Life-After

by J. A. Laraque

  All feeling was gone, drained away from me. Again I felt as if I was floating. My mind went silent as all thoughts faded from my mind. The reality around me began to brighten. I could see a room come into view. There was a bed below me and someone lying in it. It was then I realized that I was hovering above the room, not in my body, but as a ghost or spirit. It was just like before in the restaurant. As my thoughts came back into focus I realized where and when I was.

  Clara was sleeping in our home near the Naxum research facility. She rolled over onto her back, yawned and stretched her arm out to my side of the bed. I was not there. My mind was flooded with thoughts. I did not understand what had happened. How could I have found Clara only to lose her again? I wanted nothing more than to go back, but I could do nothing but watch.

  Clara’s hand brushed up and down my side of the bed. She was trying to find me in her sleep. She turned over, opened her eyes and stared at my pillow. I watched her look toward our bathroom, then her mouth moved but I could not make out the words. A worried look came across her face then quickly faded and was replaced with one of sadness. As I watched myself enter the room holding a tray with her favorite breakfast I remembered what day it was.

  “They called you in again, didn’t they?” Clara said depressingly.

  It was the day the meteor hit the earth. Until that day the scientists had no cause for concern as it was not on a course for earth. Having them summon me to the facility was not a cause for concern as I was frequently called into work, far too frequently for Clara’s liking.

  “I thought you said you had the day off.” Clara said. “I thought we could have the day together.”

  I remembered what I was thinking as I laid the tray on her lap. My love for Clara was as strong as ever and yet I found myself spending more time away from her. I had already postponed our move and settled for a small home only a few miles from the facility. We were together and Clara was happy, but I knew I could do more. At first she tried creating her dream garden in the backyard of the house but the soil was poor. After a few months she took a teaching job in the nearby town. Honestly, I think she did it because I was not around as much.

  “I know honey and I’m sorry. Remember the meteor I told you about, they have some new data and will be presenting it to the research team from New Chicago. I have to be there to oversee the security protocols. I promise this won’t take long. These guys like to get in and out and after that I’m out of there. I’ll be back by lunch I promise.”

  She smiled assuring me that everything was okay. Clara was always accommodating and never let me know that my extended time away was hurting her, but I could see it was. We had been engaged longer than either of us expected. I wanted to marry her, but not when I knew that I could not give her what she wanted. I was stupid, what she wanted was me and I left her that day and it was the last time I saw her.

  “I know, babe.” Clara said keeping up her best smile. “Just don’t keep me waiting.”

  I wanted to reach out and grab myself to keep me from walking away. Watching him kiss her goodbye I cursed him for not knowing. Even if I was to die with her it would have been fine with me. It was then that I understood why I was unable to stay with Clara. I did not believe I deserved to be with her. While all I wanted was to see her again a part of me felt I deserved to never see her again because I had failed her.

  Everything around me faded back into darkness. I could feel my body again, it was cold. A heavy gloom was still around me, but it was slowly fading away. It was not that my feelings had changed. It was more like someone was drawing it away. As much as I did not want to admit it I was deeply damaged by the loss of Clara. What I was experiencing was the process of healing that damage.

  “David, can you hear me?” It was Clara’s voice calling out to me. “Open your eyes come back to me.”

  Again I did not realize I had closed my eyes. As I slowly opened them the light burned my eyes. It was not like before, something was different. Clara was kneeling next to me. I was in the same place as before but the air was humid and thick. The clouds in the sky were scattered with some a dark grey. I could smell the rain mixed with the dirt and grass. Clara was clearly concerned as she stared at me. I was relieved to see her and yet puzzled by what had happened.

  “What happened to me?” I asked her.

  “You’ve changed it…” Clara answered as she looked up toward the sky. “You’ve changed our afterlife.”

  3

  “I changed… our afterlife?” I struggled out the words following Clara’s eyes up towards the sky. “So it’s true, I died and this is…”

  “This is who we are and what we want.” Clara said softly as she slowly lowered her head to look at me. “I’m sorry David, this is my fault. I should have guided you here from the nexus.”

  The pain and regret that was strangling me was almost gone. Just hearing her voice and being able to feel her touch was healing me. It did not bother me that I had died or that I had passed on to something I never truly believed existed. I was happy to be with Clara and I knew any where I could spend the rest of my life with her would be my heaven.

  Clara helped me to my feet. I Looked briefly towards the sky and could see the darker clouds beginning to fade. She was looking at me, almost as if studying me. I felt nervous. It was deep inside of me. It was like the first day she approached me. Perhaps I would not describe it as shyness but more like anticipation. Standing there with the woman I longed to see was like Christmas morning.

  “I had so many thoughts, so many feelings.” I said to Clara. “There was so much I wanted to say to you and now… I’m…I just don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything David. I can feel your thoughts, your emotions. This place, it reacts to the resonance of our life energy.”

