Read an Excerpt
Eternal Life and how to enjoy it
a first-hand account
By GORDON PHINN Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.
Copyright © 2004 Gordon Phinn
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61283-263-0
CHAPTER 1
A Boring No–Account Accountant
I died in the early 1960s, during that breathing space between the Cuban missile crisis and the Kennedy assassination, those halcyon days of our commonwealth whose charm and promise have come to be commemorated, even by the cynical, as Camelot.
Indignant and dismayed by my wife's defection into the arms of my oldest rival, I did the previously unthinkable: called in sick to work and jumped into the car for an unscheduled weekend touring Pennsylvania.
A boring, no–account accountant she called me, and by God she was right, but I wasn't about to admit it then. It took about two years (Earth time) in Heaven to face the embarrassing truth.
Lovely September weather, and in that most appealing of northeastern states, I took the roads as they came, using whim of the moment as my map. Second day out, with the evening just stretching its intentions, I slammed head-on into a Ford of partying teenagers.
First Brush with Flight
Seconds probably passed, but all I knew was that I was suddenly hovering above, amazed and unbelieving, watching three of them crawl from the wreckage. Broken little children, forever bruised. The sight, so full of anguish and pain, pushed me to tears, something completely out of character for old Henry.
"It's about time," said a voice from my left.
I twisted to see a quite ordinary middle–aged man in golfing attire. He seemed bemused.
"I thought you were never going to cry, Mr. Cool–as–a–cucumber."
I felt mocked, yet I wasn't entirely sure. And I still hadn't a clue why I was hovering above the car. But I did manage to find some shreds of humor.
"I'll take that that as a compliment, if you don't mind."
"Be my guest, Henry. After all, I've been yours all these years." He nodded to the blue yonder. "Shall we, ah, be off then?"
Moving into the empty space above the fields and trees seemed quite pointless and yet somehow intriguing. I looked at him more closely. A balding golfer without clubs: There must've been at least ten just like him at the office. As golf mad as the younger ones were girl crazy. I copied his nod.
"What about down there?"
"That's okay, they're taken care of."
I looked down to see two rather waiflike women hovering over the wreckage. As I watched, one of them somehow, with a curling action not unlike smoke from a pipe, disappeared into it, reappearing seconds later with one of the boys, now strangely vibrant. I turned to the golfer, now grinning like a rather pompous sales manager at a month–end meeting.
"Are you people angels?"
"You might say that. We try to help out when we're needed."
"And you're going to take me to Heaven now?"
He took something out of his pocket and slipped it into his mouth. It could have been a mint. He didn't offer me one and I immediately wished he had. I'd always liked mints and I did feel kind of parched.
"Well, it's not exactly Heaven. It's more like orientation week at college."
"What, you mean lots of pretty girls and beer?" For a dead guy I thought that was pretty funny, but my golfing buddy showed no signs of amusement.
"Plenty of the former but not so much of the latter where we're going."
I shuddered at the thought of the abstemious vision of the afterlife held by my deeply puritan parents, only some of the luggage I left at home decades before.
"And golf too, I suppose?"
He smirked. "Only on the lower levels, I'm afraid."
Baffled, I allowed myself to be hand–held and whisked through space, rather like some mysterious boyhood shopping trip with my mother. At first we were flying over beautiful Pennsylvania, but quickly it all became a blur, then black, then very, very bright.
Suburban Connecticut
When my eyes became adjusted we were walking in a small park in suburban Connecticut. At least that's what it looked like.
"This is the model for that," my golfing guide assured me, as if reading my thoughts. I nodded. I couldn't see any point in arguing with him. We stepped along brightly.
I could see what looked like a family grouping in a backyard adjoining the little park. Someone who could've been the father looked up and waved, as if I were a neighbor just back from vacation. Children darted about squealing. I winced inwardly: Noisy kids were not my cup of tea.
"They all died in a house fire three years ago. Some electrical thing. Seem happy enough now though."
I took in this information without comment. The houses, very well spaced by Connecticut standards, were ranch style and strikingly large, as if everyone had just been granted the same sized bank loan, using it to build dens big enough for a wedding banquet and yards big enough for a magazine spread.
I spied some ducks paddling serenely in a nearby pond and asked my guide if we might sit and watch them. The benches by the shore were pristine, with museum–quality carved armrests.
"Yes, they are lovely, aren't they. Woodworker who lives nearby. One of his hobbies."
"You're reading my thoughts, aren't you."
"Yes, and I've been reading them all your life."
"Taking notes for judgment day?" I thought, under the circumstances, that this was quite witty.
"Not at all, Henry. Just helping out where necessary. As per our arrangement."
"And what arrangement is this?"
"The one you made before you were born. Actually one of many."
