JOHN'S DREAM

When John awoke, there was someone on the bed.

He hadn’t slept too well and he mostly sensed the intruder’s presence by the pressure he applied on the box spring than by seeing who he was. Then his eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room, and he realized that it was God who had come to visit him. This put John in a kind a stupor. What was God doing near enough to him that he could touch whatever he used to cover himself, more like a drapery than anything sensible? He had plenty of beard and hair, both white. Still, he looked younger than him, all dressed up in one outfit the same color as his sheets.

John couldn’t think of anything to say. So he stayed quiet. At last, God broke the silence.

“How would you like to live in eternity?’’ He asked?”

The day before, John went to bed with a bit of a stomach discomfort. Could that have developed into something serious enough to insure the presence at his bedside of the master of the universe and his prying into him with this very disturbing question? He forces himself to beg him for clarifications.

“Do you mean in heaven…?”

He wasn’t long in reassuring me:

“Well, not at this time. You look healthy enough for now. In fact, I am talking about yourself; in the state you are now, continuing forever to do what you like to do on this earth.”

“You mean endlessly…?

I don’t know why but when articulating these 3 words, John feels a frigid sensation going through his back.

“Precisely. How would you like that?”

“It’s a long time, he says, feeling rather stupid.”

God looks at him in a way he has always associated with clerics and their devotion. Finally, he issues this sentence:

“Not if you are doing the right thing.”

The word prayers came into John mind as he is sure it is part of God’s little scheme but he couldn’t tell to his face that the notion of reciting litanies for hours is foreign to him. Instead, he utters:

“You multiply one million years by one million and eternity wouldn’t even have started…”

He could see that God wasn’t impressed by his arithmetic.

“I gathers, he surmised, that you will pass on that opportunity.”

“How many card games of patience can one play in infinity…?”

This don’t get him the giggle he expects, not even a smirk. Instead, God lectures me:

“You judge like the mortal you are, your condition being temporal, ephemeral and perishable. If you were to live forever, what you make of your situation might change.”

“Listen, John interjected, I had a good life and as all things in this world, it must come to an end. So, yes I will decline.”

His guest changes position and he senses tremors on the mattress as his body weight travels toward his right foot. What about being a spirit, impalpable and immaterial, he ponders.

God receives his dismissal with no sign of being upset or annoyed. He glances at him. John’s pajama was unbuttoned and shows more of his fleshy abdomen than he cares for him to look at. John silently wishes to be left alone. He doesn’t. Instead, he comes up with another proposal.

“What would you say, then, if I were to offer you to be twenty years old again?”

This got him his full attention. No doubt he was presented with an alternative to good to be true. Could it be that God talked nonsense? Still, he was Yahweh, wasn’t he? John had seen enough of our creator in pictures to recognize the almighty when sitting in front of him. If he was proposing it, who was him to doubt the project’s feasibility. He sure couldn’t dismiss his visitor’s amiable overture the way he would have anybody else’s. He could feel God’s dark blue eyes sinking into his, him expecting some kind of an answer on his part and who knows, being ready to remodel him as an ass if he was to disappoint him some more.

“Being twenty years old again’’, John repeats.

Thinking, just to gain some more time and figure out all the challenges he would meet if he immerses himself into so big a conversion.

“That’s it’’. God agrees with a smile. “You will no longer be an old man of eighty or so but a young fellow with a full life in front of him.”

“This sounds good indeed. Let me ask, though. In what world would I come up? Would it be now or back in the time of Eisenhower and Kennedy?”

“I don’t do time retrogression. You would find yourself a young man in the year 2025. Don’t worry. You won’t miss your computer, neither your smart T.V. set nor your LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook accounts.”

Not wanting God to have too bad an opinion of me, I make a gesture that shows I don’t care much for those modern distractions.

“Would it be me or someone new? He asks.

God’s answer is quick and to the point.

“It depends. You decide. The choice is yours. What is it you want, starting up anew or being your old self with sixty years less?”

“Starting up anew, John repeats. Does that mean that I wouldn’t know of my previous existence?”

“Exactly.”

“Then," he objects, "what would be the point of the whole exercise if I were not to know about it.”

God shrugged his shoulders as if he d0esn’t care much one way or the other. He lets out a sigh and finishes with the choice John was left with:

“You do it your way then. Stay who you are and be young again. What do you say?”

“Can’t you be a little bit more specific? Will I look the same?”

“We do things this way, he reveals. You will be born in 2005. You will grow up into a new family. And as soon as you stop being a teenager, memory of your old self will come back.”

“Well, how amazing," he pronounced. Still, there was that bit that represented a challenge. “Will I be as happy in this new life as I have been in the old?”

He realizes that his blowing hot and cold makes him look like a spoiled and capricious child. But he couldn’t do better.

“That is up to you, man.”

“I mean, I stutter, I will have to do it all over again and not being sure it will work fine.”

“True enough. This is the price to pay for being young again.”

I pop out:

“And I will be left to contrast anything I do with my previous accomplishments.”

“You might do worse. You might do better, God acknowledges.”

“Impossible to do it better, I holler back in a kind of panic. I have had in my life all what one can wish for and reaches beyond my wildest expectations all the goals I have set my mind to attain. I won’t be able to do it better.”

“You’re a tough customer, do you know that, God complained.”

“The deal you offer is intricate and problematic. Being who you are, you must realize that.”

“The complexity is of your own making, he blames him.”

‘’Well, he protests, you’re not selling me a cruise ship in the Caribbean.”

“You must make up your mind, God insists, looking at his watch.”

Yes, he has a watch. The kind my grandfather used. And God knows how he got it out of his garment plus a pair of glasses that he puts on his nose, looking like Santa Claus. Unbelievable but true.

“Let me think, will you,’’ I pleads.”

“One minute more. I have a lot to do and to be honest, I must say I am dumbfounded by your irresolution”, God urges.

“I hesitate because your proposal isn’t as great as you make it sound.”

“I don’t care what you decide, the deity mumbled. I was around and I felt like visiting you and making you happy.”

“I am happy now.”

‘’ Good for you.”

“Thanks.”

‘’By accepting my offer, you can be happy for a lot more years than the few you are left with in this existence of yours.’’

The more the apparition talks back, the more John is convinced the words he is issuing makes good reasoning.

“Maybe I can but chances are I will miss all what have made me the man I am. And those things are too much or too good to ignore or let go of. So, I am grateful for your offer but I will turn it down respectfully. I hope you don’t mind.”

He assures him he didn’t.

* * * *

After God had disappeared, John turns in his bed and comes into contact with his wife, the woman who has shared his life for the last fifty-seven years.

And right then, he knows he has made the right choice.