think about that movie?”

  Nick didn’t respond. The emotion-packed ending brought tears to his eyes.

  “Or Field of Dreams. Have you seen that one?”

  The part where Kevin Costner played catch with his father actually made tears rush down his cheeks. But Nick refused to feel bad about that admission (even if he wouldn’t actually utter the truth) because it was a classic film. The way he saw it, if a man didn’t cry at that part, he wasn’t human.

  As though expecting silence, Roland’s partial smile grew in intensity, and he allowed the discomfort of their silence to stretch his lips into a straight line again. “As for my role in cinema, I was nobody special.” Roland emphasized his role without a trace of regret or disappointment. “This was around the time of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. The silent era. I made short films. No more than eight minutes or so in length.”

  “Did you want to become famous?”

  “I’ll concede that it would have been exciting. But I collaborated with a young artist who became the love of my life – well, that life anyway – and my filmmaking aspirations allowed me to enjoy my career and support our family. I rather liked my time in the cinema, even if I never became a sensation.”

  Nick couldn’t imagine not making it big in his career aspirations. Failure would send him into a tailspin, one he would never recover from. It explained why he would never give up on his goals. “So it didn’t bum you out?”

  “Not at all. After that lifetime ended, I discovered that I’d written my chart to include Paris – that was her name – while busy in the film world. Without my interest in the movies, I wouldn’t have met her. Events, coincidence, predicaments – they all happen for a reason. In fact, everything happens for a reason. Of course the explanation won’t be evident until you give yourself over to that fact. And it is a fact. Whether good or bad, everything happens in our lives so that our souls can communicate with God on a higher level.”

  “How would going through so much help us communicate better with God?”

  “By showing that we are willing to endure great pain to attain as close to spiritual perfection as possible. Granted, we’ll never achieve perfection because only the Lord is perfect. But becoming a more fully realized soul will bring us that much closer to God’s magnificence.”

  “So He does want us to suffer? I always knew He was an unjust god. That’s why He lets people die in plane crashes. That’s why He’s allowed cancer and AIDS and every other disease to exist. That’s why He let Hitler kill millions of people.”

  “You misunderstand,” Roland said with great patience. “God loves all His children. Even if they don’t love Him back or don’t believe in Him. Have you ever wondered why our Lord forgives even the most heinous crimes imaginable, as long as that person remains penitent? Because each action has a cause and effect. Horrible atrocities impact other lives, often negatively, but it is a spiritual test to prove to God that we are worthy of His love. Make no mistake – to be human is to suffer. But it is how we deal with those trials that determine who we are as spiritual entities. And for every death, there are countless acts of human kindness. Yet these acts go unseen or forgotten because, in human form, we often tend to focus on the negative and belittle the positive.

  “We fear losing to such an extent that it often blinds us to the advantages of taking risks to win…whatever we want. It is only when one attains enough perspective to balance both energies that the human spirit can begin to shape itself into an advanced entity.”

  Something stirred inside Nick. He didn’t know how or why, but the reasons Roland provided as to why God would allow Nick’s parents and Harold to die, let alone billions of other people throughout human history, seemed to take shape. Still, he remained tentative to…believe.

  “Think of Jesus and the torture he endured to spread the word of God. We will never attain that level of commitment. But we all try to get as close as we can.”

  “Why?”

  “On earth we communicate with God, but we are sometimes left unfulfilled because He doesn’t answer us directly in ways that are immediately understood. But he gives us what we need to accomplish what we set out to achieve. I understand why you might be skeptical. But that is why we call faith – belief in the unproven. To return to your original question, as we mold our spirit, we become more closely linked with God, making it easier to communicate with Him.”

  Again, this struck Nick like a shock to the system. It felt true. But he didn’t want to focus on it. He’d never been religious, and he could only accept so much faith-based rhetoric at any given time. He needed to change the subject. “You said the last time you were on earth was during the early part of the 20th Century. Why was it so long ago?”

  “Time has a different meaning on earth than here. In your dimension, you are bound by physics. For every second that ticks by on earth, years – in your sense of the word – could pass on our side.”

