The moment I became aware, I knew that I was someplace else. The abundance of clouds all around me was the dead giveaway. Everything looked so clean. Having a stroke on the streets of
I was not surprised that there was no welcome wagon, at least not for me. St. Peter was no where to be found. There were no embracing hands or greetings from my loved ones. Where were all the lost pets I was told would be waiting for me? There wasn't even a tunnel to go down. I could not find anything, neither up nor down. I was never visited by someone I might know. High into this heaven there were even more clouds, they hung like from a ceiling. Each ceiling then met more cloud and then even more cloud. As above, so below, I thought.
I began to investigate. I could walk on them and I could sit on them. They were nothing but everything all at once. The only color, the only trace of my life was the gay pride flag plastered on my chest. I had worn the thing as I strolled into the crowds looming at the annual Toronto Gay Pride parade. It was then that I stroked out and left my being. Now there were clouds all around me but they seemed to be barely there. Somehow I stood firm and safe on a mat of puffy white. I was lost and soon realized that I had no idea what to do. I wasn't sure if my t-shirt barred the way. I tried to remove it several times but it just wouldn't budge. I had no idea where to go. Which way is the right way when all ways are exactly the same?
I half expected the Pearly Gates to pop up out of nowhere, but they didn't. I waited and waited for a guide or an angel or even a direction sign to tell me where I was supposed to travel. Eventually, although I had no physical need, I sat down on a patch of heavy cirriform clouds and I began to ponder my fate. If this was heaven, was I the only one that was ever allowed in? Where was Jesus? What about Matthew Shepperd? I even looked around for Adolf Hitler but I guess he hadn't arrived yet. He was really the only person I expected to see in this place. I just assumed this was something other than heaven. I had been instructed, my entire life, to expect hell. I never assumed it would have such a moderate temperature and cumulus décor.
It gets boring sitting on the side of a cloud with nothing to do but think. I asked myself so many questions, I ruminated with much speculation, but there was nothing but marshmallow after marshmallow staring me in the face. I concluded that my current location looked like the Stay Puff man had dropped a few pounds all over the place. As I waited, my thinking process corrupted itself. All the while, something started to happen. Each color of my shirt glowed with a slight luminance. I could see a reflection on the clouds right before me. I wasn't sure what it meant but I was sure that the gay pride flag had no place in heaven. The two of us had much in common.
It was stark and grim to linger. I even wondered if I was in Limbo or Abraham's bosom. I was uncomfortable with the idea. To be forced to spend eternity surrounded by fluff was almost as bad as having to watch an episode of The Bachelor. As what I thought was time passed, I realized how screwed I really was. Fortunately, certain more mammalian traits had been left behind. I didn't need to go to the bathroom. I tried to sleep several times, but I guessed that this was something I had also discarded. I was never hungry or thirsty even though I really could have used a drink. I'm unsure whether my ability to procreate had been affected as I decided not to look. All the primal, all the tactile experiences of being human had become irrelevant. There were no mirrors to confirm it, but I could tell I even looked different. I hadn't had that much hair on my head since public school. The major scar on my abdomen had just disappeared. As I pointed out, I neglected to examine my centre square, but I suddenly felt au naturel. Slowly, I could feel myself lightening. Color glowed from my chest and any heaviness I experienced began to fade away.
My life seeped like a slow leak would. It was as if the energy within me was released in tiny breaths. The longer I sat, the more I flashed back to my life on earth. It was like reading from a book that flipped page after page in my noggin. My life passed before my eyes and I never once had to take a pee break. It's strange the things you remember when memory is all you have left. You remember both the good and the bad, the happy and the sad. You also see things clearly, without the emotional attachments one had as a human being. It started as some vision from when I was a boy and followed me through every mistake and every error. My visual modality revealed all the joy and all the bliss that I have known as a man, blended together like the flag on my chest. Every person I ever knew, every person I engaged with, danced before me as if by rolodex. I saw my shame and the reasons that I constantly doubted (like any one would).
One would imagine that rehashing every mistake made, every error in judgment, would bring great condemnation. I had to stop myself from reeling only to notice it wasn't that bad. I saw such awful, despicable things that I did but I also saw the wonderful, lovely moments that I knew. I saw my decadence and my so-called sins of the flesh. I heard all the laughter, all the tears. It became clear just how I took things for granted in my mortal form. I saw the pain, the confusion, the believing I was not good enough in God's eyes. I remembered telling myself that I was somehow beyond forgiveness. Being gay was never something I had been proud of. I was brainwashed by my Christian sensibilities. The gay community, Pride, gave me something religion never could. A sense of home and place where I could be myself regardless of who that was. My shirt was more than some flag, it was my flag.
