Paradise World

by Dan Edmund

Chapter 15 - Reconciliation

  We remained silent as we walked along the river trail. I admired the scenery, the crystal blue meandering river with its sandy shore shaded here and there by leafy trees in full bloom. By contrast, Harry totally ignored the beauty around him; his only focus was on waking up and going home.

  Finally, to break the icy silence, I asked amiably, "Is there anything in New York that can compare to this?"

  "The Hudson River is wider!"

  I laughed but remained silent.

  Soon we reached the grassy plains and walked up the trail of Mount Anastasis. A herd of deer were once more grazing, but none came towards us.

  "Do you remember coming down this way last night?" I asked, still trying to thaw the ice.

  However, he remained silent and simply shook his head. Considering his dazed and dreamlike state he had been in, I was not at all surprised.

  Upon reaching Anastasis's grassy plateau, I again recalled the angel I had encountered. For a second, I thought of mentioning it to him, but then changed my mind. No, considering his current attitude and state of mind, it surely was not a good idea. So, we continued on in silence, past the grassy plateau and up into the forested trail towards the Resurrection Sanctuary. Finally, we arrived at its enchanted garden. I thought he might make some sarcastic comment, like this place could never compare to New York's Central Park. However, he remained silent and suddenly stopped to stare, seemingly enraptured by its sublime beauty. I was now sure that he recalled being here before.

  We soon walked on and I discovered I was right. "Where is that Doric temple and that mysterious light?" he asked.

  "It's gone. I presume God simply temporarily constructed it here for your sake. It probably had something to do with you being an historian, to make you feel more at home, I guess. When I was resurrected, I found myself awake in what appeared to be my bedroom." I momentarily hesitated, unsure if I should continue. However, I decided that I would. "When I first woke up, I thought I had only dreamt my murder. I even thought I was still in my dream. However, I soon had to accept that this world was no mere dream."

  "But it is, and I shall prove it!" He then confidently strode towards the Resurrection Sanctuary. As he was approaching, miraculously a small temple appeared, exactly the one that I had seen yesterday at the time of Harry's resurrection. He swung around and jubilantly declared: "See, I told you! It's a mirage, just like this dream. And now I'm going home!"

  "No, Harry, come back! Don't fool around with God!" I yelled, horrified that he was going to do something not only stupid, but something blasphemous, something that would end his life not just here, but for all eternity. Then suddenly and miraculously steps appeared, which he unhesitatingly walked up. He entered into the courtyard of the temple, and again I pleaded, "Harry, no! Come back!"

  To my horror, I heard Harry curse at God, then demand: "Take me out of this wretched dream and let me wake up!"

  Out of nowhere, a huge shaft of light came down from the heavens, then engulfed him. He was gone. I was sure God had destroyed him. For several seconds I just stood there, frozen on the spot, too terrified to move. Then, just as suddenly as the Light had appeared, it disappeared. Yet, to my amazement, Harry had not vanished; he had not been destroyed. There he now stood as alive as before, having even that faint aura around him that was common to all of us when we were under, or just out of the Divine Light of God.

  I raced towards him and instinctively held his arm, feeling the warmth of his flesh. "Harry, you're still alive!" I jubilantly exclaimed.

  He slowly turned his head towards me. "Amazing! Absolutely amazing!" he muttered as if in a trance.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  He seemed too overawed to answer at first. Finally, he muttered, "I have never felt so alive or happy in my entire life! Now I know how Angelus Silesius or Johannes Eckhart must have felt."

  I had no idea who these people were. However, the transformation in him was all too obvious. Just minutes ago, Harry seemed to me to have been an ungrateful, egotistical atheist that could not accept the fact that he had died and been raised back to life. Now he looked humble and serene. It truly had been an astonishing miracle. I felt certain that Harry was now mentally cured and would accept the reality of his new life. For several moments we just stood there, embracing one another. Amazingly, I felt the energy and currents of love still lingering on from the Light. However, in due time, the energy dissipated and the trance was broken, and silently and reverentially we walked away from the Resurrection Sanctuary. I turned around and the temple was gone, yet still, through some perception within me, I realized that the latent force of God was still there. We did not speak until we had reached the grassy plateau that overlooked the Deer River Valley. Here we now sat and gazed upon the majestic view.

