“Help me with what?” I asked cautiously.
“My name is Peter,” the man offered, unsolicited. “And I’ve been sent here to help you with your transition.” He emphasized the last word slowly and carefully, so that I was sure to hear it.
“Transition,” I repeated. I looked at the stranger standing in front of me. “Transition? I … I don’t understand. Transition from what?” Had my injuries from the accident been so bad that my parents had to pull me out of IU for the rest of the semester? How could that be? I felt just fine.
“Where are my parents?” I demanded. “Just how long have I been unconscious?” I looked desperately around the room for answers. I began to panic. My lungs felt heavy; it was hard for me to breathe.
“Eve,” Peter said calmly as he walked over towards me. When I didn’t respond, he repeated my name more loudly. “Eve.”
Startled, I looked at him and nervously took a step backwards into the living room.
“Take a deep breath, Eve. Everything is fine … in a manner of speaking. Here—please sit down.” Peter gestured to one of the two blue-and-white striped lounge chairs that flanked the matching sofa in the living room. I didn’t move.
“Please,” he said sincerely, “sit down and I’ll do my best to explain everything.”
“Okay,” I managed. I took a deep breath, attempting to calm myself. My throat was still parched. As if Peter could read my mind, he walked over to the kitchen cabinet to the left of the stove and grabbed a glass. He filled it up with water from the pitcher in the fridge, the same one my mom always kept in there, and handed me the glass. He seemed to know his way around my parents’ house well enough. I began to feel slightly more at ease. I gulped the water down.
“More?” Peter asked.
“Yes … please.”
* * *
Still holding the glass of water, I followed Peter into the living room and sat down in the lounge chair he’d originally singled out. He sat in the chair opposite me, allowing for plenty of space between us.
“Eve, how much of the accident do you remember?” Peter began.
“Not much.” I strained to remember anything about it, but I couldn’t. The chain of events was all so hazy. I looked down at the floor as if it could provide me with the clarity I sought.
“I was driving … there was another car—two cars, I think. One of the drivers was … drunk. But there was someone else … something else happened.” I was mumbling, trying to talk myself through the accident. And then a memory flashed through my mind; I saw two bright lights barreling towards me as I was standing in the middle of the highway. Instantly, the accident, or at least the very last part of it, became crystal clear.
No one could have survived that, I told myself. I gasped and looked at Peter in terror.
“How … how long have I been … dead?” My words were barely audible, choked back by the fear and anguish of my horrifying realization. Peter glanced down at his watch.
“Nearly five days,” he said apologetically.
Nearly five days. I repeated Peter’s words in my head, not really knowing how to process this information.
“Am … am I in Heaven?” I asked in shock.
“It’s a little complicated,” Peter answered.
“It’s a little complicated,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
“Okay, so you tell me that I’ve been dead for nearly five days, but you won’t do me the courtesy of telling me where I am … Unless …” I shot Peter an alarmed glare.
Oh crap! my mind exclaimed. Just how much had I sinned in my short life? I winced at my own question.
“Am … am I in … Hell?” I asked in a soft whisper.
“No,” he responded calmly.
“Purgatory?” The word just slipped out of my mouth.
“No. Eve, allow me to explain. You could have gone to Heaven … What I mean by that is you conducted yourself—your life—in a manner that made you were eligible to go to Heaven. But your path was diverted, so to speak.” He paused. “Eve, you have been chosen to be one of the select few whose purpose is to guard other humans who also inadvertently end up in your position.”
“My position? … You mean dead? Doesn’t everyone end up in my position someday?” I asked defensively. What was I? Some type of pariah in death?
“Yes and no. Everyone dies … someday.” Peter’s voice remained calm. “But, as fate would have it, not everyone is given the same type of foresight to know when their lives will end. Your experience with death is a little bit different in that respect, wouldn’t you agree?”
Without even thinking, I reached up to grasp the charm around my neck, only to discover it was gone.
“Do you really feel the need to have your patron saint looking after you anymore?” I could hear the slightest hint of mockery in Peter’s voice.
“No, I guess not,” I conceded. “All the same, I feel better with it nearby.”
“It’s not gone,” Peter reassured me. “It’s in that keepsake box.” He pointed to a small, unadorned wooden box on the end table just to the left of the sofa. I didn’t recognize it. My parents probably had picked it up from some local antique store while I was away at school.
“The box and its contents are yours,” Peter explained.
“Oh.” I reached over and picked up the box, opening it to find my silver charm and chain lying on top of a red velvet cushion.
My whole life is in this box, and this is all I have to show for it, I thought. I forced a little smile as I picked up the charm and rubbed it between my fingers. Some guardian angel you turned out to be. The thought reminded me of something that Peter had mentioned a moment before. Still holding the charm, I looked at him.
“You said I was chosen … to guard people? So what am I? A guardian angel or something?” I snickered. Who in their right mind would be crazy enough to make me a guardian angel?
