by Robin Ray
“Hey,” Gregory voiced, “You look normal. I want to ask you something, but can you answer me straight? Everybody around here is coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs.”
“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” the man in white scolded him.
“Eh,” the recent arrival shrugged. “How do I get out of this place, man?”
“May I sit down?”
Gregory huffed and slid over to give the stranger some space. “Sure.”
The man sat down and extended his hand. “My name’s L’Da.”
“L’Da? That’s different. Gregory.” They shook hands.
“I know you must have a lot of questions, Gregory,” L’Da said. “Perhaps I can help.”
“I seem to have a memory lapse. I woke up here but I don’t know how I got here or even where ‘here’ is.”
“Hmm,” L’Da nodded, “would you like a straight answer or something a bit more politically correct?”
“What?” Gregory asked. “Straight, man. Always straight, no chaser.”
The stranger gazed directly into Gregory’s brown eyes and said plainly, “You died and came to Heaven.”
“Oh, here we go with the heaven bullshit again,” the PI grieved. “It’s okay, man. You can go. Sorry I asked.”
“I can prove it,” the clean cut gentleman insisted.
Gregory took a deep breath and rolled his eyes. “Okay, I’ll play along. What the hell, Barry’s getting back at me for all the tricks I played on him. Fair’s fair.”
“Here in Heaven,” the dapper man explained, “no one can hurt you. In fact, if they try, they will feel the pain instead of you.”
“What?” Gregory’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”
L’Da got to his feet. “Stand up,” he beckoned to the doubter. “I’ll show you what I mean.”
Gregory considered the request for a moment then stood up and faced the man in white.
“Kick me,” L’Da instructed him.
“What?”
“Go ahead,” the gentleman insisted. “Kick my shin. Make it hard and strong.”
“Are you off your medication or something?”
“I’m offering you proof. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Everybody in this town is insane.”
“Kick my shin,” the stranger repeated. “Don’t be scared.”
“Okay,” Gregory huffed. “I’m not wearing shoes, but you asked for it.”
Taking a martial stance, Gregory swung his right leg backwards and rocketed his foot directly towards L’Da’s left knee.
“Ahhh!” the new arrival hollered in agonizing pain, grabbing his left knee and falling down to the ground. “What the fuck?”
“You were supposed to aim for my shin,” L’Da said, standing as calm as can be without a hint of pain or distress. Extending a hand, he offered to help Gregory stand up. Reluctantly, the injured man took it and rose, adjusting his sheet around him as he did.
“What kind of trickery is this?” Gregory asked, still feeling the throbbing pain in his leg.
“Here in Heaven,” L’Da explained, “you feel the pain you’d try to inflict on someone else, not them.”
“I don’t know how you pulled that off,” Gregory snorted, “but it hurts like hell.”
“If you want to know more,” L’Da informed him, “let’s go for a walk.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see.”
Gregory, limping right beside L’Da, moseyed down Tinker Street till they came to what looked like a gypsy emporium. The wooden sign, painted in gold, over the entrance said –
House of Romany
The store, built in a converted hut, was painted like a checkerboard, only it was multicolored in oranges, reds and yellows and not simply two-tone black and white or black and red. Sheer flax scarves draped off the edges of the entrance. Towering plants about 8 feet tall, with starry leaves quite familiar to the detective, lined each side of the front entrance.
“Is this what I think it is?” Gregory asked, examining the leaves of the plants.
“Yes,” L’Da answered. “It’s cannabis sativa, but the non-psychoactive variant. It’s hemp.”
The two men entered the shoppe soon after viewing the plants. To Gregory, the place looked like another world, perhaps imported from Macedonia or the Carpathian Mountains. Among its accoutrements were glistening crystal balls, wooden beads and shells, cases of jewelry, racks of exotic clothes from foreign countries as well as earlier times and eras. There were golden coins dangling off the cloth-covered ceiling, wooden beaded curtains, bamboo dream catchers, paper lanterns and handmade hemp and flax rugs attached to every wall. The strong bittersweet scent of Oriental musk floated in the air. A young gypsy woman wearing a red head scarf, multi-layered clothing and tons of bracelets, entered from a back room.
