I had died young

The lights were bright, as expected. Though I guess I wasn't really sure what to expect. There was no fog, but my eyes were having a hard time clearing, like I was waking up from a long night of sleep.

Ahead of me stood a table: one of those outdoor tables that you might see in Paris. We could've been in Paris, for all I know. I was dead, after all. I noticed a bird on the table, opposite to an outdoor chair (that really looked like something from Paris). The bird was an indistinguishable breed, but was the size of a parrot, and it also hadn't been there before. I got a little freaked out when I saw it smile, but quickly calmed myself- this is the afterlife (hopefully heaven) and I have no control.

I was never a particularly spiritual person. I knew this Mormon girl when I was a kid. We weren't close, more like adjacent: we both tended to float around the social stratum of elementary school, though I think she got it worse because she was a girl. She hadn't been the one to introduce me to God, so to speak, but she certainly made me understand why he meant so much to her.

"Where would I be without His guidance?" she would say.

"Well, what about your own guidance?" I appreciated that she was never offended by how unreceptive I could be. But I could find her reasoning in so many other people, and I couldn't help but feel that if so many people trusted in something then maybe I could trust in it, too. I would be told for the rest of my life that my misfortunes were God's will, and I had to have faith that they would lead me to something great, and that was comfort enough.

"Young man."

The voice came from the table- no, the chair- no, the bird. Ah, alright, I guess. I wondered if people are usually terrified when this happens.

"Sir?" That was compulsive. I understood I was in the presence of some spirit, but I've sort of adopted the idea that abstract things- things I can't begin to understand- have some authority over me. Though, I suppose it's entirely possible this abstract spirit couldn't begin to understand me. The bird was smiling softly, something I didn't know birds were capable of. It was a little uncanny. I watched as it motioned me to sit at the table with its little bird head, and I obliged, of course, sitting slowly on the pristine chair, worried it would break under my human weight.

"You understand that you're dead," the bird said. I nodded. I guess up until this clarification I wasn't sure that I was dead, but this certainly confirmed my suspicions. "Do you know what that means?"

"Of course," I said, a little annoyed at the triviality of these questions. Was this God? "Are you God?" I asked, abruptly changing the subject. The bird smiled softly, again.

"Is that what you believe?" it asked. I paused for a moment- I suppose it was. I had never pictured "God" as a mere parrot, but then again I understood God to be untethered to reality. "Do you understand what it means to be dead?" it continued, interrupting my thinking.

"No," I said, giving in. I wasn't really in the mood for an interrogation, trying to find the answer the bird wanted to hear- I was more interested in knowing what I was supposed to be doing. It was obvious that I was out of my depth. "What does it mean to be dead?"

"On a physical level, it simply means that your heart has stopped, there is no oxygen flowing through you, and you are effectively rotten." That's a nice way to put it. "What I am asking you is, what do you plan on doing now?"

I thought this question was funny. Here I was, sitting across a little patio table from God, and it was asking me what I wanted to do.

"What are my options?" God looked a little annoyed at this response: "You are not bound to the options I give you. This is it."

"So, I can do whatever I want?" I was starting to catch up, I think.

"You were always capable of doing what you wanted."

"Now that's not fair," I started. The bird raised an eyebrow, also visually odd. "I'm mortal, given by the fact that I am dead now, or you claim that I am dead. That, in itself, is a boundary. There are always restrictions placed on me because I am bound to earth, and the rules that apply."

"What rules?"

“The existence of me physically and the consequences.”

“You can’t name them?” I wasn’t sure on what front I was being assessed, but it became apparent that I was being judged.

“I don’t know- gravity.”

“And that’s all?”

I began to be frustrated: “Just because I don’t understand them doesn't mean that they don’t exist.” I thought that was sufficient.

“And do you understand me?” it continued to press.

“No,” I admitted. “My perception isn’t determinant of reality.”

“And why not?”

“Because I’m not God.”

“But you don’t know my perception. You don’t understand me, so what then?” 

I shrugged in response. “Play it by ear.” I suppose that’s what everyone was doing: their best. I remembered I still hadn't gotten confirmation that this was even God.

"Are you God?" I asked again. The bird nodded.

"In a traditional sense, yes."

"What does that mean?" I asked. "Why the clarification?"

"The concept of me is a little more complicated, but since you have a firm understanding of a God, I choose to simplify myself to fit that perception." Yes, this little bird was a little patronizing. Though, maybe that's fair enough. I probably would be irritated if my whole identity was flattened to fit a certain perception. Wait: "Are you it? Is this it?"

"I told you that already. This is it." I looked around a little. There wasn't anything. It was me, and a bird, sitting at a little Parisian table. There was a long silence, filled only with me observing my surroundings. A little pathetically, I realized- I was powerless to do anything, and I was suddenly afraid.

"Would you like to leave now?" God suddenly interjected.

"No." I was surprised at my level of conviction. I tried to convince myself that my assurance wasn't based on fear- fear of what? The unknown? What a waste of time! I turned to face God, looking straight in its beady, soulless, little eyes.

"If I make tea, can I talk to you for a little while longer?"