  "How beautiful it now suddenly looks to me," he softly said. His faint glow had now vanished, yet the signs of a divine miracle were still all too apparent.

  I gently tapped his knee, still amazed by his miraculous transformation. "It does look beautiful, doesn't it? But so does everything here in Paradise." I thought of Jenny, wishing now more than ever that she would be here with me. After a little while, I asked, "Can you tell me something about your family, Harry?"

  He smiled and combed his fingers through his hair. "There's not too much to tell. I'm Harry Marston, the historian, and I have a wife, that's all." He frowned. "However, regarding my wife, we don't see too much of each other now. We both lead such busy lives. My wife is a librarian, but in administration, and very heavily involved in the bureaucracy of a large academic library, with so many committee meetings dealing with personnel, acquisitions and budget considerations." His face suddenly saddened. "Also, she's got her own friends, her female colleagues, whilst I have my academic work and my books. I suppose that's why we never had any children. Both of us were just too busy and occupied with our careers, although from time to time we do invite guests for dinner, such as Roger and his wife."

  He then paused for a moment, then added more cheerily that he had been an only child of an Australian mother and an American father. "They first met in Brisbane, after the Battle of the Coral Sea," he said. "My father had been in the navy, and had been wounded from a Japanese bomb that had struck the aircraft carrier, Yorktown. My father was then given shore duties for a while, working in a U.S. naval warehouse in Brisbane. Then, one day, my parents met at a nearby local restaurant. My mother was working there, and you can imagine the rest."

  "They married and then you came along!"

  He grinned sheepishly. "No, at least not in that order. However, my father eventually married my mother, and we then lived in the States, in San Diego, due to the naval base there. Unlike most, my father remained with the navy after the war, having been an officer even before the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, one day in 1950, just before the outbreak of the Korean War, he suddenly died through some freak accident at sea. I was then only five, and I hardly knew him. So after his death, my mother and I went back to Australia." He gave an ironic laugh. "Here's something that'll surprise you."

  "What?"

  "Before her death, my mother had joined your religion."

  "Really!" I was stunned. Suddenly it dawned upon me why Harry had been resurrected so early. "So why didn't you tell me this before?"

  "Because I thought that this was all just a dream, and that you were a figment of my imagination."

  "And now?"

  He did not answer immediately, but after a little while he replied, "I don't know. However, even if I should wake up now, I would believe that this had been much more than just a mere dream, even a lucid dream, although I would be more than ever confused." He shook his head. "When I was under that light, I felt small, realizing that I knew very little indeed." He paused for a few seconds, then, looking deeply into my eyes, he added, "And something tells me that you don't really understand either, at least anything beyond your life here, or at least what seems to be here."

  I shrug
ged my shoulders and smiled. "True, but I believe we have an eternity to learn. However, tell me more about your mother, and her having belonged to our international brotherhood."

  He smiled self-consciously. "That is a rather regrettable subject for me."

  "Why? What happened?"

  "She joined your religion long after my father had died. We were, of course, living in Australia, and I was already undertaking my undergraduate arts degree, majoring in history, as you could imagine. Anyway, by that time, she already had cancer. Then some of your preachers converted her to your religion. I didn't know much about the religion, but I thought she was being brainwashed, and all that. Therefore, I tried to talk her out of it. In fact, I did a lot more than that. We had some vehement arguments about it. A few months later, she died of the cancer." There was a sudden pause, his face grimaced. "It had affected me quite hard, you know. We were very close. I never agreed with her beliefs, and I blamed the religion in creating a wedge between us."