“Oh, hello,” the jangly mistress greeted them. “I didn’t know I had company.”
“Anybody ever told you you look like Karen Carpenter?” Gregory asked, warmly shaking her hand.
The woman smiled. “I am.”
“Whatever,” Gregory moaned.
“Karen here makes ID cards,” L’Da informed him. “Would you like yours now?”
“ID card? What do I need it for?”
“Larder, libations, lodgings…everything, really.”
“What’s larder?”
“Foodstuffs, groceries, consumables, victuals, sustenance…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gregory interrupted. “I got it. Sorry to bust your bubble, Snow White, but when I woke up this morning I didn’t have my wallet. No pants, see? Nada. Zip.”
“The card is free,” Karen informed him.
Gregory eyed the mysterious duo with suspicion. That uncertain feeling you get when a framed picture doesn’t seem aligned quite right settled firmly in his chest.
“All I want,” he exhorted, “is to go home. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Oh,” Karen nodded, “we have a non-believer.”
“Yo,” Gregory explained, “whatever y’all hippies are on down here, I don’t want any.”
PFAFF!
No sooner after he finished uttering his words he found himself standing solidly on…nothing. All around him, including above and below, as far as the eyes could see, was blue, sky blue, unadulterated, untainted, pristine blue. L’Da, who had been to his left, was now transformed into a being nearly 12 feet high with alabaster skin, an elephant’s face with glowing pink eyes, heavily-adorned human limbs, a fan-type blue crown on his head that resembled a giant sea shell, blue and white raiment vaguely reminiscent of what Aladdin would wear to a ball, and odorless smoke and lotus leaves encasing him, or it.
The elephant-thingy suddenly leaned forward and roared at Gregory, causing him to gasp and jump backwards…right into one of the beaded curtains in the gypsy shoppe. No longer in the sky blue world, he struggled to free himself from the drapes. L’Da and Karen smiled as he wrestled with the awkward curtain.
“Are you okay?” the proprietor/singer /drummer asked.
Gregory, still startled, turned, ran out the front door…and almost crashed into young British singer Rory Storm who, luckily, put up his palms to deflect the collision.
“Bollocks, mate,” the ex-Hurricane scolded him. “Almost knocked me arse over tit.”
Still discombobulated, Gregory shot across the street like a loosed Scud missile and down a winding, forested path, far from the madding crowd.
“Blimey,” Rory muttered. “’E’s Chicken Jalfrezi, ‘e is.”
CHAPTER 3
Minutes later, the perplexed visitor found himself sitting streamside in a wooded area not far from the Green. The woods, he noticed, were very quiet. In fact, too quiet. Where were the North American songbirds he’d been used to hearing, like thrushes, robins and warblers? Even the occasional squawking black crow would make him feel at ease; the silence, it seemed, was almost agonal. The morning sun, peeking like a voyeur of light through the trees, did fee
l good to his face, temporarily whisking away the bizarrity that was the day thus far.
With his head cradled in his hands, he ran his fingers through the tight curls in his hair trying to make sense of what’s been going on. So far, when he added 2 + 2, all he got was orange. Reaching for a shrub of deer ferns, he plucked a leaf off it and examined it in his fingers. It felt like a leaf. It smelled like a leaf. It even tasted like a leaf, albeit with the bitterness of acidic pine. Putting it aside, he picked up a small stone and also gave it thorough scrutiny. Like the fern it also felt real, so he tried skipping it in the stream and he succeeded. Crawling to the edge of the cool flowing rill, he dipped both hands in the water, sniffed the small, clear pool in his hands, and lapped it up like a thirsty mongrel. It sure tastes real, he thought, even as good as the bottled water I buy at Trader Joe’s. Then, leaning over the stream to take another hit of the mountain-filtered water, he saw a reflection of the elephant-faced angel on the glassine surface. Gasping, he jumped backwards into L’Da standing right behind him.
