The Counterfeit

by Nate Allen

stand, like the very bones holding you up have been removed?”

  “I’ve been weak before,” I say with a soft shrug.

  Suddenly he stands up and disappears into the far right corner of the cabin. The sound of metal hitting metal is faint. He comes back into sight with two faded blue mugs looking small in his big hands. He pours the water from the pan into the two mugs, bright green pieces of citrus fruit falling into both.

  “Drink up, kid.” he hands me a mug as he sits back down. “The presence of God is not in just one place but permeates the entirety of Heaven itself. This will give you strength.”

  “What is it?” I ask as I take a sip, immediately feeling as if my bones are given a coating of steel.

  “Only something from Heaven can give you the strength to stand in Heaven.”

  The water is hot but drinkable. The flavor is both sweet and slightly sour, a mixture of orange, lime, and mango, possibly, or maybe it’s peach. I drink it down quickly. The fruit falls apart in my mouth, warm skinned but ice cold in the middle. Nothing tastes quite like it.

  The man stands up as light begins to paint across the back of me.

  “We’re there, kid.”

  I turn to see where the light is coming from. A small but incredibly bright stripe of light is pushing through the bottom of his front door.

  The Tour

  1

  The man steps toward the door without hesitation. I find it hard to even stand up. Despite the extra strength given to me from the fruit, I am still weak. The light has gone from a stripe to a swift wave, sliding across the floor and filling the cabin. And the door isn’t even open yet. The light is like a creature, devouring whatever darkness there is.

  The man’s face is filled with delight as he moves closer and closer to the door. He reaches out and opens it and suddenly the sound of a great ocean’s waves begins to fill the air.

  “What is that?” I ask as I close my eyes, nearly overwhelmed by the sound.

  “It is an ocean unlike any other, kid.” he says. “It is the living waves of The Father’s presence. There is no darkness here, because darkness is absence. There is no void. Everything is complete. Nothing is lacking. Our Father is the Source of everything and so His presence envelops you always, like the waves of an ocean.”

  It is unlike anything I have experienced before. I am surrounded by waves of warmth that continuously splash against me and stick to my skin. It doesn’t end. With my eyes still closed, I try to stand. It is like trying to move in shoulder high water. This presence is inescapable. To live in it even with my eyes permanently closed would be more fulfilling than everything I had before.

  I take my first step, eyes still closed. It is like wading through water that keeps pushing at you.

  “How do you walk?” I ask the man.

  “The very waves that push against you are strengthening you to withstand them. It takes time to be able to walk without almost being knocked over. And this is the equivalent to the shoreline. The waves get stronger the farther in you go.”

  “Will you ever be able to stand without struggling?” I ask as I begin to open my eyes.

  “There are places where all the fruit in Heaven would not give you enough strength to be able to stand. You could experience the waves here for thousands of years and still be knocked flat when He is near.”

  Through the doorway, I see the waves rolling toward me at eye level. They have no distinguished color but are blurred bends in the air. It reminds me of the air behind a running jet.

  A simple dirt road starts at the doorway and continues into a land of high hills. This road barely looks like a line sketched on paper as it steadily climbs past where my eyes can see. I am at the very bottom of the land. This is not what I expected Heaven to look like. It’s a basic country side. The bright green hills are beautiful but not breathtaking.

  “It looks different than I thought it would,” I say to the man, who’s already walked out of the cabin and many feet ahead of me.

  “Maybe that’s the point, kid.” he smiles back at me. “Everyone expects the roads paved with gold, the city made of precious stones, the wealth beyond all measure. But, what they don’t realize is that Heaven is as vast as the universe. And we are near the very beginning.” he takes a deep breath of air as he looks up to the highest hill. “It’s time for me to get going. I’ll see you in The City one day.”

  “Can’t I come with you?”

  “It’s not my place, kid. Someone else will be coming down to meet you.”

  “Who?”

  “God only knows,” he says as he begins to walk up the first hill.

