Eternity

I died. Standing in the giant rotunda, my name flashes around the entire terrace in bright gold letters like an electronic timetable. Personal details, risqué details of my death, the motive, the backdrop, the time and date: they’re all recorded in gold, circling high above as some laughable merry-go-round fair, reminding everyone present of how treacherous I really am. I don’t like their stares, their glowing, hot, beady red eyes straight on me. It makes me feel dead-on-the-spot, petrified, victimized as the center of attention, even in this place after death. Yet, there’s no other alternative, no “outs” in my book anymore, no escape plan that I can fall back on. This is it. All I can do is pray—well, maybe that’s too comical of a gesture. I wouldn’t even know who I would be praying to. Absolutely not to these blokes in the slightest, whatever they are.

Before the tribunal, six white and tall radiant beings tower over the meter-high court bench, but they lack any human resemblance, facially and all. They appear as floating ghosts, displaced by their frighteningly red eyes. Cock-eyed lasers, right out of a fog. Around, no other seats nor witnesses are gathered before me either. Seems like I’m a witness to myself.

A booming voice from the council declares, “State your name.”

Why do I need to state my name when they already know it? It’s already written up above for Christ’s sake! I don’t care for any of the theatrics. This is stupid.

“How about we skip all the formalities and get on with it? Say that I’m a murderer, and be done with it. Give me… I don’t know, an eternity in limbo? Hell? Wherever you want to throw me in, I’ll take it. Okay? Okay.”

However, one of the ethereal figures emerges in front of me, instantly out of thin air. He—it—hovers over me in such a ghastly way, terrorizing me under a translucent smoke that makes my body shiver to the core, to the point that I can’t feel my bones. Or maybe I never had my bones to begin with, wherever here is. But my knees don’t feel like jello either. Whatever, I don’t even know what I am anymore.

It screams into my ear, “JUST DO IT.”

“God, that really hurts! How the hell am I supposed to follow your rules when you treat your subjects like this!?”

The eyes start to glow brighter in their menacing hatred.

I cower slightly in the threat of its presence. “Okay, okay, okay! Fine! James Michaels. Happy!? Are you satisfied!?”

Without another word, it returns to its post and the indictment continues.

“That’s right. You’re James Michaels. James Michaels, the Teacher. Born on March 5, 1987. London. English. Died on April 18, 2015. Reading.”

Another voice remarks on my profile. “Cause of death is by five fatal stabs to the stomach. In retaliation to a homicide.”

That sounds about right, in how little I can barely recall. I don’t regret it one bit. That bloody bastard, Harry, deserved to die! I’m a fool to believe that best friends are meant to reflect the best of me, when they’re really conniving little shits. Before I was planning to work things out, he was waiting—waiting until I’m then down for the count—to steal my woman from right under me. Why not give him the eternal damnation that he deserves? By endless torture? That’s a fitting sentence for him, if I do say so myself!

“Your death is no accident; but you killed another human being, live in the flesh. So, how do you plead?”

“Guilty. Any other questions? Anything else?”

“Are you not going to give a case in your defense?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re all omniscient beings anyway, so what’s the point? I killed my best friend because he fucked my girlfriend. What is there to defend? The bastard deserved to die, so I put his matters into my own hands.” I wave them off from pursuing their silly little inquiries. “Are we done yet?”

“You’ve said enough. The trial is over. But no, we’re not done. We’ve only just begun.”

“Only just begun? And what’s that supposed to—”

Within a brief moment, a darkness swallows over me. Then, as I wake to find myself upon the floor, a single thread of light descends in the space ahead of me. A spotlight for my presence in the center. Examining my surroundings, I only find my eyes gazing into an impenetrable darkness, of a darkness so impossibly thick that it lacks any sensible depth. In this way, it seems that I’ve no choice but to claim this light as my only way out, the only saving grace to show me what needs to come next in this supposed trial of death. In fact, why should death be this laborious? Isn’t my life an open-and-shut case? That my punishment is due for whatever sins committed?

I walk towards the light and look up to see where it could possibly be coming from. Incidentally, even with a slight glance upward, I could barely keep my eyes open in the purity of such a bright light. I feel the warmth of its heat trickling over my shoulders, but I know I don’t belong here either, standing under a spotlight. The interrogation is still going to continue, isn’t it?