“Dang it!” Gregory admonished the visitor. “You scared me. I didn’t hear you coming.”
“Yeah,” the man in white apologized. “I get that a lot. Sorry.”
“Tell me something, man, straight up,” the new arrival begged, “am I hallucinating? Is this one of those ‘roofie’ moments? No, wait, this is Barry Pepper’s work, right? What’s he paying you?”
“You’re not hallucinating,” L’Da swore, “and I don’t know who Barry Pepper is.”
“Then somebody dropped acid in my drink.”
“I assure you,” L’Da promised, then changed his head briefly back to the ivory elephant’s and said, “you’re not hallucinating,” then resumed human form again. Gregory is, of course, taken back by the bizarre display.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that, man,” he scolded the angel. “You’re gonna give me cancer.”
“Sorry. Won’t happen again.”
“Okay,” Gregory questioned him, “so if this is heaven, how come everything feels real? The plants, the water, my skin…”
“Well, what were you expecting?” the white-suited gentleman asked. “A giant bed of clouds and a bearded old man in a toga floating in the air strumming a harp?”
“Well…”
“You’re very skeptical,” L’Da remarked, “but I’ll show you something and hope it doesn’t traumatize you.”
“Make me a believer.”
“Look into the water,” the stranger requested.
Gregory returned to the stream and glanced in the water. Slowly, a two-lane road appeared, followed by trees and houses along each side of it. Then, a dark blue Ford Focus was seen making its way down the street. As the auto got closer, the face of its driver became clearer. It was Gregory Angelicus, man about town, behind the wheel, lost in the reverie of the jazz he was listening to from his car’s MP3 player. Just then, a rusty gray Fiat turned sharply off the main road and slammed right into the Focus, forcefully crushing and thrusting it backwards into the young man with the sax in a case on the sidewalk. Both the Fiat and Focus burst into flames. Seconds later, the image disappeared only to be replaced by one just as dreary.
A light sputtered on in a cold and clinical room containing several stainless steel cabinets, metal examining tables, sinks, and medical supplies galore. Gregory, his eyes firmly on the image, suddenly recognized the room.
“That’s the King County Medical Examiner in Harborview,” he realized, having visited it many times as an employee of the city of Seattle.
He watched as a doctor in a lab coat entered the clinically cold chamber with a conservatively attired black woman in her mid-30’s by his side.
“What the hell?” Gregory blurted. That’s my sister!”
He then watched as the doctor walked over to one of the metal cabinet drawer and slid its content out – a still body beneath a white sheet. The woman, clutching her chest in fear, stared as the doctor pulled the cover back from the corpse’s head. When she saw it was her heavily scarred brother, Gregory Angelicus, she broke down in tears.
“No!” the PI yelled, slamming his hands in the water. The images then disappeared. Shocked, Gregory could barely catch his breath.
“Now, do you believe?” L’Da quizzed the skeptic.
“I…”, he began saying, clutching his head in his hands. Unable to hold back anymore, he started bawling himself. “What the fuck!”
“Sorry I had to show you like this,” L’Da apologized. “Sometimes the direct method is the best, as cruel as it might seem.”
Gregory ceased his crying after a few seconds of letting his tears soften the pain of the revelation. “What about that young guy with the case on the sidewalk?” Gregory asked. “Did he die, too.”
“Yes,” the stranger nodded, solemnly. “He’s already here.”
The astonished arrival cuffed his mouth. “Oh, krunk!”
He leaned backwards to let the whole idea sink in. He was as dead as bell-bottoms, yet he could feel the texture of his elastic skin, the softness of his sheet, the coarseness of the dirt beneath his legs. He turned to L’Da. “So you’re, like, God?”