“Not exactly. We’re a little different … We’re known as Shepherds.”
“Excuse me? What?” Okay, this was too much. I wondered if all of this was some sick joke, if someone was going to jump out from around the corner and tell me that I’d been punked.
“You’re not being punked, Eve—whatever that means.”
Did I say that out loud? I asked myself, caught off guard by Peter’s response.
“No,” he said aloud, responding to my thought again. “But you new ones are so easy to hear. You haven’t yet developed the ability to control your thoughts—to keep them private and separate from the communal group. Don’t worry; you’ll learn to do it in time. We all do.
“And for your information, this keepsake box is not meant to represent your life; its purpose is not that symbolic. Shepherds do not live in the past—we can’t. The keepsake box is just that—something in which to store a few personal items and trinkets. You’ll forget all about it soon enough.”
“Right … no living in the past,” I repeated calmly, like I was speaking to a mentally unstable person that could freak out on me at any second. Peter just looked at me, expressionless.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said skeptically, “but do you really expect me to just sit here and believe that what you’re telling me is the truth? On blind faith? That I died and now I’m some type of guardian angel, but not exactly because actually I’m some sort of … sheep herder—”
“Shepherd,” Peter corrected.
“—Shepherd … whatever … who is supposed to protect people somehow?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yes.”
“So what if I don’t believe you?”
“You can choose to believe me or not, but sooner or later, Eve, you are going to have to accept the fact that your life as you knew it is over.” Peter sounded so nonchalant that his words stung.
My life is … over.
8. My Life Examined
“Okay, let’s suppose for a minute that I am … dead. Then why bring me back here? Why bring me back to my parents’ house?”
“
Eve, do you really think you’re back in Michigan?” Peter’s voice was tranquil and kind, but his eyes looked troubled. He had the look of someone who’d drawn the short straw and now had to be the bearer of bad news. Like a father who was about to tell his child there was no such thing as Santa Claus.
“This is not my parents’ house?” I asked apprehensively.
“No, Eve, this is not your parents’ house. It’s a replica—a movie set of sorts—except that nothing here is real. It’s all a construct of your mind.”
“Wait a minute,” I blurted out. “Are you telling me that I’m hallucinating? That this house, this chair—that you are not real? That I’m just trapped in some kind of wicked nightmare?”
Of course! That explains everything! I’m just having a bad dream, I thought to myself. Elation and relief washed over me from head to toe. I felt like I had just solved the riddle and won the grand prize. Oh, thank God. I could hardly contain the smile that beamed across my face.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Eve, but this is not a dream. Although, I suppose you could describe the house and everything you see here as a hallucination … but not me. I am as real as … well, as you are. I realize that may not seem like the most comforting answer at the moment, but being a Shepherd soon will feel as natural to you as it felt being a human.”
Peter’s response did little to help me understand what was happening. In fact, all it did was make me feel even more baffled and overwhelmed.
“Look, I know that this is a lot for you to handle right now,” Peter continued. “And I don’t want to confuse you further by overloading you with more information than you need to deal with at the moment. But I can help alleviate some of the uncertainty you’re experiencing if you’re willing to listen to what I have to say.” He paused, waiting for some acknowledgement on my part. He took my silence as confirmation that I would hear him out.
“Eve, you recently experienced a trauma from which your body did not recover. But a part of you did survive—your mind. And right now, your mind still needs to process what has happened. It is trying to come to terms with your death, and it needs a safe place to do it. So your mind created certain illusions, or hallucinations, as you put it, to create that safe harbor. You believe you’re sitting in your parents’ house because your mind wants you to be here. This house, your home, is your safe place. But since you physically couldn’t go home after your death, your mind recreated your safe harbor up here.” Peter pointed to his head.
“Wait … I don’t understand,” I stammered. Millions of thoughts were racing through my head but not one of them made sense. “Part of me actually lived?”
“In your case, Eve, yes—a part of you survived the accident,” Peter responded calmly.
“But … how can that be? I mean, I thought the whole thing about being dead was that it was an all-or-nothing deal,” I remarked, bewildered. I felt like I was treading water in a sea of my own ignorance. The extent of my religious education could be boiled down to a few simple sound bites, namely, believe in God and Heaven and Hell, treat others the way you want to be treated, and be kind to all living creatures … well, almost all—I did have a few bug issues.
“Eve, it’s important for you to understand that a human’s spirit, soul, and body are independent entities, each of which exist separate and apart from the other. Nonetheless, a human being cannot be complete—cannot be—without all three,” Peter explained.
“When life begins, a human spirit and soul are anchored to a new body,” he continued. “Once bound, the spirit and soul operate in tandem with each other—together they form a human’s conscious mind. The human spirit can be best described as a human’s id, or pure instinct—the raw life force that seeks pleasure and survival over pain and fear at any price. The human soul is best described as a human’s superego, or conscience; it is the “inner voice” that acts as a constant reminder of the highest ideals of moral behavior and human compassion. When combined, the human spirit and soul shape an individual human’s belief systems, values, and personality, or what one might call a human’s ego.
