Jason

Jason

An eerie glow eminated from nowhere, and everywhere. Every molecule of the air shimmered with it. Jason, a seasoned meteorologist, witnessed many strange atmospheric conditions, but never anything like this. His thoughts swirled as much as the snow, blowing in ever changing patterns across the great prairie. “What am I doing out here? Why did I come out here looking for Paulie? How could I leave my wife, my family? Why did you take off the way you did? And the note! What’s up with that?”

All these questions flew through his head as he walked along in search of his nephew. Paulie disappeared a few weeks earlier, leaving an obscure note saying, “I go to seek a Great Perhaps.” Under normal circumstances Jason wouldn’t have bothered. If his nephew wanted to leave, let him leave, as an adult he could make his own choice. Circumstances were not normal, however. Paulie, a recovered drug addict, had once been very troubled and confused, but he straighened up his life. He had a steady job and regularly attended church. From the outside, everything indicated he lived a clean and sober life.

Jason researched the quote on Paulie’s note. They were the last words of the 16th century French Renaissance writer, François Rabelais, and that made it sound like a suicide note. 

He knew Paulie would never do it, not now. Sure there had been a time when suicide would have been the obvious answer, but that was the past. He worked through all those issues when he gave his life to the Lord. He even got a semicolon tattoo to raise awareness for mental health, depression, and suicide prevention. The semicolon signified his sentence wasn’t finished yet, there was more to come. It reminded him of where he'd been, and he did not want to return there. This was not a suicide. This was a disappearance. 

Jason, not only uncle, but mentor and friend when Paulie cleaned himself up, took matters into his own hands after the police refused to investigate. They said they didn’t have time to go chasing every addict who fell off the wagon and wandered into the prairie to die. Even the family considered the young man a lost cause, a leopard who's spots would never change. Only Jason had faith in him, believing him not only clean and sober, but probably more sane than most everyone in the family.

He prayed, night after night, pleading for answers, questioning, letting his desires be known to God. The desire to know what happened, what Paulie did or didn’t do. Was he dead or alive? Hurt somewhere? Kidnapped? Or did he really just take off? So many questions, so many prayers, and yet the only answer he heard was, “Go look for yourself.” 

Strange, but that’s what the voice rumbled through his head, every time. The compulsion to pursue an investigation on his own grew day by day, beyond his capacity to ignore it. So he left home and comfort, friends and family, in order to find his nephew. The snow blowing down his neck made him think of the warmth and security he walked away from to seek this "Great Perhaps" Paulie mentioned in the note. He shivered.

He found himself halfway across the prairie. Or was he? It was a huge expanse of nothingness to the west of civilization. No one had any concept of how big it was. As far as everyone was concerned it was greater than the greatest ocean, like a barrier to the edge of forever. No one had been to the other side. Some tried, but no one ever returned. 

Here, encompassed by the vastness, Jason encountered the eerie, supernatural, effervescent light. He stopped in his tracks, examining the light, trying to figure out what might be causing it. 

As he watched, the light coalesced in front of him. It formed into a brilliant, glowing cherub floating before him, ten feet tall, winged, but with the countenance of a man. Clothed in shimmery blue armor of light, it carried a broadsword radiating a brilliant red. Its piercing eyes twinkled with the starlight of a billion galaxies in deep dark pits. The rest of the atmosphere around him continued to glow and shimmer, seemingly from everywhere.

Jason stood, jaw agape, mind reeling, trying to figure out what his eyes beheld. All the questions which swirled through his head moments before were replaced with just one, “What the…?”

The cherub angled its sword in such a way to challenge, but not to threaten. A voice reverberated out of its being, echoing across the prairie, “What do you seek?”

Swallowing hard, attempting to get his stomach out of his throat and back into his belly where it belonged, Jason said, “I’m looking for my nephew, Paulie. He's about...”

The sword moved subtly, still not quite a threat, but more challenging. “What do you seek?” the cherub asked again.

“My nephew, Paulie. He disappeared a few weeks ago. I thought maybe he came this way. Please, have you seen him?”

The cherub quickly shifted, clearly threatening now, red beams flashing everywhere from the sword, “What do you SEEK?” The final word cracked like thunder.

Jason’s mind clicked into gear as he blurted out, “I go to seek a Great Perhaps!”

Prismatic light shot in all directions from the sword as the cherub lifted it high above its head. The snow stopped, the clouds cleared, and the prairie faded away into a beautiful sunlit garden. A host of people in all manner of dress, as if from eras throughout history stood, smiling at Jason. 

A man toward the front stepped forward, extending a hand in greeting, "Hello, I am Enoch, the first to gain entry to this place after the fall. We have all come here via our personal journeys. Some came with intention, others, like yourself, ended here quite by surprise. For each, it is fitting." At that moment, grinning from ear to ear, Paulie moved from the midst of the crowd, saying, “I knew you’d figure it out Uncle Jason. Welcome to the Garden of the Great Perhaps.”