I never imagined that I would end up in a situation like this ; written as if with a plum-nectar pen, was inscribed on the tissue thin first page of a fabric-bound journal that lay casually open, bisecting the narrow plane of my bedside table. Right next to the vase full of perpetually blooming lilies. The gold-leaf inscription contrasted well with the floral chintz cover and announced the owner's name in Hebrew. "Towdah". 
 
I had been recording my thoughts regarding my arrival, here, though attempting to record is a more accurate description of those first, neophyte entries. There were so many things that my mind could not grasp, having been more intimate with the finite matters of time, then. My senses were not yet acclimated, nor anywhere near ready for the rapid-fire medley of experiences that seemed to last both seconds and centuries; ephemeral and Ionic, which occurred in steep tertiary strata, each with its own rotund pattern.

The first of these three layers that I burrowed through, vertically, contained an all-encompassing, though weightless freedom which was so oblique to my frame it caused me to feel gravity-starved. There was no sight in this layer. Neither sound. The atmosphere was either cyanotic, or I had no access to taste or smell, there. But I could feel that this area had definite borders and, like ductile tubing under torch, was being pulled thinner and thinner; narrowing into a tendril-like, red-hot apex which was struggling to hold my form. Then, as if being spit out by the catheters' peristaltic contractions, I was pushed out of the tight, terminal end. No longer being cervically squeezed, I was drawn into a relieving vacancy.

Unlike in my previous state, this second level engaged all my senses. It smelled like menthol and tasted like minty static.  The air, being shallow and vacuous, was somehow sultry and became increasingly torrid upon inhalation till I had no choice but to cough it back out in pneumatic, phlegm-filled spasms. Here, there was no restricting circumference but tangible flooring for my feet; a slick, metallic looking sod . The acreage was vast and barren, though not uninhabited. I could see a gathering of beings, devoid of gender, approaching. They were nearly transparent in their paleness, with grey, cellophane-skin. The hollow men, just like T.S. Elliot wrote about, all parading about this wide, sodden chasm. With great thought, but no purpose. No light.

The lack of light was now becoming more apparent. It seemed to ebb in and out as if being covered by something; the involuntary, timed-blinking of an eyelid. Once past the pensive denizens, I was seduced by an overhead monochromatic glow, which encircled the dark inner nucleus in bright, cerulean blue. And what seemed like ancient ciphers spoked from the center like radials. The amount of light, or darkness, seemed to be affected by their activity, or lack thereof.

It was at this horizon that the third, and final, membrane was crossed which would bring me to my final destination. 

As the cipher-composed tines let in more light they brought with them an influx of warm, rose-scented water; thick and syrupy. I was quietly surrounded in the gelid liquid and took to peaceful, slow-motion floating. Still in the dark, ebony center; as if in the leviathan's pupil, the anatomy before me became clear. The wet aqueous humor. The translucent lens before me. It was only at that moment of recognition- understanding that I was in the eye of God- that a strong, churning, red current swept behind to swallow me in its embrace; mechanically agitating. Massaging my soul clean. 

(The are no human words, no mortal characters to adjoin; whether written in supernatural ink or not, for which to describe the sensations of utter satiation which followed and have since failed to cease in their profusion.)     

In an event something like childbirth -but absent of pain, the swell finished its washing and propelled me through the elastic corneal film, rupturing the celluloid tissue. I looked back, the first and only time on this journey, to see that the fissure where I had exited from was forming a white-hot seal as if being soldered shut. I was now birthed into a volume of endless cesium brilliance. My new alabaster reality.

This is where the journal ends. Where aberdeen stains not the paper, but the current-red sanguine makes the markings vanish before they can be recorded. In eternity there is no need for history. It is beauty, inherent. It is self-defining. It is Faith, Hope, and LOVE.

...a situation I could never have imagined.


LOVEANDBLESSINGS, paperlily.