  One thing I had to admit to myself was my curiosity of the world I found myself in. My one track mind to find Clara had kept my wonder in check, but finding her and holding her in my arms allowed my mind to wander. I had so many questions for her about where we were and what would become of us, when she mentioned “life energy” it made me think back to just before I began working for the Naxum Institute.

  Clara and I had finished packing our things and stood on our balcony overlooking downtown. You could never tell it by the smile on her face but she was extremely depressed that day. Her uncle had died only a few weeks prior and though she did not know him well it cause her to think about the mortality of her parents and what would lie beyond death.

  “David, do you think there is something out there, you know, after we die?”

  “I don’t know.” I answered honestly. “A part of me wants to take the scientific route and believe that when we die that’s it. On the other hand, if everything we are ends when we die, it just seems like a waste.”

  Clara reached over tightly grabbing hold of my hand. I knew she was looking for something to believe in to bring her comfort. After the death and destruction left from the war, there were many people looking for something higher than themselves. For some, like Luis, it was the Trinity and their belief systems, for others, like myself, it was the love of those that to me, gave you purpose and kept you going.

  “My uncle believed in the Trinity.” Clara began. “I remember one day at a family BBQ he was telling my mother about his beliefs. He spoke about how he could feel his life energy within him and found peace because it could never be destroyed. I didn’t really pay him much mind, but he looked so content. Even though there was a war going on all around us he knew the no matter what the core of who he was would live on forever. Who would not want that?”

  “I think that’s the point?” I said with a noticeable hint of sarcasm.

  Clara looked at me slightly saddened by what I said. She remembered the story I told her about Luis but there was more to it. The global war was a war of resources and military power but there was a strong religious context behind it. Many countries denied help to their neighbors due to their
belief system or lack of thereof.

  The war did not start on a global scale. In the beginning there were small conflicts over energy that spread into battles over land and soon even the basic minerals. By the time the Alliance and Federation were formed it was the Alliance that took a more secular view while the Federation were staunch fundamentalists. Many believe the war was prolonged because of religious factions stirring the flames and refusing to concede.

  Religion was a very small part of my childhood. Patriotism and service to our faction were paramount. The first I heard of true organized religion was from the Trinity. Later during my time in the service I learned that the Trinity gained power and influence over the Alliance government, but as the war drew to a close and the treaty was signed many from the Trinity turned their back on the Alliances views to separate government decisions and religious beliefs.

  During the closing days of the war we discovered some members of the Trinity were staging attacks on civilian aid stations near the Federation’s eastern border. When we engaged them Luis recognized some of the members and begged them to stand down. They opened fired and we were forced to return in kind. I personally killed six Trinity members. After that, my relationship with Luis was never the same.

  In the end the Trinity disavowed the members who were staging the attacks stating they were not sanctioned by anyone in their leadership council. I was called to testify before a government inquiry panel and told them everything I witnessed during the encounter. After my testimony a man approached me. He told me humanity would be punished because we had turned our backs on God. I asked if it would be God or men like him and his ilk who would carry out the punishment. He just gnarled his teeth and walked away.

  I understood Clara’s need to find something to believe in. Regardless of my experience with the Trinity council, I still believed in a force greater than our own, however, for me, that force came from within not from above. For Clara that was not enough, she could look to me for strength, but I guess that was not enough either.

  Standing there in what my mind could only perceive as heaven I wondered what truths were out there for me to find. Having Clara again was all I ever wanted but I had to admit to myself that I did not plan on what would happen next. Perhaps that is why she stood there staring at me. She could see that I was lost even though I had found exactly what I had been looking for.

  “So then it is true?” I asked Clara. “That stuff about life energy and the connection to God, it was all true?”

  “I think we should discuss something else first.” Clara said her voice taking on a somber tone. “You were able to cross over and find me, but, what you brought with you, what is still burdening you...”

  She pauses and lowered her head. I had not seen her look so sad since her parents died. Seeing her in pain in what I believed was heaven saddened me deeply. I pulled her closer resting her head on my chest, holding her tightly. The skies began to darken and for a moment I wondered if we were truly in heaven or somewhere else.

  “I had one promise I made to myself above all others when we first met.” I said to Clara. “Never cause her pain. I knew that life and love were not perfect and hard times were a way of life, but if there was something I could do to keep you from crying, from feeling sad then I would do whatever it took. I failed more than once in that promise. Leaving you that day was the greatest mistake in my life. We should have been together. You should not have died alone.”

  In the silence I could hear her, she was crying. She lifted her head from my chest and looked into my eyes. Streams of tears were falling from them. The pain I saw in them, it did not come from my words, but from something I had stirred up inside of her.

  “I wasn’t alone, David.” Clara whispered.

  At that moment something within me shattered, all I had thought about since that day was how I had left her there to die. I cursed myself for not trying harder to get back to her. Visions of her dying, screaming out my name plagued my nightmares and with a sentence she had changed all of that. I did not have the words. She reached up placing her hands on my cheeks. I felt a rush of energy course though my body. Clara’s eyes began to glow a bright white. My vision began to white out as if I was trapped in a snow storm. I could feel my body fading away. It was as if I was turning into energy itself.

