DR. Jill Stromberg, b. April 1954, anaesthesiologist, two daughters, long bout with cancer
Larry Craft, b. July 1937. loved sailing, retired teacher, donations to OPB
Jackie Homing, b. Sept. 1928, lived in Alaska, six children.
Doris Jameson, b. Dec. 1924, husband died already, one son.
Richard Potter, b. June 1950, real estate agent, memorial service at a country club.
Lee Sylvester Watson, b. Nov. 10, 1913, retail lumberyard manager.
“So where ARE we?” Dr. Jill blinked and addressed the group she was with now, looking like a crew in nightgowns.
“Well,” chuckled Jackie, “it’s sure not Alaska!” She shrugged her shoulders, turned her head far to right and then to left, looking as far as she could. “No trees, no mountains, no water.” She shook her head as if to clear it, then looked down towards her feet.
“I think I am dead, in fact, I am sure of it. I want to see my husband.” Doris has a set look to her face, making this demand. She crossed her arms on her chest.
“What do you think will happen now?” asked Richard, “I mean, if we really are dead that is. I mean, where’s St. Peter or whoever greets the newbies?”
“You know,” mused Lee, “Yesterday was my birthday. Ninety-seven years young! And today I could have been in the Vet’s parade, you know.” He paused. “Only I didn’t feel up to it this week.” He laughed. “No wonder!”
Dr. Jill looked around, past the group, to the white walls that looked more like thick clouds. She reached out to touch one, which just receded away. She encountered nothing.
“This must be some kind of foyer or waiting area. Hmm.” Dr. Jill then just disappeared, surprising Larry!
“Whoa!” said Larry, “Where did she go? She was right here, and now she’s
gone! Geez, this is kinda scary.”
Dr. Jill reappeared in the group, near Jackie.
“Oh, you startled me!” Jackie took a step back. “What happened?”
“I just wondered about my family, my girls, and then I was right there, seeing them both. Something’s different with time now. I think I was in a future time. They both had little kids with them. I didn’t see my husband any place, but I know he does fine when I am away.”
“So you just wondered about them, and you went there?” asked Jackie.
“I guess. That’s what happened.” Dr. Jill looked a little puzzled herself.
“Why are you back here?” asked Larry.
“Well,” she replied, “I guess I was satisfied that they’re OK. And here I am. I didn’t think of wanting to be here. No offence.” Dr. Jill smiled.
“I am going to try that,” said Lee. “I wanted to go to that parade.” Lee closed his eyes, and promptly disappeared.
“Well, do tell!” snapped Doris. “I want to see my Clyde.” She closed her eyes tight, clenched her fists, and remained where she was. So she opened her eyes again.
“That’s not fair! Clyde misses me, too!”
“Maybe he came around to see you when he died, and went away happy,” offered Richard, smiling knowingly. “You know, maybe he saw you were doing OK without him?”
“Humph.” Doris turned her back on the group. “It’s just like you, a stranger, to tell me what for,” she grumbled.
“Maybe, since he’s been dead so long, you can’t follow him. Wasn’t there someone alive with you whom you’d want to see now?”
“Hardly! Just a bunch of old people in that rest home and my son. All half-dead anyway. They didn’t bother me, and I didn’t bother them, including my son.” Doris looked sideways at Richard.
“Well, I am going to try this too. See you later, maybe.” Richard disappeared.
Larry shook his head slowly, looking down.
“There are so many I would like to look in on, it will take an eternity. Some of my students had such promise, but it’s the others I worry about and hope they caught on to some threads in life, married well, or found work that kept them in groceries anyway.” He wagged his head again. “Maybe I don’t want to see them after all. I probably could have done more than I did, when I had the chance. Although I don’t know what. I always thought people made their own beds, created their own lives, you know? Got what they deserved? Did you think that too?” Larry addressed the group.
“You bet they got what they deserved!” Doris spoke sourly.
“I never thought about it at all,” responded Jackie. “I was too busy, I guess, working and all, to think about too much. God made me to be a mother, and that’s what I did. That takes all your life!” She laughed quietly with her whole face in a smile. “I saw the birds every day until they went south for the winter. It was so exciting to see them come back. In the spring I would just be excited all the time, like my sap was rising!”
Dr. Jill held her left elbow in her right hand, thoughtful now. “A lot happens to people that isn’t their fault, you know. Especially sickness. Of course, some people endanger their health with life style choices, but a lot is crap shoot, from what your grandmother ate when she was pregnant with your mother, to who coughed in the same room with you yesterday.”
Richard and Lee both reappeared!
Richard sounded a tad annoyed as he reported: “My family and friends are having a good lunch on me now. I was always a good provider. I hope they all remember that at least.”