Suddenly, a door from a far distance opens, as light pours through the cracks. As it closes, someone begins to approach me, echoing closer and closer with each mighty and defined step. The figure within the darkness was indiscernible. It wasn’t until it finally reached the edge of the spotlight that I could manage to make out who this person, or being, or thing might be? A visitation from the angels again? Or a blast from the past? Actually Jesus? Hell, I wouldn’t mind Jesus. I’d be especially stoked about that.

As it turns out, however, upon seeing his pristine face and cleanly worn garments, I couldn’t help but gasp in silence. It’s unmistakable. There’s no doubt that I know him: the crisp black hair, the brazen cut of his chin, the wide and protruding shoulders.

“A-Are you… me?”

The other James (I’m presuming) responds, “Yes, but not exactly.”

“W-Well… so what exactly? Are you ‘me’ in the future or something? A doppelganger? An alternative timeline version of me?”

“I am you, in bodily appearance. We share exactly the same features, but that’s all that we share. For everything else however, we’ve experienced different lives.”

“Um… pardon, but what does that mean? ‘Experienced different lives?’ I’m all new to death and dying, if you don’t realize, so I’m very, very confused. Just cut to the chase. Why are you here? You don’t seem ‘new’ here.”

“I apologize for the sudden confusion, but I was sent here to be your prison-mate. Before I arrived here, I had one just as well. And now, I can finally redeem myself by being yours.”

“Prison-mate? Come again? So you’re saying that I’m going to be trapped here?”

“Yes. Don’t worry, I had exactly the very same concerns. We are, in a way, different yet one and the same after all.”

“I haven’t the faintest clue what that means. Can you cut the wise-man act and be straight with me? Why are you

here? Why do I have to confront another… uh, version of me? Me in some other dimension?”

“Alright. How can I explain this simply? I’m the bodily representation of who you’re supposed to become, and I’m here to show you how to find peace within yourself.”

“That’s a bit better of an explanation, thank you very much. I still don’t get it though. Where am I? Is Jesus even here?” I seem to have taken too much of a liking to Jesus.

“All I can say is that we’re dwelling in a space where life and death have no significant meaning. It’s neither heaven nor hell. Those are mythological concepts. It simply just is. Eternity, if you will.”

“Is that a fancy way of saying that I’m in transit? Does this mean that I’m going to go back to Earth?”

“No. You’re going to become ‘me’. I had to undergo the same process.”

“So what? Become saintly like you? Live a carefree life… here?”

“I died the same way you did. The difference, however, is that I killed Harry a few days earlier than you did.”

“And so that makes me different from you, how?”

“It makes us connected. That’s what. Different, but our lives are all connected. There are infinite representations of how our lives are to be lived out. We’re the ones that matter, the ones that decided to accept our fate.”

“Accept our fate? This is all way too much for me. So you’re saying all this is supposed to happen?”

“More or less. But you made the choice to admit guilt, and that’s what makes you among the significant. Culpable. Authentic. Solely you. The ‘others’ were not spared.”

“That’s… reassuring?” Thank god for honesty. “So, the fact that I’m deserving of blame means that I’m also deserving of redemption? Isn’t that what you said earlier? That you can redeem yourself?”

“Exactly right. You have the choice to redeem yourself too. By becoming ‘me’.”

“Well… do I really have another choice though? It’s not like I can waltz out of here scot-free.”

“You do, actually. If you believe that you don’t want to go through with this, then you’re more than welcome to fade into nothingness.”

Yeah, that’s not much of a choice. “I’ll take being a prisoner then. To find inner peace or some such nonsense.”

“I’m glad to hear that you’re willing to cooperate.”

“Can’t work with much else here, besides. At least I can entertain myself.”

“So, are you ready then?”

“Uh… sure? I’m ready?”

The other James suddenly raises his hand, as if to commence the process. A whole theatrical panorama of all my lived experiences begins to flood the stage, rapidly surging backward from the day of my death to, then, a pitch black darkness.

“It’s time to revisit your life. Let’s start from the beginning.”

“I guess so. Let’s do it.”