  2

  I am alone down here but I’m not lonely. The waves of presence are continuous. They wash down over the hills and into this deep valley. I am not forgotten, no matter how far away I am from other people. The presence completes me.

  I look back toward the cabin. It’s gone, erased from its spot, revealing that where I am is not the bottom, but actually quite high up. The hills continue downward past where my eyes can see. What deep valleys there are. But, no matter the depth, the waves flow down regardless. I can barely make out the small moving specks far below me. They must be other people.

  There is no real description I can give of this place. Shadow doesn’t exist. Not in the valleys. Not on the hills. Not even casting from me. The source of light isn’t in just one place. The sky is filled with an incredible, all consuming white glow. And still, it is a beautiful pallet of colors. Except, unlike the skies on earth, the colors are like wet paint, constantly being splattered in and reshaped, adding countless shades that mix to make new colors altogether. The color seeps out from the white light, as if the light contains all of what it paints. It makes me wonder if the skies on earth are just photographs of what is always happening here.

  I haven’t moved more than a few feet since leaving the cabin. The man who brought me here is far out of sight. He disappeared quickly, scaling even the steepest of hills effortlessly. He’s gone but someone else is walking down. The person is just a small speck from here, sometimes seeming to disappear completely under the mirage like atmosphere that the waves create. All I can make out is that the person is wearing white…

  And so am I…

  The color of my clothing has changed from dark black to a spotless white. I don’t know when this happened. Maybe as soon as the light filled the cabin? But, even so, I don’t understand the purpose of it.

  I am patiently waiting where I’m at. The person is still high up in the hills. The speck is a small dot on the road, disappears for a time, and then reappears on the next hill coming down. There are four hills that I can see, continuously climbing higher and higher. The person is in the middle of the third hill, probably a hundred feet above me, maybe higher.

  “It gets easier.” I hear from behind me. “The struggle is part of the process.” I look to find a white woman who is both aged while ageless, guiding a younger woman. They are coming up from the hills behind me.

  “Hello,” the older woman says as they find even ground where I am. “Are you still waiting to start?”

  “Yes.” I nod.

  “I’ll tell you the same thing that I tell my granddaughter: ‘It gets easier’”. She smiles at me. So does the granddaughter. “I’m sure we’ll see you again in The City. Let The Lord be praised!” without stopping, they continue past. The older woman effortlessly steps forward; the granddaughter stumbles nearly every step. She is struggling with the waves, just like me. There is a reason I have barely taken a step forward.

  I have to say though, the longer I experience the waves, the more natural they become to me. The warmth of them is never fleeting. Even now, as the two women have continued past me, I am not alone. The knowledge of fellowship hasn’t left me even though people continue to. They keep talking about The City and I can only imagine The City houses God Himself, but His presence is everywhere. Every wave is Him, just as every thought is.

  No pain exists here. No sadness. I
haven’t lost the knowledge of pain, like some kind of lobotomy. I still know what it feels like to hurt, which makes the reality of fullness even more indescribable. If I didn’t know what hurt was, happiness would mean nothing. The knowledge of pain makes this reality paradise, because it is a finished thing, like looking back over a book of your life now that it’s complete. Something only hurts when the hole is still there, when a bad memory causes a sharp wind to blow through you. The memories of pain no longer hurt me. They only cause me to see how empty life was without Him.

  I have always known about The Lord. But, everything I did was covered in mockery. I knew about the crucifixion so I could ridicule those who believed in it. I knew about the resurrection and laughed at the idea. Everything I knew about Him was tainted. Nothing was genuine. Nothing was real.

  And yet, I see that every road in my life twisted past all obstacles I put up, always leading back to Him. No matter how far away I tried to get, the road always led back to what I was missing. Even in my mockery, there was some part of me that wished it were true. I have always denied the need for Him while constantly searching for Him.

  3

  Some time has passed. The person is now at the top of the first hill. I can make out that it’s a man, but he is still blurred. He’s no longer a speck but an elongated silhouette, especially behind the waves. It looks like he’s running. Every moment fills in his detail a little bit more. He is a tall