“WELL! That was a fun parade! I love seeing those armored trucks and all the flags waving, and the little kids scrambling for candies!” Lee waved his arms to illustrate.
“So now what?” asked Richard, impatient for something to happen.
“I am going sailing,” said Larry, and promptly disappeared.
“I think I’ll go to Haiti,” said Dr. Jill, and she disappeared too.
“I am going to ride one of those Humvees in Iraq,” said Lee. Gone.
‘I wish I was an Arctic tern,” was the last thing Jackie said.
“Well. I am going to stay right here until Clyde comes for me.” Doris gave a stern look to Richard, the only one left with her now.
“Guess I will go hang out with my wife and daughters. I might learn something.”
And then Doris was alone.
Merlin Porter, b. Aug. 1924. Jazz drummer, barber, three children, Catholic.
Kathleen Crocker, b. June 1945, Quaker.
Grace Ditzel, b. June 1926. Care companion at the Senior Center.
Jenny Harrison, b. Nov. 1948. Homemaker, survived by her mother and three siblings.
Doris waited for Clyde to come for her so long that she was glad when others appeared.
“Hell!” Merlin announced his presence with an epithat. “What the heck is this place! I’ve had a lot of gigs, but this is the quietest ever.”
“Watch your language, please.” A diminutive older lady touched Merlin’s elbow, drawing his attention down to her, and smiling to make her remark more acceptable.
“You have to admit, lady, that this is something of a surprise. I never did buy all that crap the priests put out, but they never mentioned being kept in a white room forever. How long will this go on?”
‘It’s not so bad,” answered Jenny, as she approached from a little distance, growing larger as she came nearer to them. She was as tall as Merlin, perhaps six feet, tall for a woman. “I kind of like the quiet. I needed a rest.”
Doris feigned indifference to their presence at first, but now felt called upon to comment. “It was quiet before you all got here. Let’s keep it that way. No call to be chattering on about nothing.”
“Why are you so cross?” asked Grace.
“Yeah, buzz off!” Merlin gestured to Doris with a wave of his hand.
“Why don’t you just go somewhere else, like the others did. I am waiting here for my husband, Clyde. He’ll come soon.”
“What others?” Merlin asked. “There’s just you bunch of ladies as far as I can tell.”
Doris groaned. She would explain if it would get them to go away.
“ All you have to do is THINK where you want to be, and you will be there. So, why don’t you just do that?” She pressed her lips tightly together, as if she would say no more.
“Oh, dear,” came a small voice. “This isn’t at all what I had expected.”
“And you are whom?” asked Grace, ever pleasant and correct.
“Kathleen. I am a Quaker. Which way do you think we Quakers should go?”
“Yeah, where’s the Catholic entrance!” Merlin’s voice rose above them all. “I did my time in church. My wife donated enough for both of us and all the kids went through Catholic schools. I am sure they are all praying for me now, so show me where to go. I got a ticket!” Merlin raised his hand high, fist clenched.
“I think everyone has a ticket,” said Jackie.
Doris moved herself away from the conversation area, to show she was not involved, but close enough to hear still. Merlin rubbed both hands over his face.
“Lordy. Now what?” He looked upwards, but all around them was white. Just white. Neither hot nor cold. Not solid, not airy. Just whiteness without depth.
“Did you hear that music?” he asked suddenly. Each of the ladies shook her head no. “I wonder where it’s coming from?” Merlin disappeared.
“Good riddance, I say,” spoke Doris from her little distance. “Not a man I could make good use of, I bet.”
“Did you say there were others here, dear?” Grace gave her full attention to Doris, as she always did when interacting with others.
“They’ve all gone off, to do as they like, I guess. Why don’t you go, too?”
“But where, and how?” asked Kathleen. Doris turned away and refused to answer that question again.
“Well,” said Jenny, “if I can do as I like, I think I would like a good night’s sleep in a good bed, in a fine hotel, with fresh mountain air coming in the window.” With that Jenny faded from the group.
Kathleen and Grace looked at each other. “What shall we do?” Grace was getting excited about the possibilities, and leaned towards Kathleen, whispering. They both spoke at the same time. “I have never been to DisneyWorld, have you? Or New York City!” “I’ll come with you, wherever. OK?” Kathleen was tentative.
“Let’s see if we can do this. Hold hands. Think DisneyWorld, in Florida.” And the two were gone. Doris glanced around her and saw and heard no one.
Then they were all back! Talking to each other, telling their stories of Haiti and Florida and God knows where they were. It was probably all in their heads.
“I have a more sensible head than that,” Doris comforted herself. Still no Clyde. “Why are you all back here?” she asked loudly from her position outside the group.
“Why are we all back here?” echoed Dr. Jill. “There must be a reason.”