  I placed my arm around his shoulder. "But that will all change now. I'm sure you'll soon see her again!"

  He smiled faintly and nodded. "It would be nice to see her again."

  "Did you get any news of her whilst being within the Light?"

  "No. I felt and knew nothing except the feeling of love by a power well beyond my comprehension."

  "Perhaps we'll receive news about her when the Divine Light comes again," I said eagerly. "You see, once a month, the Divine Light appears in all communities all over the world. Here we get most of our new revelations from heaven. Inside the Divine Light, an angel actually told me about your resurrection. It was the same angel that came to us last night into your bedroom."

  He shook his head. "No, I can't remember, although I recall you telling me that. So, who or what was that angel you supposedly saw?"

  "I don't know who he is, only that I first encountered him on my first day at almost the same spot we're now sitting." I paused, then added, "I've been told that this is unusual because angels normally only appear to our spiritual mentors, not to people like me, especially outside of the Divine Light."

  "Why not?"

  "I don't know."

  He shook his head in dismay. "Looks like there's a lot of things we don't understand, and for me it started with 9/11 and those strange, crazy dreams I then continued to have."

  I could see Harry's ecstasy, peace and even his faith in the reality of our world starting to fade. I thus quickly changed the subject. "So, how did you find out about my death?"

  He looked at me and shrugged. "I think I heard it first on the morning radio news. They mentioned your name, and that you were a guitarist. Later that morning I was discussing your murder with my colleagues. I later read the full report in The New York Times." He paused. "I think from memory, you had been shot by a young cocaine addict, someone called Ron, or something like that. I forget. Anyway, it seems shortly after your death that he himself had been fatally shot by the police."

  The fate of my murderer was, of course, news to me. However, I felt neither glee nor sorrow for him. At the moment, I simply did not care. "Did you find out anything about my wife?"

  "They mentioned that she was there at the scene of the crime, and also that she was being treated for shock. I don't know anything else."

  "So, you haven't seen or heard anything else about her?"

  "No."

  I was again reliving those horrendous last moments together, again hearing her screams and frantic petitions to God. I then realized Harry was still talking to me. "Sorry, what did you say?" I asked.

  "I just asked you what year is this meant to be?"

  "We don't use the same dates as we used to," I answered. "However, we simply call them by the years since the start of Paradise. This is the year 30, and Armageddon occurred in 2055, so in the old way of reckoning, this is the year 2085." Harry picked up his lecture pad and wrote down the date. I then remembered Harry telling me about his Armageddon dream, and how uncannily it matched the events and date of what actually had happened. "So, what year did you...well, what was the last date you can remember?"

  This time he did not ignore the question. "The last date I recall is yesterday, May 2, 2009. I keep a diary in which I write up the day's events just before I go to bed. However, it's a separate journal to the one I keep for my dreams." He rubbed his eyes and sighed. "If I wake up at home tomorrow, I'll certainly have a lot of writing to do!"

  "But you'll wake up here!" I reminded him, surprised that he still needed reminding.

  He shrugged. "Even assuming you're right, and this is 2085, where are we meant to be geographically?"

  "By the terrain, it seems that we're somewhere near the Cascade Range in Oregon, but we're not totally sure. My father, who used to be a lumberjack, says he somehow recognizes the area. However, everything has changed so much."

  He gave a dubious shake of the head. There was another long pause before he asked, "So, do you think this is really Christ's Millennium, the Paradise as you call it?"

  "Yes, of course. What else can it be?"