I stared intently at the ducks. They looked as wise as the prophets. A thought appeared in my head: We have our share of the ancient wisdom. It was not until much later that I realized the source of this telepathic transmission. And probably just as well; at the time such a revelation would have tipped me over the edge. I turned to my guide and tried to formulate one question out of the many that tumbled through my brain.
"You're telling me I was a person before I was a baby?"
"You bet."
"And you were there?"
"That's correct."
"And I asked you to read my thoughts?"
"No, not exactly. Your advisory panel suggested me for a guardian spirit and when you came to me with the idea I accepted. After all, you'd done an exemplary job for me in prerevolutionary France and post-Civil War Virginia; it was the least I could do."
"So I asked you to be my guardian angel and you've been floating around me all these years?"
"Well, from time to time. Say, would you like a mint?"
"I thought you'd never ask."
He reached into his pocket and handed me one. It was, by far, the mintiest mint I'd ever tasted. Transcendentally minty.
"Henry, don't imagine me as interfering at every opportunity; that's not how we operate. We help out from time to time. We give little nudges, to help you with the complexity of choices. And it's not the nudges so much as the timing of them."
I gazed at the ducks, hoping that I wouldn't hear any more voices in my head. My guide did not interrupt this pensive moment, a small grace I was initially grateful for, but as the seconds turned into minutes, I changed my tune.
"Perhaps you'd like to explore the neighborhood a bit, hmm?" He stood up encouragingly. I followed suit.
We ambled through the park and out onto a soil–covered thoroughfare lined with shade trees. A leafy suburban street minus the concrete and asphalt.
"Not really necessary here," muttered my host. I nodded knowingly.
We must've passed half a dozen sumptuous homes when I began to hear something more than a breeze rustling leaves. Some botanical gardens appeared to our left. I thought I could hear music, and I asked my guide if we might walk in.
He grinned, "Why, I thought you'd never ask."
We strolled along winding pathways surrounded by breathtakingly elegant floral displays. Praise seemed superfluous. And the fragrances! At the time I was overwhelmed. Now I would say something like: If one's nostrils were a palette, one could produce a work of art.
Turning past some voluminous flowering bushes I could not put a name to, we sighted the source of the music. A small opalescent band shell with an audience of thirty or forty sprawled on the grass in front. And on the stage a chamber group playing a Schubert octet.
I turned to my host. "Well, now I know I'm in Heaven!"
He smirked. "We aim to please."
"You knew I loved Schubert, of course."
"Certainly. We could've turned another way and heard some Elizabethan lute or some Dixieland jazz, but I felt confident this would be your choice."
We joined the audience at its edge. A couple of faces turned to smile. The atmosphere was very picniclike: blankets and baskets, apples with bites out of them.
Although I knew the piece well, having heard it in recital many times, I let myself just float away on the harmonies. In the midst of this little bliss an unwelcome thought bubbled up and I turned to my host and whispered, "How long have I been dead?"
"About fifteen minutes, I should reckon."
I couldn't honestly say that this surprised me more than anything else. I wish I could; being able to focus in on a couple of elements might have made it easier to swallow. As it was I just put aside my incredulity and enjoyed the moment for what it was.
Because of what I assumed was a natural iridescence coming from the structure of the band shell itself, it took me some time to distinguish the color show created by the music.
Streams of blue, green, purple, and gold curled around and about each other, creating fantastic spiraling patterns that mutated second by second, each abstract weave as wonderful as the last. I was dumbfounded and wondered how many more priceless moments were about to accumulate in my brief but brimming postmortem existence.
(And although the development of laser–beam technology on Earth has shown recent concert audiences some spectacular displays, the very nature of the physical plane does not permit the simultaneous expression of sound and light that is intrinsic to astral experience. But of course I had no notion of this on the day I died.)
In the midst of all this I was suddenly gripped by the notion that perhaps, after all, I was just dreaming, and I should really be taking notes on all the marvels to remind myself in the morning.
"Don't worry," whispered my guide, "everyone feels that way at first. This may seem too good to be true, but I assure you, it will all be here later for your repeated perusal, after we get you settled."
The Schubert came to an end; the crowd let out a collective sigh, and everyone seemed to be smiling. As the musicians prepared another piece, which I somehow knew was going to be Mozart, we stood up and sauntered off.
As we skirted the edge of the small crowd, I couldn't help but notice how beautiful all the women seemed. Before we'd made our quiet escape, I think I'd fallen in love about four times. My guide was good enough not to comment.
He asked if I'd care to visit the guest house. I couldn't see why not.
"Is that where they put up all the dead people?"
"You're catching on, Henry. Say, do you want a bath with power jets or just a shower?"
This was years before Jacuzzis, so all I could muster was, "You mean I get a choice?"
"Well it depends on how many people have passed over in the last couple of days. If there's been a train wreck or a ferry disaster you're screwed. 'Course you can always sleep on the lawn, it's so perfectly warm here."