“We all died on the same day, didn’t we? Does that matter?” asked Larry.
“Would this be heaven, or purgatory, or you know where?” Merlin’s eyes grew big as he considered these options. “Geez, I was a pretty good guy. Took care of my family, treated people well. Those other women didn’t mean anything to me.” He paused. “Shoot.” They all hung about in silence for a while.
“Doesn’t it seem like some kind of teacher or mentor ought to show up to help us here?” offered Richard. ‘I mean, there ought to be a short cut some way. This could take forever, literally.”
Larry spoke up. “Can I suggest we form a circle here, for the sake of better communication. Doris, you want to join us?”
“I think not.” She faced away from the group, arms crossed still.
“OK, then,” Larry continued. Have you ever heard of a “compressed conflict?”” No one responded, and several shook their heads. “Well, it’s a problem for a group to solve, that can only be solved if the group all work together. We used to give them to student groups I supervised. Sometimes the staff would do them. They have a way of building group cohesion, you know, consensus decision-making and so on. Helps the kids get along better.”
“So what are you suggesting, Larry?” asked Richard. “You got a problem for us to solve?” He laughed. Then he crossed his arms and looked down.
“Figuring out what the challenge IS is the first part, I bet,” said Larry.
“What the hell… heck is the problem, anyway?” Merlin glanced at Grace as he used profanity again. Impatiently, he moved away. Lee smiled at each of them in turn.
“Whatever!” Lee chimed in. The group seemed to be moving apart.
“OK, let’s give it some thought,” put in Dr. Jill. “No hurry!” Then they all laughed, except Doris, of course.
‘I have an idea,” offered Grace. “We need to come up with a project that we can all do together. At the Senior Center…”
“Geez, don’t tell us about the Senior Center,” Doris interrupted from her listening post, not too far away. “Old people passing the time, is all. Useless.”
“Senior Centers have a lot to offer, I think,” said Jenny. “Somewhere for older people to go visit and have activities. I don’t know why you are so down on them. If it weren’t for the Senior Center I would never have had a break from Mother. My brothers were no help.”
“I think we have to demonstrate Peace somehow,” offered Kathleen. “In Quaker meetings we sit quietly together, and when someone has something to share, he or she speaks up, and the others listen. Really listen, I mean.”
“So you think we ought to just hang around in a circle like this until some great idea pops into someone’s head? And they will just share it? And we’ll do it, and it will all be hunky dory? And THEN what? We all get into the Pearly Gates, which I haven’t seen yet? Dumb and dumber.” Merlin wagged his head and rolled his eyes, looking for a laugh, but he didn’t get one.
“She’s right, at least in part. We should listen to each other. Among us we must have a lot of experience and ideas.” Dr. Jill’s voice was always calming. “Let’s try the circle and the quiet zone. I think we need a rule too, that when someone speaks, others don’t interrupt or denigrate them.”
“I guess I know how to listen, after thirty-five years as a barber,” quipped Merlin.
“I agree,” put in Jackie as Jenny nodded. Dr. Jill made eye contact with each of the others, passing from one to the next, hoping for assent. Each nodded, or smiled, or shrugged assent. Only Doris stood facing away from the group. “Doris? You too? You agree to try this?”
Doris looked over her should at them. “Maybe. But I have to keep a watch out for Clyde. You go on with whatever you want to do.”
The group was together, considering, for what might have been an eternity, but maybe not.
“Time’s a wasting! Let’s do something!” Richard is a get-it-done sort of person.
“Time is one thing that doesn’t matter anymore, near as I can tell.” Jenny tipped her head back and closed her eyes as if to sleep.
More waiting for inspiration, maybe another eternity.
/ / / / / / / / /
“We know we can each go anywhere we want, at will, right? How about we each go off now and do some good deeds?” Lee smiled. “I could maybe cancel out some of the Iraqi’s I wasted.” The whole group looked at him.
“You killed people?” Larry was aghast.
“Well, not really. I just looked down the sights of the guns and cheered when the troops got a hit, you know. It was fun! Like a video game. I haven’t been in a good fight in, oh, maybe 50 years. Not since the Korean War.”
“Well, thank goodness we don’t have so much power over events now. Or do we? Can we influence events on earth? Or should we?” Larry raised his eyebrows in question.
“Did anyone make anything happen, when you went away, you know, when we first got here? Did you change any event?” Dr. Jill looked around at the quiet group. No one said anything. “So, then, that’s out. We don’t have to stop wars or anything like that.” She paused. “Did any of you, on your trip, create anything out of your thoughts? Did you make something exist that wasn’t there before? I tried to make change in Haiti and got nowhere. Anyone else?” Again the group was desultory.
“Peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” Jackie said loudly.
