Out of This World
He woke up, rubbed his eyes, and looked around, wondering where he was, not recognizing anything at all in his view. He seemed to be in a park of some kind. The buildings in his line of sight didn't seem familiar at all, and the sounds he was hearing and the faces he was seeing were alien to him. All of the faces that he looked at seemed to have a surreal aspect to them, and it appeared that everyone was walking in pairs. Odd, he thought. He noticed what looked to be an attractive woman approaching him. She had a rather angelic face with dirty-blonde hair falling past her shoulders.
"Hey there. New in town, dear?"
She seemed to be familiar to him, yet he didn't know from where. Her smile was disarming.
"Umm, yeah... I guess. Could you tell me where I am exactly?" He was still trying to place her in his memory, but couldn't quite seem to do it. She might have been a little taller than average, slight of build, and looked to be in very good physical condition.
"You don't know where you are, do you, Danny? That happens a lot."
It startled him that she knew his name. Her voice was quite mellifluous.
"But where am I? And may I ask how you knew my name?" He was very suspicious, although the woman seemed relatively placid. And quite pleasing to the eye. "And what's your name, if I may be so bold?"
"Now, don't be alarmed." It seemed to him that she was holding her head completely still. "You are what is known on Earth as dead. And I'm Delaney." She still hadn't moved her head. Not one inch.
"Huh?" He looked at her incredulously, reeling from being told that he was dead, not to mention her allusion to Earth as being elsewhere. "But I'm breathing, I'm talking to you... I feel a pulse!"
"If I recall correctly, you very much enjoy coffee, don't you?" She saw him nod slowly, and grabbed his hand softly. "Follow me, sweetie. I know of a coffee shop right around here. I'll try to answer any questions that you may have."
Danny didn't protest as he followed along, and found himself admiring this mysterious woman's shapely derriere.
'Heck, even when I'm dead I do this stuff.' He smiled inwardly at the thought.
They came to the storefront, which displayed an artistically-painted sign that read Delaney's Coffee, Tea, and Other Fine Potables. He looked in through the window, and saw there was no one inside. Delaney went to the door, and without using a key opened the door and let them in.
The café definitely had a "homey" atmosphere, with small round wooden tables, simple chairs, and a small ornate Persian rug was under each table. Incense appeared to have been burned there lately, if the subtle scent of sandalwood was any indication.
"I only open the place when I feel like it. There's no real currency here. Familiar with the phrase 'you can't take it with you'? Well, that's more or less true." She guided him to a small table in the corner. "Does Kona sound good to you? Or would you rather have some Kenya AA?" She eerily zeroed in on two of his favorite coffees. When he was alive.
"It's your call, Delaney. I can't begin to thank you enough for expediting my acclimation to... umm, this place." He was still trying to get used to the idea that he was dead.
"I know, Danny. I know." She smiled enigmatically. She heated the water, and when the water was hot enough, poured it into the press. The accommodating woman allowed it the necessary time to steep, and then poured two hot cups of coffee. "Here you are -- Jamaica Blue Mountain -- I hope it meets to your satisfaction."
"So, Delaney; is it just a mere coincidence that you know of my favorite things?" he asked, almost fearful of her reply. "Just how much do you know?" He sipped the much sought-after coffee, and it was quite delicious.
"Please don't be alarmed." She took a hesitant sip of the steaming brew. "But I know everything about you."
"Everything? Do you know about the time that I...?"
"The time that you commandeered that big dump truck at that waste disposal plant in Baltimore, just for the hell of it? The time that you helped transport two thousand pounds of marijuana for fifteen hundred dollars and a few kilos of reefer? That time you told the policeman to 'fuck off' from a hospital bed in Tucson when he was trying to get you to snitch on your suppliers? Umm, yeah, you could say that I know," she told him, grinning coquettishly.
"But how? Are you -- dare I say it -- but are you God?"
"No silly... I'm you. Only the silent half. As soon as you became aware, I was there. I'm your conscience, Danny. The female personification of your conscience, to be exact."
"Damn, if I had known you were there, I probably wouldn't have thought some of the more decadent thoughts that I've had."
"No, Danny -- that's what makes you who you are -- you had those thoughts, yet resisted them... well, most of them anyway." She attempted to suppress a smile but failed.
"So, where exactly am I, Delaney? And I don't guess I could catch the next plane out of here, huh? And this may be beside the point, but, how did I die?" The last thing that I remember was I was in a convenience store late at night, getting a cup of coffee before I went home."
"How did you die? You leapt in front of a robber's bullet to save a cashier's life at one of those 'stop n' shop' places. And you did, too... saved her life, that is. She's okay." She paused to look at the surprised expression on my face. "You're in what is known on Earth as a 'parallel world.' Actually, it's not 'parallel' at all. We have no death here, we have no disease, we have no crime; does that sound very parallel to you?" she asked, pretty much rhetorically.
And another pointless act of heroism, he thought. Again with the third person reference to earth. Danny felt that this was getting creepy. No, correct that. Creepy-er.
"We can't be detected by any of Earth's instruments, as we are all in spirit form. Ethereal, if you will. You may feel as you did when you were on Earth, but have you noticed that you haven't felt the need to relieve yourself?" She looked at him pointedly.
She was right. He hadn't felt the need to go, either way, and as he looked around the coffee shop he noticed there were no restrooms in sight. He did notice what seemed to be a stairway leading upwards in the back of the store.
"Who exactly gets here? Does everyone make it? It doesn't look to be all that crowded here."
