Moving on

“That was quite a trip wasn’t it?” The man in the gray jumpsuit said as he examined the man who had just arrived. “Let me see here. Eyes look good, stick out your tongue…yes that looks all right, okay follow my finger,” he said as he moved it up and down, right and left then all the way up and over to behind the new arrival’s head. “Hah, just kidding, having some fun. If you could do that, this would probably be the wrong destination.”

“Where am I?” The new arrival asked.

“Ahh. Hmm. I am sure you’re in the right place, not to worry.” Grey Jumpsuit said looking at New Arrival up and down. “May I see your papers?”

New arrival looked perplexed. “I’m sorry. Papers?”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you have them everyone does. Let’s see, check your pant pockets? Maybe in the breast pocket of your jacket?”

New arrival instinctively moved his hands to his hips and where the inside of his coat would be only to discover that he was wearing a white jumpsuit identical the gray one worn by his…greeter?

“Just kidding, have to do something to keep amused. Let’s see here…ah. Hmm, interesting. Ahh yes.” Gray Jumpsuit had pulled what looked like some kind of tablet from out of a non-existent back pocket and was looking it over. “Right. I completely understand. Should be interesting. Good. Very good. Well, it looks like you will be needing this.” Gray Jumpsuit pulled out a scroll, affixed with a wax seal from the same non-existent back pocket.

New Arrival looked at the scroll, uncertain of what to make of it.

“Go ahead, take it. It’s yours.” Gray Jumpsuit motioned with the tube of paper.

New arrival reached for the scroll. It seemed heavy for a piece of parchment. He examined it carefully. “Do Not Open. Throw Away.” These were the words scrawled on the outside of the parchment. The handwriting looked vaguely familiar.

“I’m sorry, I’m a bit confused. What does this mean?” New Arrival said looking at the scroll and the cryptic message written on it. “Where did you say I was again?”

“Oh heavens, I didn’t answer your question did I. I really shouldn’t talk that way. I wouldn’t want to give you false hope. You actually aren’t in heaven. That was probably obvious given the general lack of harps. The good thing is that you’re not in hell either—see no pools of lava or whips.”

“I’m still very confused.” New Arrival said shaking his head as if to clear his mind.

“We’ll that’s only natural. You’ve just come an awful long way. You’re entitled a bit of jet lag or brain fog or whatever you want to call it.” Gray Jumpsuit seemed unjustifiably cheery.

“This says ‘Do Not Open. Throw Away.’ What’s the point of giving me this?”

“Ah, well that is--as it were-- your life.” Gray Jumpsuit say, cheerful expression become a bit more serious yet still pleasant.

“What do you mean my life…?” New Arrival said as it dawned on him at least one implication of what Gray Jumpsuit was saying. If the scroll was his life, then he was likely no longer in it.

“Yeah, see, I see it you’re catching on quick and I didn’t even have to explain it to you. I like that. Well done, it’s always so much easier when they catch on themselves. Fog must be lifting.” Gray Jumpsuit smiled. He didn’t generally enjoy giving lengthy explanations.

“So, the Heaven and Hell thing, not just a little joke, not just a bit of banter?” New Arrival was trying desperately to process the information.

“Well, a bit of light banter certainly, but no joke.” Gray Jumpsuit replied.

“Some kind of purgatory then?” New Arrival asked probing for something a bit more certain to hold onto.

“Ding ding ding!” Gray jumpsuit said putting it forefinger on his nose. “Well done. You are indeed quick. I must say I don’t love the term. ‘Purgatory’ sounds a bit dreadful and there are nuances. I mean there’s no punishment here per se. This is more of a staging area. A place to reflect and think. Where you go from here, is a function of many factors.”

“From here I could go to Heaven or Hell?” New Arrival asked gaining a sense of hope that the perhaps a decision had yet to be made.

“That’s a very simple way of thinking about it I suppose. I mean there are so many other possibilities that you haven’t given much thought to. We all joke about the harps and pools of lava, but what is Heaven really? What is Hell? Could you, in your wildest imagination, construct such a place as eternal bliss or eternal damnation? What would it even mean?” Gray Jumpsuit gave New Arrival a bit of a patronizing smile. But behind the tiny bit of condescension there was both warmth and a challenge.

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. At least I don’t know if I have.” New Arrival said softly to himself. He couldn’t remember anything about himself. He didn’t know if he was married, what kind of job, parents, kids, friends he’d had. He didn’t know if he’d led a good life or a bad one. Was he the kind of person who got into Heaven? Or was he the kind that went to Hell?

“Why don’t you spend some time thinking about it? You can decide for yourself if you want to open the story of your life. If you do, you will know everything about who you were-- the good the bad and the boring. If you don’t you will know nothing.” Gray Jumpsuit said with a calm manner that suggested that the choice genuinely did lay with New Arrival.

“But it looks like I wrote on this scroll. I told myself not to open it, to throw it away. Why would I do that? How would I have done that? When could I have done that?” New Arrival asked, somewhat to himself, but hoping for a clue from Gray Jumpsuit.

“Yes, isn’t that curious? You can take it into account as you decide what to do. Why don’t you wander the grounds? They are lovely. A wonderful place to think.” As Gray Jumpsuit said the words, New Arrival noticed that the place that he had been standing seemed to be in the midst of a beautiful park with a small lake. It was as If a fog had lifted and for the first time, he could see more than just the platform he was standing on.

