Let's say you're one of those folks who has never vaped potty pot pot. Well, smartypants, that's not going to help you here much is it?!
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Get your tickets ready please!
Oh uh, hello there. How you doing?
Listen, my name is Barry and I'm the Conductor on this train so if you need anything, you just ask me, okay?
The bathrooms are right over there and please, pick up after yourself on account of I clean the place, too.
And uh, seeing as you're not from around here I'll just tell you straight out - although every story you might hear on this train is true, some stories are "truer" than others, if you can read between the rails...
Anyway, thanks for stopping by and, y'all come back now, y'hear?
Have a grand day, friend.
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Barry Williams
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
barryhappywilliams@gmail.com
Ask anyone who has expired.
Whenever my dying father would wake up I would immediately question him about what he had been dreaming. Several times he mentioned being in rooms with walls he could see through.
Reading a book about a woman who experienced a near death incident, I came across the same weird description of heaven having see through walls. Maybe there’s no electricity in heaven and the light has to come from outside.
And gravity works there, too. Why else would we need wings?
Natives in white suits. Splendid.
A big, angry woman chasing my dad around in his wheelchair. That he can’t drive.
She’s in two rooms at once as anyone can see through these translucent walls.
My old man didn’t say anything about wings. That part I made up myself.
When he remembered heaven it was with a different part of his “brain” because he would recite his visions initially with depth and involvement only until he realized consciously that he was analyzing his own vision.
His demeanor regarding the vision in consciousness was one of derision for what he might have experienced. His consciousness seemed to remove the “shine” of his vision and he discounted it from that initial conscious moment onward.
These analytical vision sessions occurred immediately upon my dad waking up. As soon as his eyes came open (if I was not too drunk by then) I would ask him about his vision.
Several times while still dying at home he could remember nothing upon waking but his eyes resembled the same appearance that I later described as him being dead.
This was the same way he was on the last day I’d seen him in the palliative care hospital.
To me this means that several times my father visited “death” and couldn’t remember it. That recollection must exist in the future.
If I hadn’t seen his unfocussed, lights are on but curtains drawn look up close in his eyes both before and after “death” I wouldn’t have understood what I was seeing.
What I’m saying is that people can die before dying and live after dying. At least weeks after or before the big event.
What are you thinking about? I asked the old man as he laid motionless upon his Red Cross bed.
If. He said.
If only…
Neither one of us could talk anymore because too much had been said already.
Ever think you’d be doing this? The old man asked as I snapped on surgeon’s gloves.
Kicking your ass was something I thought about a lot. I said.
Then everything after that went into not grimacing.
Man I’m grateful I was able to experience my dad’s death. Answered many questions for me. Thanks dad.
Barry Williams recently posted..Gimme That Big ‘Ol Stink Eye