"Of course." A kitchenette appeared, and I understood that I wasn't surrounded by just nothing. This wasn't an absence, the light. I raised myself from the chair and poured some water (that was already in a pitcher, cool and ready just for me) into the kettle and turned it on. It surprised me that it was electric- I had expected something a little more antiquated. I leaned against the counter, facing God once again.

"You asked me what my plan was," I restated, still thinking through what that actually meant. It wasn't inherently that complicated of a question, though I had never really considered the reality of an afterlife and thus never made a formal plan.

"Yes, I did."

"I don't have one," I admitted with a little shame, watching the kettle to catch when the water began to boil. I pulled out two round, ceramic mugs from the cabinet above me and small silver spoons from a drawer below. The tea bags were in a little basket. I picked the universally-liked chamomile.

"Did you have a plan when you lived that may have gotten cut short?" I thought about that for a moment.

“Not really.” 

"Did you have any friends?" God's lack of judgement surprised me. The water, by now, was boiling. I removed the kettle from the heating pad and poured the boiling water in the cups over the tea bags, the steam rising to hit my face. I was confident it wouldn't burn me.

"Of course I did," I replied, placing the mugs on either end of the table and beginning to take a sip. 

"Any friends that you loved? That you may have died for?" I was once again, a little annoyed; "Aren't you supposed to know this already?"

"No," it told me, with an underlying feeling that I couldn't quite figure out. Maybe annoyance, maybe surprise. None of it seemed completely right. "I don't know you. You know me." Maybe God didn't understand me, or people, for that matter. Maybe there was mutual simplification. A co-dependent relationship of sorts.

"Survive," was what I landed on. “That is what I was living for.” I didn't know if I was deserving of that simple of an answer. Some people wanted to cure cancer, and I wanted to make it through the day. “I don’t know if I have the right to not have a goal.”

“You were alive. What a special thing!”

“But life isn’t a gift,” I told him. I don’t even know if I believed that, and maybe if I thought about it a little while longer, maybe if I hadn’t been in such a compromising situation, I wouldn’t have blurted it out. But God continued to sit there, waiting for my elaboration. “I didn’t choose to be born. This wasn’t a luxury I was granted. Sure, it’s pretty phenomenal that we’re capable of reproducing, that in itself is a miracle. But the act of living is so ordinary. I didn’t live once, I lived everyday that I was alive, and so does everyone else.”

“But can’t something be ordinary and beautiful?”

“My gift isn’t that I was simply born. There’s something more to life than the act of living.”

“Ah, but you made that distinction already.” I was intrigued to hear The God’s counterargument. “There’s a hierarchy of life, and you were functioning at the bottom: just surviving. Dragging your feet, not skipping along. Mumbling, not speaking. Speaking, not singing. You would have been, you were capable of singing, of skipping, of proclamation!”

“I wasn’t obligated to.” I was angry now. “God has never lived. You have never lived.”

“But that’s not what I was meant to do.”

“And what was I ‘meant to do’?” There was a moment of silence, and I could sense it wanted me to continue. “I suffered. So many people suffer. Is that their journey? Is that God’s will?”

“There is no ‘God’s will’, there is only yours.” God continued to speak calmly, unbothered, while I was clenching my fists and raising my voice. How unfair, I thought. To pass judgement when you couldn’t begin to understand.

“And that’s what you’ll tell those suffering. That you’re absolved of guilt, those people who beg you for help! Are you even real?” I had forgotten about my tea at this point, but God was still sipping, wetting its beak.

"No." A strange assurance- I hadn't thought it would be that straightforward. I was calmed by the sudden simplicity of it all.  "I suppose that isn't the point," I told it, though I was mostly thinking out loud.

"Right," it began. "This isn't reality, this is delusion. Nevertheless, you are here."

"Is it good or bad? My being here, that is."

"Neither. There's no functionality to," God gestured around with its wings and I noticed the kitchenette was gone, "this place." It paused for a moment, then finally spoke again: "There is a God, but it is not real."

A long pause, shared by the both of us. Maybe God was proud of the gravity of what it had said, I don’t know. But I liked the words: “There is a God, but it is not real”. God exists not because we decided it exists. No, there is some human compulsion to believe in a creator. And, though it will never come, the day that people forget about the existence of God, or any creator, God will not cease to exist. Perception isn’t the basis of reality, not human perception or supernatural perception. God did follow my rules, but there was something humanizing about the idea of it beyond the image of a man- it was God’s confinement to existence, just like mine. 

"I suppose this is it, then."

"This is it."

I continued to stir my tea, apprehensive. I watched God take a sip of its tea, poking its beak in and inhaling quietly. There were little bubbles that formed at the surface. I thought the water was trying to break free, but the beak was keeping it still, pressing the tea leaves further to the bottom of the ceramic. I understood, suddenly, that I was responsible for what would happen next.

"I'm going to leave now."

"Alright."

I put my tea down and rose from the chair. God was still watching me, but staying perfectly still. I turned away, a little frightened, and walked forward. As I continued to catch myself with my feet, rhythmically pacing forward, I could feel its presence lift from me: God had let me go.