“Of course,” Peter added, “free will ultimately governs humans’ behavior and the choices they make along the road of life. Fate plays a significant role, too, since there is a predetermined roadmap that each human can walk. So in the end, the strength of the human spirit and the purity of the human soul will vary depending on a particular human’s reactions to the obstacles and hardships thrown at him or her by fate. Are you with me so far?”
“I … I think so.”
“Typically, when a human body dies, so does the mind,” he went on to say. “You see, the connection between the spirit and soul is designed to break once the human physical form expires. When the body dies, the human spirit and soul are no longer anchored to anything, and they separate and drift apart from each other. Once separated, the human spirit finds its way back to the collective pool of living energy, or lifeblood, for lack of a better term, to be recycled. And the human soul often goes up … or down,” Peter’s eyes followed the direction of his words, “depending on its purity.
“But I digress.” He cleared his throat. “The point is that once the spirit-soul connection is broken, the conscious mind is extinguished. Or at least that’s the way it works the majority of the time. Your case, however, is a little different.” He paused momentarily, as if to let me process the full weight of his words.
“Eve, your spirit and soul became inextricably fused at some point during your life—forever bound together. It happens from time to time, but only very rarely. So, when you died, your spirit and soul were abruptly ripped away from your body, but they remained permanently intertwined. The connection between your spirit and soul was never broken, which means that your conscious mind still exists.” Peter paused again and studied my expression. I just stared at him blankly.
“What I’m trying to tell you, Eve, is that even though your human body is gone, your mind is still very much alive; it is, after all, still complete. And, right now, your mind hasn’t fully realized that the physical world no longer exists for you—well, not in the same way, at least. So, according to your mind, you are still the exact same person you were before the accident. You still act like you did when you were alive; your mind even thinks you look like you did while alive.
“And it is true that the very essence of who you are has been undisturbed. However, as you are fundamentally no longer a corporeal being, you technically no longer have an actual need for any tangible earthly possessions or objects—such as this house, the furniture in it, or that necklace.” He looked at the chain dangling from my hand. “This twist—this fly in the ointment, so to speak—is the enigma your mind is currently grappling with. You see, your mind was not designed to deal with your death, much less survive it. Nonetheless, here it is. For your mind, the entire game has changed—not just the rules—and it doesn’t like that.
“But fear not, your mind will figure it out. Until then, though, you get to enjoy all of this while your mind is fighting to hang onto your former mortal life.” Peter held both hands up in the air as he scanned the room with his eyes.
“Once your mind realizes that there is no human life to which it can return, that it is only recreating the illusion of the physical creature comforts that you loved and clung to while you were alive, your mind will accept your death—you will accept your death.
“My role,” he continued, “is to help you with this life-to-death transition so that your mind adjusts more smoothly and quickly. Once your transition is complete, you can undergo your transformation and begin your training, at which time you will learn the history, the rules, the skills, and the limitations of being a Shepherd. And, in the end, you will only know yourself to be one thing—a Shepherd. The Eve that you know—that you were—will be gone forever.”
Peter’s tutorial ended. He sat there quietly, patiently, like he was waiting for me to say or to do something. I didn’t know how he expected me to react. Quite fra
nkly, I didn’t know how to begin digesting the information he had just unloaded on me.
“Eve, this is definitely complicated. Feelings of fear, confusion, and frustration are to be expected.” Peter must have read the apprehension on my face—or he simply read my mind. “You are bound to have numerous questions, many of which may not be easy to answer at this stage of your transition. Just take comfort in knowing that we do not expect you to understand or accept all of this overnight. I’m merely giving you the simplified version for now. You will have plenty of time to figure out what all of this means.”
“Figure out what all of what means? Which part am I to understand first? I still can’t wrap my mind around the part where I’m dead!” I snapped.
Peter sighed. “For now, why don’t you try looking at it this way—this illusion of home represents the one place you know best. Your home is where you grew up, and it’s where your parents still live. You have memorized every nook and cranny, every creak of every floorboard, and every smell of every room. Even when you were away from home, you always maintained the ability to mentally draw on these images, sounds, and scents when you wanted these things around you but couldn’t have them.
“Right now, you still want to be in this house. You still want to be wearing your favorite clothes and drinking water from your mother’s water pitcher in the refrigerator. So your mind took the reins and recreated the illusion of what comforts you most. The only difference being that you no longer have the same physical limitations that you once did—that is, you no longer have your human body—so your mind has virtually no boundaries in terms of what it is capable of creating. The result is that you are now experiencing full-blown, life-sized hallucinations of your creature comforts rather than just fond memories locked inside your head.”
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