“How much time do I have? How will I find my way back here?” New Arrival asked.

“Take as much or as little as you need. It’s all the same. I think that you will find that when you arrive at a decision, you will… arrive.” Gray Jumpsuit said with a twinkle in his eye.

New Arrival looked at the scroll. He held it with both hands. A part of him desperately wanted to know who he was. He didn’t feel like a bad guy. Did he have children that he cared about? Did people miss him? Had he been a decent person?

He felt as if he wanted to have been a kind person. He thought to himself, ‘If I want to be kind here, doesn’t that suggest that I would have tried to be kind while I was alive? Wouldn’t I want to know that?’

On the other hand, he thought about the fact that it seemed like he had told himself not to read the scroll. Why would he do that unless somehow his life had been less than exemplary? Maybe his life had just been disappointing rather than wicked? Why would he want to stop himself from knowing who he was? Was it really a message from himself or had someone else put that message on the scroll?

Had he been a terrible person in life? Didn’t that mean he was a terrible person now too? Maybe it wasn’t that he had been terrible, maybe he had a tragic life? What if he had lost his family and children in some terrible catastrophe? Maybe he had just been hapless and sad? There were many reasons he could think of why he might want to forget. Maybe he had just been angry when he died? Perhaps he had lived a really great life and he didn’t want himself to know all that had been lost.

New Arrival didn’t know what to think or where to begin. One place he could begin would be to open the scroll, but he felt like once he did that there would be no going back. Gray Jumpsuit had said that he had time to make up his mind. Best not to rush it and make a decision that couldn’t be unmade.

In his mind he constructed many realities for himself. In one, he was a Scrooge like humbug who made everyone around him miserable and who managed with his repentant dying breath to tell his soul to forget his miserable existence. In another version he was a family man whose wife left him after cheating with a best friend. In another he was the unfaithful one and he had caused the end of his marriage along with the end of his lover’s. In yet another he was a failed businessman who had jumped off of a bridge. In some permutations he was a horrible father whose children had disowned him. One version of himself lived a good life to which he longed to return.

He kept coming back the basic question. Why did he tell himself not to open and throw the scroll away? Nothing he did now would change who he had been. On the other hand, nothing he learned would change who he was either. Why remain ignorant? Then again, since nothing he learned would change who he was, what would be the point in finding out?

Of course, he had to consider the possibility that it wasn’t his handwriting. He couldn’t remember anything about his life, why would he recall his own handwriting? Maybe everyone who came to purgatory got a similar scroll. Maybe the note varied based on the type of life lived? Maybe the note on the scroll was a test?

He could take that both ways. In one version, the test was whether he could follow directions and overcome his curiosity. In the other version, the test was whether his innate curiosity could push him beyond artificial barriers. It could go either way.

New Arrival thought about where he was. What had Gray Jumpsuit said? This was a place in-between. New Arrival had gathered that it was a place in between many worlds. He had been thinking about existence in terms of Earth, Heaven, and Hell. Maybe there were more options to choose from. The question was whether knowing his previous life was a good idea or a bad one. Maybe he was thinking about that all wrong too.

He sat by the shore of the lake. He couldn’t see the sun, but it was as if he felt its warm rays as he laid down on the grass by the water. He fantasized about one of the good versions of his life. In this version, he had children who wept for him now that he was gone. He thought about what his parents had been like in this imaginary incarnation. Perhaps he would meet them wherever he ended up. He imagined that even if he had been a good son that sometimes he had fallen short. Maybe he could apologize for the times that he hadn’t been worthy? He thought about what it must have been like to have loved a wife, to love his children, or his parents. Perhaps to have loved a brother or sister.

All of that seemed lost, if it ever existed at all.

He pulled out the scroll. The wax seal was all that stood between him and knowledge of the life he had lived. He could know in an instant whether he had been worthy of love or a disappointment. He could imagine the feeling, the rush of breaking the seal. In his mind he could feel a satisfying crack as it broke and he gained access to the words on the parchment.

He held the scroll in his hands and smelled it, as if he might be able to discern sweetness or bitterness from the hidden ink. He smelled nothing but a faint tinge of wax and the flowers on the bank of the lake.

He thought again about where he was. He was at a way station. The next step was? Something new maybe. Something different.

He closed his eyes and held the scroll with one hand as he gripped the loosed edge with the other. It’s now or never.

He had decided.

He flipped the scroll into the water and turned around hoping the wind would carry it into the center of the lake. He wanted it to go as far away as quickly as possible, lest he jump in and try to retrieve it. He mustn’t look back.

He walked a few feet forward, eyes closed. When he opened them, he had returned to the platform.

“I see you made your decision.” Gray Jumpsuit said. “It’s time to move on.” Gray Jumpsuit pointed in the direction of a beam of light that appeared to come from beyond.

“Is that…you know…?” New Arrival asked with great hope and yet a bit sheepishly.

“You get to decide. But you’ve taken the first step. You know. You can’t take it with you.” Gray Jumpsuit said.

“Yeah. I think I figured that out at the last second. It took a while to come to terms with.”

“Will I see you again?” New Arrival asked? He answered himself. “No, I guess that doesn’t make any sense does it? It doesn’t even mean anything.”

“Well done." Gray Jumpsuit smiled. "I said you were clever didn’t I?”