“Not quite,” he answered. “In Eastern religions I am known as a deva, in the west I’m an angel.”
“An angel!” the deceased man cried. “So that thing with the elephant face…”
“That’s one incarnation of me, yes,” he acknowledged. “We assume this human form because it’s something your mind can understand.”
“This is too much,” Gregory moaned. “How many angels are there?”
“Infinite.”
“Really? Can I touch you?”
“Be my guest.”
Gregory got up and, timidly, felt the texture of the angel’s clothes, hands and face. Nothing seemed out of place or extra ordinary. Not only did he look and sound like a man, he also felt like one. Out of curiosity, the PI used the sharp finger nail of his right pinkie and scratched the angel’s face. Nothing happened to L’Da, but of course, Gregory winced and recoiled from the incision he just caused himself on his left cheek. Blood started trickling out of the small gash.
“So…I’m dead,” he deemed, wiping away the blood. “Can I die again?”
“That’s the good news,” the angel told him. “You can’t.”
“Really?” Gregory asked. “So I can, like, run head on right into that tree and not feel a thing?”
“Oh, you’ll feel it alright,” L’Da assured him, “and end up in traction for months. You just won’t die.”
“Oh, no? Sweet. So what’s the bad news?”
“You can’t create, either – or, more specifically, procreate.”
Gregory scratched his head. “Why is that?”
“You’re a non-corporeal body recreated around a soul,” L’Da said, stretching forth his left hand where a glowing ball of light appeared over his palm then disappeared, “to help it reach enlightenment.”
“Wait. What?” the addled new arrival asked. “Non-corporeal? What’s that?”
“An image.”
The PI looked puzzled. “I’m an image?”
“Do you know what a computer is?”
“Of course.”
“Well, in that computer there is a hard drive,” the angel explicated. “On that hard drive are files. When you erase those files you create an image in the disc. A rebuilding program can rebuild your lost file from the image.”
“We can rebuild him. We have the technology,” Gregory joked. “Seriously, though, you rebuilt me?”
“Not me,” L’Da reassured him. “It’s sort of automatic. All the karmic particles you accumulated in your life…”
“What are karmic particles?”
“I’ll explain later. Don’t interrupt,” he scolded the anxious questioner. “All the karmic particles you accumulated in your life infused, bound and shaped your soul. Your memories, talents, form – all there. Even though there is karmic matter from past lives, it’s in your soul. This �
��you” was recreated from that transmigrated soul using celestial matter which is all around us; they just can’t be seen till it takes shape from its template.”
“The soul,” Gregory mused, shaking his head. “That’s a lot to swallow.”
L’Da changed his tone to something less aggressive, something soothingly empathetic. “You’re rebuilt naturally from an image, so to speak.”
“Why?” the PI asked.
“To continue your life’s work which is help get your soul towards enlightenment.”
“That makes sense, I guess,” Gregory ascertained. “But suppose I don’t want enlightenment? As a matter of fact, I don’t even know what that is.”
“It’s the ultimate destination of the soul – a state of all knowing, a state of bliss, a state of equanimity with nature, a state of perfection. The soul wants to get there because its true essence is purity, but because of eons of decay, it’s reborn continuously until it gets to that place through the dissipation of obstructive karma that’s been bound to it. And that, my friend, is why you’ve been transferred here. Your earthly actions have elevated your soul to a higher plane.”
“But I can’t have kids.”
“No,” the angel sadly admitted. “A few citizens adopt children but they soon find out it’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see…later.”
“Man,” Gregory asked, “so if people can’t procreate, how do they get their rocks off?”
L’Da smiled. “Use your imagination.”
“Um, thanks, no,” the detective said. “I think I’ll spare myself the images. What’s that you said before? Transmigration? Transferring? What is that? How does it work? Am I gotta wake up in the morning next to Mike Tyson and a tiger in my living room?”
L’Da took a deep breath and shook his head. “Are you hungry?”
“Famished.”