"It's rather complicated, Danny, but I can tell you this: this parallel world is infinite in its limits. It's divided up into roughly three portions. One, for the irrevocably evil, or the rapists, murderers and the like. Two, there are those in that 'gray' area between good and evil. And three, there are those where their good far outweighs their evil," she told him. She looked at him for a reaction.
"Would it be beyond good manners to ask which category I'm in?"
"This may surprise you, but you're in the good portion of the ledger. Like I said, you had quite a few 'impure', if you will, thoughts, but you rarely acted upon them. You never killed anybody, you didn't rape anyone, you were usually honest, and it was rare when your actions caused someone to be hurt, either directly or indirectly," Delaney told him. "You nearly always had a smile on your face, and were pretty generous with your time. I hesitate to tell you this, but you were pretty good people."
It gave him reason to pause when he heard her speaking in '70s hippie vernacular. And referring to him in the past tense again.
"So, is this 'Heaven'? That'd be kind of hard to swallow, the main reason being I never really believed in quote/unquote Heaven," he told her. He was still trying to become accustomed to being referred to in the past tense.
"Well, it's known on Earth as many different things, but instead of getting into semantics, I think we should merely refer to it as 'here'. I guess I should tell you that the concepts of "God", "Allah", "Mohammed", and the others are merely devices devised long ago in an attempt to keep people in line. It doesn't seem to do all that much good," she commented. There was a tinge of sadness in her voice.
He sort of felt like "Grasshopper" on the television show {i}Kung Fu{/i}.
"So, I'm here for what we'll call 'eternity'? Or was that merely an illusion as well?"
"That's entirely up to you, Danny. If you choose to, you can enter what is termed the 'birth lottery', where you are assigned to a birth mother. Entirely at random, which means that you could end up being the child of a wealthy and happy mother and father, or by the same token, you could wind up the kid of a single-parent crack addict mother. And I should tell you, about 85-90 percent of the inhabitants here go the birth lottery route." She paused to look deeply into his eyes. "Or you could stay here with me. Forever. It's entirely up to you."
"But why do they go back?"
"Because they seek physical sensation. They want ego gratification. And, this isn't a minor thing, but it has something to do with sexual desire. Most people do. You don't get that here," she told him pointedly. "To paraphrase a distinguished mind, 'they just want to get their dicks wet'."
"You remember that one, eh?" he asked. He smiled brightly. "What about women? Why do they go back?"
"Women have egos as well. They want to be desired. Women enjoy sex as well, Danny. They want to be pampered. They want to be physically loved. They can't really get that here," she told me with a quizzical look in her eyes. "Finish your coffee. Follow me."
She slowly stood up, and gently took his hand in her own. She led him to the stairway he had seen earlier. Danny couldn't help to admire her shapely backside as he followed her up the stairs. When they reached the top, he looked around at the contents of her room. There was an oversized bed in the center of the room, and there were extensive bookshelves lining the walls, with an impressive collection of books lined on them. There was a billowy white diaphanous material suspended from the ceiling, giving it a rather unearthly look. Which, in fact, it was, he mused. Rather unearthly, that is.
"Read much?" he quipped nervously.
"It's actually quite relaxing, you know. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but you did quite a bit of reading yourself.”
“I was just faking it for appearance’s sake,” he joked and smiled broadly.
"I would guess that you're familiar with the expression 'you can't love anyone until you love yourself'. Well, I am yourself, Danny... the female equivalent of you. I am the perfect woman in your eyes. I don't take any guff, I am independent, and I am not reliant on you for anything, with the exception of your love. And I'm not bad looking to boot, per your standards."
She told him to sit on the floor, and she took off her top, seemingly effortlessly, and joined him. He thought her breasts looked "elegant", for lack of a better word. He was momentarily awed by their simple beauty.
"Take off your shirt, Danny. And move closer."
"Okay. Now what?" he asked somewhat nervously after removing his shirt and scooted nearer to her. They were sitting in a variation of the lotus position, and now their knees were touching, as they were both in the classic meditation pose. He felt a certain energy begin to resonate throughout his body.
"Now, relax your mind. Look into my eyes, Danny. Empty your head of preconceived notions. Let yourself go," she said softly. She took both of his hands into her own, holding them tenderly.
He noticed her looking intently into his face. He did what he could do to "blank" his mind, and felt an ambiguous inner peace. He began to stare intently into her mystical blue-gray eyes, and sensed a shadowy feeling of relief coming over him. As he looked into her sparkling eyes, he felt himself gradually being drawn into a swirling vortex of sorts, and was overwhelmed by intense feelings of joy, empathy, elation, and love. He became aware of her mellisonant voice subtly invading his mind, yet she wasn't moving her lips.
"I am you, Danny. You are me. We are one. From time immemorial. Relax, baby. I love you. You love me. We are one. We are forever." Delaney was intercommunicating to him by way of telepathy.
It brought a Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young tune to his mind.
She slowly took his hands into hers, giving them a slight squeeze, and he felt the energy increase. Delaney was smiling softly now, and was still gazing into his eyes. Suddenly, as he looked in Delaney’s eyes, he began to sense small holographic images of her thoughts. After a time, an image of Delaney kissing him was there for a while, until she finally spoke up.
“How ya likin’ the ride so far, Mister?” Delaney kidded him, then leaned forward to gently kiss him on the lips.
“Umm, what’s not to like, madam?”
“Look at me then.”
Again with the note: My take is the conflict that I'll introduce here is Danny's desire to return to the world and physical sensations, and his love for Delaney and his urge to stay with her. Kind of a love/desires conflict. I'm leaning toward having him going back, since he is aware that his conscience will always be with him. I'm kind of going slow with this one...