  He sighed. "It all still seems so strange, even after that mystical experience in what you call the Divine Light. You know, I've never been convinced of the existence of God, in anything supernatural, nor in an afterlife of any kind. I've always been a skeptic to things pertaining outside the paradigms of materialism and mainstream science and history. That's why I also scoffed at Roger's paranormal research, nor ever read any of the literature he recommended, except that one article on lucid dreaming. And I scoffed at many parts of that as well, although not actually the content of his dreams, but rather at his interpretations. He believed too much in the supernatural. I even felt Jung had too many crackpot ideas, although his therapy may have some benefits. When I was a student, even as a faculty member, I read a great deal about ancient and medieval myths and religions, including, of course, early Christianity, with their vain expectation of Christ's Second Coming." He paused, then soberly added, "However, my mother certainly believed in it, although I thought it was just another utopian dream." He forced a smile, then resumed his mantle as lecturer, although now no longer aggressive or cynical, as he had been before he had been immersed under God's healing power of the Light. "Perhaps my mother, with her beliefs, influenced me more than I had realized. As I had stated, I read many books on religion. It's necessary in order to understand ancient, medieval, or even to some extent, Renaissance cultures. However, I have also read a good deal on the topic of paradise myths and utopias. Even my PhD thesis, which I did at Cambridge, after winning a scholarship, was about Thomas More's Utopia, and how his seemingly liberal and open minded views, as portrayed in his ideal world, contrasted so strikingly with his later religious works." He then stopped and asked, "Have you even heard of him?"

  I nodded and laughed. "I did do at least some history as a college freshman. He had something to do with Henry VIII of England, didn't he?"

  "More was his lord chancellor," he said, pleased that I knew at least something about him. "He was not at all against the persecution of what he deemed to be heretics during the time of the Protestant Reformation. In the end, he himself was imprisoned and beheaded for his Catholic beliefs. He could not accept that a king could be head of the Christian church, nor could he agree with Henry's wish to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon."

  "And you say that this Thomas More wrote the book called Utopia?"

  "Yes. Many scholars believed that his Utopia was really a satire about the world of his time. However, in my thesis, I had taken the opposite position, that despite his obvious use of puns and satire, as a whole, the ideas presented in his work were, in fact, to be taken literally."

  "Like what?"

  "Like his religious liberalism, things that normally devout Catholics of his day could not accept. For instance, religious toleration, euthanasia, the marriage of priests, as well as divorce by mutual consent on the grounds of incompatibility. More also espoused a welfare state that provided every me
mber of the community with housing, education, medical treatment, food and clothing. There were to be only six hours of work a day, and education was encouraged for all." Harry then shook his head and chuckled. "No, this younger More, despite wearing a hair shirt underneath his fine outer garb, was not a religious bigot, but a man of learning and toleration, obviously influenced by the humanist movement of his day."

  Harry then spoke at length about his own academic studies and interests, which, of course, seemed to encompass mainly ancient, medieval, Italian Renaissance and English Tudor history, but also Latin and Greek. "After being awarded my PhD at Cambridge," he continued, "I received a position back at my old university in Melbourne." He paused. "I met my wife, Elizabeth, long after my mother died. It was in the Vatican City, of all places, whilst on holiday. Because I knew a lot about Renaissance art and Catholic history, I became a sort of tour guide for her and her female friend, a colleague from the same library. It was a three-week vacation in Rome, which was followed by Florence, Venice, and finally Athens. Afterwards, we continued to correspond for the next couple of years. I then visited her in New York and subsequently proposed. A year later, we married, and with her father holding an important administrative position at Columbia, he was able to -"

  I started to laugh.

  "What are you laughing about?"

  "Give you a job at Columbia."

  "Well, yes, I was eventually endowed with a chair within the history department." He stared at me. "Are you making fun of me? You know, I got this position through my qualifications and ability."

  "Of course, Professor, of course!" I said, still laughing.

  "All right, I suppose being married to his daughter didn't hurt," he replied with a wry smile. He stood up. "Anyway, you are meant to be my guide, so what else is there to see around this utopian place?"

  "A whole new world, and I promise you, it's even better than Thomas More's Utopia!" I likewise stood up and placed a friendly arm around his shoulder, and together we walked down the trail towards the big, green, beautiful valley below.