  When the blinding white faded I found myself in an open space, void, but not dark as before, this was a pure soft white. Something was familiar about it as if I had experienced something like this before. It was different than when I first arrived and was taken to the restaurant where I proposed to Clara. When that happened I did not feel as if I was in control. What I felt hovering there as a living consciousness was like a painter staring at a blank canvas about to paint an image from his memories.

  There was something deep within my mind. It was more than a thought or a memory or a feeling. I could not tell what it was at first, but it was something familiar. As the thoughts became clearer I felt that what was within my mind was a presence. It was Clara, her thoughts and feelings I could access them. She was trying to communicate with me.

  David, this place where we are now, it is created by our thoughts, our feelings. What we desire or what we feel we deserve will become reality here. I searched for you because I knew how you would feel after my death. Though I never blamed you, I knew you would blame yourself and take that guilt to the grave and beyond.

  Our life energy holds everything we ever were during our lives. When we shed our shells it is this life energy that becomes our vessel to travel to the afterlife. Sometimes our life energy becomes destabilized due to events in our lives or our death. Often this destabilization can be corrected during the retrieval process when you travel between the world of the living and your life after.

  Sometimes a loved one can help stabilize this energy. When you first arrived I created the memory of when you proposed to me. I hoped it would prepare you. I wanted you to enter this world I created by yourself and see what it was before I showed myself. I had hoped it would allow you to forgive yourself and accept your place here, with me. Your collapse obviously showed me that I was wrong.

  This place will react to the resonance of your life energy, if it is not stabilized you can create a prison of your own haunted memories. This is how a personal hell is created. You sentence yourself to it and once inside it can be impossible to remove you. While you still carry the pain of that day, the day meteor fell, I believe you are stable enough not to fall into a personal prison, but this isn’t just about you.

  Like you I also carry a burden from that day. I have had time to work though much of it, but until you know the truth I will never be completely free. In order for us to move forward you must know what happened that day and then you have to decide what will come next. This is why I have entered your mind. I have to show you what happened that day so you will understand. Please forgive me for doing this. I never wanted to hurt you, but as I learned, sometimes the only way to properly heal a wound is to reopen it.

  Her voice was not just in my mind she was part of me. Our souls were intertwined and I could feel her every thought and emotion. There was pain deep inside, it felt like the pain I carried, the pain I used to continue fighting. I felt sorry for her and yet could not stop thinking about what she meant about not dying alone.

  From the void before me a single point of light shined brightly then began to dance all around me. A trail of energy flowed behind the point of light creating a wireframe. As I watched this unfold I realized what was happening. Clara was creating a reality based on her memories. As the outline was created slowly the picture came to life in full color and motion.

  It was of our home near the research center. Clara was sitting on our couch her eyes focused on the television. I noticed the man on the television giving a press conference it was doctor Theed, head of Naxum Research. I immediately remembered the day. It was only a few hours after I served Clara breakfast in bed.

  After you left David, I began clean
ing the house preparing for your return. I was listening to the radio when they interrupted the broadcast with an alert. When they mentioned the Naxum institute I ran to the television and started watching the press conference.

  I did not know about the press conference until after it had concluded. Many in the scientific community wanted to keep the pending impact of the meteor from the public. It was President Pierce who ordered the press conference to be made. They kept me in the dark until it was too late and did the same with most of the public. They knew there would be a panic, but they also knew there was nothing they could do.

  I could move around the room passing though any objects as if a ghost. Clara’s feelings were resonating though me, she was frightened. It was if she was projecting how the Clara in her memory felt watching the news conference knowing what was to come.

  When the man on the television spoke about the meteor I wondered why you did not tell me. I knew there were things you could not tell anyone, even someone you loved, but, David, you have to understand. I thought you kept it from me because you didn’t want me to worry. I hated that sometimes you would not tell me things because you felt you had a solution and soon the issue would be resolved so there was no reason to tell me.

  I was angry and scared and wanted to call you when the phone rang. It startled me, but I was excited I knew it was you and that you would tell me that everything was okay. When I picked up the phone I did not recognize the voice. The man asked for me by name and wanted me to confirm who I was. I thought they were going to tell me you died, David. He told me that he had orders to bring me to the facility. I asked about you and he told me you were dealing with security. I was so confused but he told me he would be there in a few moments and to gather only a few essentials.

  What she was telling me I knew nothing of. Our security teams were put on high alert. We were told about the updated projected course but were assured our defenses would be able to divert or destroy the meteor. Regardless of this I wanted to call Clara, let her know what was happening. Once the lockdown order was given all chances of communication with the outside world without priority clearance were prohibited. Still knowing this I tried everything I knew to get a line out but was denied. They kept me in the dark and I was beginning to understand why.