‘Is that relevant now?” Richard asked her.
“I always like P B and J, so I tried to create one. Didn’t work. I am not hungry anyway.”
“OK, scratch creating from our TO DO List. What sort of power do we have?” Dr. Jill asked again.
“Could we pray? Praise God and Jesus and ask Mary for help?” suggested Jenny. “My mother prayed every day for an hour. Now that I think about it, I doubt that changed anything, not even her. She was pretty difficult, you might say.”
“Thank God, prayer is off the list!” Merlin couldn’t resist that one, with a laugh. “So, we might as well sing and dance!” He threw up his hands and did a little jig in mock revelry.
“Now that is probably something we could do. Who will go first?” asked Dr. Jill.
“This is not a first to last type activity,” said Larry. “I think we have to do it all together.”
“Just try me!” shouted Doris. “See if I sing and dance before Clyde gets here!” Obviously she was listening.
Rayna Solari, b. June 1993. African refugee from the Congo at age 3, to Tanganyika, Tanzania, in Portland, OR, since 2007, a “joyful spirit who loved to swim, dance and sing.”
“Hey, what are you all doing?” A cheerful voice interrupted the serious circle. “I am Rayna. This is some place, isn’t it? You been around the other side yet?”
“The OTHER side? Where?” Merlin was incredulous, looking behind him.
“By the lake, where all the birds are nesting. Over that way! Reminds me of Africa.” Rayna tossed her head in the general direction behind her. “I just loved watching them. They got their own kind of singing and dancing, you know?” She stood looking at everyone. “So what’s going on here?”
“Well,” Dr. Jill began. “We’ve concluded that we need to work together somehow,, to, ah, get somewhere else. Move on. Go to heaven?”
Rayna laughed. “That’s silly. You are in heaven. This is it. You’re always where you are, and that’s heaven. Remember your Bible? The kingdom of heaven is within you. Jesus said that, and the other great teachers too. Every child knows that.”
“Maybe we’re all too old,” observed Lee. “We gotta get younger again. Maybe that’s what we have to do.”
“Listen, don’t you hear that music? Makes me want to dance. Come on!” Rayna grabbed hands with Larry who was nearest her. Somewhere he heard a single note from a piccolo. He felt embarrassed and drew back. Regina took Richard’s hands in her own, but he didn’t join in either, raising them in a gesture of stop. What he heard was a trumpet.
“Don’t you hear that music?” Rayna’s voice was pleading now. She wondered how you get old people to hear music. “Old” must mean you don’t hear the music anymore. “I am glad I didn’t get old!” she announced. She stomped off and stood at a distance, then looked back over her shoulder at them all watching to see what she would do next. A smile flooded her face, and her eyes crinkled up. She returned to the group.
“Come on. Get a little closer together, OK?” Willing to try anything, the women all stepped forward, a little closer together, except Doris, who faced them now but at some distance. Each could hear a single sustained note.
‘Just hold hands.” Hands reached out, touching one another. Their faces lit up in smiles.
“So what’s going on, you twits?” Doris was practically shouting Jill, Grace, Jenny, Jackie, Kathleen and Rayna giggled. A current of happiness ran through them.
“What is this, some kind of women’s circle? My wife was always going off to some kind “circle”, exercize, or book club, or Bible study. Geez,” said Merlin.
“Mine too,” said Richard. I like football better myself. Crashing through a line of big guys and getting the ball over the goal line was a peak experience. I watched a lot football games.”
“I liked watching basketball better myself,” offered Lee. “Go Blazers!”
“I used to be a drummer. Played in a band. Now that was a “peak experience,” as you called it. Haven’t done anything like that for years, I mean, for a really long time.” Merlin looked around into the white distance. “There doesn’t seem to BE a time here.”
“Hey, guys! Come closer to us! Come ON!” Dr. Jill’s excitement was catching on. “I think we are each a note. We need you all. Get closer! You’ll see!”
Reluctantly the men worked their way into the loose circle. They could hear it now, a kind of humming. If they leaned in, it seemed to get a little louder.
“That’s a great percussionist in there,” noted Merlin. “The rhythm is just 120 beats per minute, a little faster than a heartbeat. Good for dancing.” He smiled then. “Let’s just tighten up this circle a bit, OK?” He moved further into it. They all moved forward a bit more.
“Doris, honey. We need you here. Will you come here please?” cajoled Grace.
“I like being alone,” she called from her distance. “Clyde always was late.” But she was growing curious about the current situation, enough to draw her nearer and face the circle. And then hands reached out and pulled her in.. Her eyes opened wide in surprise. The sound of a soaring violin arched over the group! Cymbals clashed! And the symphony began!
“Why, Clyde! There you are!”
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