  “You don’t even know how much time passes in your make believe world?”

  “Only God knows. And we don’t question the Lord. Besides, don’t you mean ‘your’ made up world? According to you, I’m just a guest in your head.”

  Nick conceded that point. Perhaps he was beginning to believe Roland…a little bit, anyway. “But I had to give you a solid backstory, right? Because my vision of heaven is that we could kick back with a beer and hang with some buddies. But work? Why would you do that? You waste enough time on earth working. Isn’t heaven a place of complete happiness? The term ‘work’ shouldn’t even be in your vocabulary.”

  “Oh, Nicholas. You have so much to learn. Do you consider art…work?”

  “No. It’s who I am.” He couldn’t explain it any better than that.

  “Why do you think that? What about art speaks to you?”

  “I don’t know. It’s how I see the world. It’s how I understand the world.”

  “It’s how you live.”

  “Yeah. That sounds about right.”

  “So why would the need to work change once you pass from one dimension to the next?”

  “Good point. So what are we doing in this place, wherever it is?”

  Roland glanced around. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Nick laughed. “Beautiful? Are you blind? There’s nothing here. There’s no colors, no shapes, nothing.”

  “What you see is what you believe.”

  “Stop with the riddles. Just tell me; where are we?”

  “You’re trapped, Nicholas – by your own disbelief. You visited a restaurant earlier. It sprouted out of nowhere, didn’t it? How did that happen? You willed it into existence. How? Because you believed. When you went dancing with Nina, you entered a small shack, but when you got inside it was an enormous dance club. How is that possible? Because you didn’t question what you saw. You let yourself go. You allowed yourself to experience, to feel your surroundings and the people inside it without second-guessing yourself.”

  “So you’re saying all I have to do is think – or believe – my way out of this place?”

  Roland nodded.

  Nick clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Okay, I got this. No problem.” He took a few breaths. “Oh, right. No air in this place.”

  Roland shook his head. “Always making a production out of even the most elementary affairs. Just open yourself to every possibility.”

  He nodded. And closed his eyes. He imagined a place of chirping birds in trees and green gra
ss, where children played and laughed at a playground. He focused more on the background and discovered that families sat on blankets and picnicked, that further off a group of men and women played softball, that in the other direction a man flung a Frisbee and a dog raced after it, that a young woman waved at a toddler, encouraging him to walk toward her, as well as countless other details that could describe a beautiful day at a park. Then he opened his eyes.

  Although the void had vanished, reality looked nothing like it appeared in his head. He found plenty of people walking around a metropolis of buildings. “What the hell? I thought up a whole movie in my head, and I get city buildings? What a rip-off.” He looked down. Roland was clasping his upper arm. “Hey, what’s the idea?”

  Roland smirked. “You’ve stated again and again that this is your dream. If you truly believed that, and you could control your dreams, why would you arrive at a place like this? So I thwarted your efforts and took you to a setting that was the complete opposite.” Seeing Nick about to respond, he released his arm and said, “Now then…off we go.”

  A moment later, they appeared in the environment that Nick had expected to visit: public grounds where hundreds, if not thousands, of people inhabited the park. Roland said, “Is this more to your liking?”

  Nick stared in awe at the scene unfolding before him: he didn’t spot a building or a sidewalk but found a beach where people lay on lawn chairs or blankets while reading or playing tic-tac-toe in the sand, building enormous, decadent sand castles, playing volleyball as well as walking or jogging near water that didn’t seem to have a current (since there was no moon in sight). In the water, people swam and snorkeled, while off to the right, others kayaked or fished in rowboats. Beyond them, off in the distance, others jet-skied, water-skied, and parasailed. Yet, even further beyond these groups, past those engaged in yacht races, others surfed on mighty waves. Which begged the question, if there was no moon and no current, what created the gigantic waves?

  And spread out before Nick, people gathered in clumps, talking and laughing. Others played tag football or soccer. Off to the left, beyond those bird-watching and hiking, he spotted a dozen people playing golf. In closer proximity, he noticed a couple hundred people watching a group chip away on a magnificent ice sculpture that hadn’t yet become recognizable.