"What about the bugs?"
"They're aren't any. At least not around here. They have their own sphere."
I did not really take in this last remark, as I could see we were approaching a mansion set in its own rather grand grounds. An estate, in fact. I actually wondered for a moment if he'd made a mistake. As usual he picked up my thought.
"If you'd prefer, there's always the Sunset Motel. A more, shall we say, egalitarian enterprise on the outskirts of town. You know, cheesy decor, wobbly furniture, and a chain-smoking couple called Fred and Edna who'll make you feel right at home."
I chuckled and kept walking.
The Guest House
Inside was what my parents would have called swanky, but to me it was more subdued than ostentatious. I felt refinement without pretension and activity without bustle.
The epitome of pretty desk clerks, who introduced herself as Phoebe, smoothly took over management of my immediate destiny. Jack, as she called him, excused himself, promising to seek me out later for refreshments. I thanked him for all his efforts on my behalf. I didn't believe in half of what he said, but life, that rapidly receding memory, had shown me there is never any harm in courtesy. Let's face it, I was just like some anxiety–prone agnostic who prays to St. Peter just in case. Phoebe said I was in luck: As there had been no major transitions, as she called them, there were several suites vacant, all with lovely views. If I cared to follow her, she'd give me a sample. Since I'd been smitten on contact, I contrived to keep her talking. Major transitions were, she responded, a challenge. Many needed a more hospital–like atmosphere, where their lifelong trust in the medical profession could be effectively used in their rebalancing, as she called it. Only some were like me, moving quickly from bewildered to bemused. I took her at her word.
We looked at a succession of rooms, each imaginatively appointed. I decided on the one with the most restful wallpaper. Perhaps I thought I needed to calm down. As I was examining the breathtaking view, sloping meadows leading to a series of lily ponds, one of which catered to a family of swans, Phoebe asked if Jack had been up to his old tricks.
I chuckled, saying I'd wondered about the golfing outfit. Apparently he was fond of sportswear, but had brought people in wearing all manner of outfits.
"You mean he's not just my guardian angel?"
"Oh no, he handles lots of transitions. It's one of his favorite hobbies as it gives him endless opportunities to be a teaser. He's probably out there right now, dolled up as a rabbi for some Jewish stroke victim, or a baseball hero for some teenage suicide. He does a fabulous Roosevelt impersonation."
I assumed she intended Franklin and then found myself wondering about national security issues. "Is that sort of thing allowed?"
"Oh, it's all in a good cause, no one minds. Now there's some clothes in the closet. A couple of suits if you really feel the need, but I think you'll find casual wear works best here. There's a lounge downstairs just off the lobby if you'd like company and refreshments, but may I be so bold as to suggest a nap first? You've been through a lot today."
"I'll say." I wanted to ask her for a date, but the very idea was just too absurd, so I thanked her for all the gracious help. She declared it her pleasure, helping people get settled, and she never tired of it.
She turned at the door. "Oh yes, I forgot. Here's a message left at the desk for you. The gentleman said he was once your grandfather."
I tried not to grimace. I didn't want to spoil her afternoon. That old blowhard, he was the last person I wanted to see.
The confused exhilaration I felt then, alone in that lovely suite, I still find impossible to describe. Although I'd read a couple of spiritual-type books in my college days, I had found them piously cloying and sentimental, not at all to my taste, and thus had forgotten their descriptions of postmortem bliss.
They had both been at pains to point out that the afterlife was for everyone, and not some church–going elect, but after all their efforts, it still seemed as though Heaven were reserved for goody–goodies. It never seemed like the sort of place you could see Charlie Parker playing to an audience of hopped–up hipsters. And as the Bird was my all–time hero at that point, I couldn't imagine being any place without him.
And although I had rather forsaken my jazz roots for the altogether more acceptable classics, I just could not see Heaven as then described. How could people be that continually nice? Well, Phoebe seemed to manage it. Maybe everyone else could too. I'd soon find out. But I couldn't help thinking how a little bit of deceit and smarminess spiced things up a bit.
Do the Dead Dream?
Eventually, responding to sheer curiosity as much as Phoebe's suggestion, I lay down on the bed. It was almost frighteningly comfortable. I actually felt a twinge of anxiety lying there. A residual conventionality raised me up to disrobe. Folding my clothes in a neat pile was second nature, I was not about to stop now.
Under the impeccably soft and cool sheets, I found myself wondering whether dead people dream. Would the existence of dreams prove one thing or another? Maybe I was dreaming now. Maybe, just maybe, if I went to sleep I could wake up into my old life. It sounds mad now but it sounded like a plan at the time.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Eternal Life and how to enjoy it by GORDON PHINN. Copyright © 2004 Gordon Phinn. Excerpted by permission of Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