I always thought of dying as a trip into the wild blue yonder. There was no blue here, not a speckle of color, beyond my markings. I considered that hell may be painted over in oyster or chalk. The sky had never been and the ground below was gone, if it was ever there at all. I was left all alone in an endless weave of only me and any tufts of rain yet to be. The isolation, the desperation all painted over any sense of joy that came with me. At one point, everything started to twist in my head. The flashes started to speed up, each zipping past my mind's eye like a Madonna video. I could find no ray of light. I became sad at all I had left behind. I was more concerned that there seemed nothing else ahead. I stood frozen as the pictures moved faster and faster right in front of my face. These were not only the grand moments, in fact they were things not even worth the mention on an ordinary day. Every mundane experience raced together to fill in all the spaces. The time I spent sleeping, or going to the bathroom, or watching television, were strung together without a musical bed. At one point, I had seen more than enough and I tried to turn it off. I couldn't turn it off, it just went on and on in a constant motion. When it finally did cease to play, I was met with a sense of depletion. Every part of me had been exposed and for a moment this confirmed I was in hell.
At times it was like dancing on the truth. At times it was hollow, depressing and uncomfortable. I wasn't sure how much time the long journey had taken but it didn't seem to matter in this relative state of being. I wasn't even sure that time applied in this place. Somehow, I still was despite having been cast down to misery in my own mind. All I know is that I saw it all. Everything was clear and concise. In a way, it became more like watching one very long movie than flipping through pages in a book. It was like a puzzle coming together, each piece seemed to find its proper place. The best part was there were no commercial breaks. The worst part was there were no commercial breaks. I began to understand the path I had followed and why I headed that way. Now, I stood before myself. I was wicked and careful and kind. I had been cursed and blessed and I now just was. Somehow, someway, I still existed. Nothing, it would seem, could steal that away from me.
I wasn't picking my nose, I swear it. There was little reason to do anything but sit and hope that my replay would end soon. Somehow, I managed, I could take it. Almost everything I had tossed at me bounced off into some wild blue yonder. I heard echoes from the past that reminded me. Every theology instructor, every scientist, assured me that there was nothing to fear about death. I remembered reading somewhere that there is a set amount of energy in the universe and that energy merely changes from one form into another. I reminded myself that the First Law of Thermodynamics affirms that energy is always conserved and it cannot be created nor can it be destroyed. I wondered to myself if this was true considering my situation and all these freaking clouds.
I am not sure what eternity feels like but I have a good idea. The process to re-examine my life seemed to take longer than my actual life did. Most of it was rather boring, a feat I always failed to achieve during my humanity. The longer I sat waiting, the more benign I began to feel. My shell hung on me, I experienced it, it was heavy and harsh. I was overcome with such grand emotions. It was bittersweet to have to say goodbye. There had been no voices to usher me forward but I swear I now could hear them. From the everlasting white came a sudden sense of pulling, a complete draining of every thing I ever was or should have been. Ironically, for the first time in my existence, I was whole. Out of nowhere, my flag began to unfurl.
Softly the colors appeared to leave me, each one its own stream, floating, dancing, playing in the air. They hovered for a moment or two then all those colors started playing together. Red flowed into orange then to yellow and green. The blue and the violet also joined in the chorus. They all then turned on me. They whipped around my frame, caressing me, touching me and calling me. I looked down and my feet began to melt into a rainbow. My t-shirt fed the gossamer which began to circle my calves and then my knees. I did not collapse under my weight as there was little weight left of me. My waist, my hands then my chest morphed into a tie-dye version of heavenly bliss. Each stretched out and blended with the others. I became one with the swirl until I swirled about myself. It was then that I started to disappear.
There was nothing left of my human remains, nothing but the soul that speaks to you now. Everything just washed away. In a last effort, I had to try to reach out and try to help you understand. My last thoughts are of you. I pray that somehow this reaches you. The last thing I can tell you, the very last thing I have to share, is not from a tale of woe ending badly. Underneath that blanket of snow, there was promise and beauty in all I had seen. In the end, all lives matter regardless of the flag you bear. This is the voice I heard and now must follow. I am floating here, drifting on by. There is nothing but cloud then, on the other side, there is only blue.
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