The Diner Where Time Stands Still

“Hello, don't panic, you’re dead.” said the voice.

Keating looked up from the laminated menu he'd been staring at for who knows how long, its printed writing obscured by the strip-lighting bouncing off its scratched plastic covering.

He looked around. There was nothing for him to see in all directions but darkness; not opaque darkness, the type that sits heavy on the night and touches your face as you sleep, but expansive darkness, cool and spacious.

“Just dead, in fact.” The voice continued.

“Hello?”

He looked back at the only thing he could see, the menu in his hands, still reflecting light from a mystery source.

“Yes, hello,” replied the voice, reassuringly. Keating couldn’t tell if he was being spoken to by a woman or a man. He couldn’t even work out even if he was hearing the voice or imagining it.

“Don’t panic. You were alive and now you’re dead. And this is what dead is like. At least, this is what dead is like for you, right now. It’s fine. It’s all fine.”

“Where am I?” said Keating. It was only then he realised he was in an upright position but not sitting on anything he could identify. His mind raced momentarily with thought and then, like a glass of water placed on a tabletop, it settled.

“I know, you have many questions and where am I is a good one to start with. However, my answer is very woolly, so apologies for sounding evasive. Ready? You’re nowhere and you’re also everywhere.”

“What? Who are you? Please make sense!” Keating raised his voice trying to muster up some feelings appropriate to his predicament.

“I did warn you about the wooliness. Look, let’s not get hung up on the details. You’re here because you’ve died. You lived a life, you were 40 sun rotations in age and now for one reason or another you’re no longer alive.”

Keating moved his limbs about and flexed the plastic menu in his hands.

“Sun rotations? What is this? So who are you then, a… G-od?” Hesitation punctuated his voice before he was able to say the G-word, just in case. Though just in case of what, he wasn’t sure.

“Not God, no. Well actually, yes, in a very general sense that everything at this moment is one, but let's not go down that road. All you need to know is I’m you.” replied the voice.

“You can't be me I'm me. I'm taken.” Keating poked a finger into his chest.

“I know, It’s all rather confusing, isn’t it? Again, I can only apologise.”

“Is this a trick? Sun rotations? Where are you then? Am I going crazy?” Keating wondered why he wasn’t more anxious about this peculiar turn of events.

"This isn’t your imagination and you’re not crazy. You’re just readjusting. I probably shouldn't have mentioned sun rotations. I thought it would sound science-y and reassuring.”

“Where am I? Where are you?”

“You’re nowhere as I said. Nowhere but everywhere."

"What's this menu thing in my hands?" he said, thumbing it again, still not able to read its writing.

"That is what you've chosen to have in your hands."

"I chose nothing. Now please tell me where I am." Keating spoke into the darkness in a tranquil and measured tone, matching the calm of his inky black surroundings. It's all he could muster.

There was a silence that seemed to go on forever, then it was over in the blink of an eye.

"Let’s just stick with nowhere. That everywhere bit is somewhat complicated. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it, much like I shouldn't have mentioned sun rotations. Oh dear, I'm not doing a great job here. You see, I’m you and once you understand this, you’ll understand everything but until then, I’m here to assist you. Well, assist us.”

“Assist with what?”

“With all this. This is what you wanted. When we die, when every person dies, they choose what we want to experience. Until they decide to go back. So, this is what you chose.”

“I told you I didn’t choose anything!” Keating replied.

“You so did! You’re choosing it now.”

“That means this is my imagination? You are my imagination!”

“Not quite. I’m actually you.”

“You can’t be because I’m here! I’m me!” he said prodding himself again to ensure he was still him.

His body seemed to be the only thing that was tangible and real, his body and the flimsy menu he held onto. He couldn’t work out why he wasn’t more anxious about the unfolding events. It was hard for him to even muster up a slice of panic or a side order of frustration.

“Are you a God?” he asked again, pushing the deity point further.

“It’s funny how you say a God. No one ever wants to say the God.”

“Are you the God?”

“There it is! You dived in. I like it. Anyway no, sorry to disappoint, I’m not the God or even a God. I’m you. I really have to insist on this point.”

Keating thought for a second. Each gap in the conversation was immeasurably vast and a great expanse of quiet lay out before him.

“I need to see you to believe it.” Keating concluded.

In an instant, he was sitting at a table in the middle of an almost empty diner, as if he’d always been there. The room was glowing with fluorescent light, and the expansive windows revealed nothing but thick black night outside. Sitting opposite him in the red leather booth was a man that looked identical to himself.

Keating looked at the man's face who was indeed identical to him, even down to the fresh haircut he'd got that morning. The only difference was the man looked slightly older. Or slightly, something. It was as if he’d been sitting there, staring at his face for eternity.

“I know. It feels like we’ve been sitting here forever, doesn’t it? That’s because we have. There is no time. It’s all very clever stuff.”

“You look just like me!” Keating said, still staring. The face in front of him was so familiar yet it had unfamiliar wisdom about it.

“A timeless face.”

“Huh?” Keating was pulled out of his thought process.

“That’s what you were thinking, wasn’t it? That I have a timeless face?”

“I, yes. I was.”

Keating suddenly felt vulnerable. A discernible emotion at last, even though it wasn’t a favourable one.

“You look concerned but don’t worry. I can’t read your thoughts. But I am you and I know how this bit works. I know what we’re going to say. I know everything, remember? All paths, all possibilities. I can see them in one instant. All that is, was and…”

“Will be, yes, very good.” Keating finished the sentence and felt he instantly better for it. “What do we do now?” he inquired.

“Now we talk. Here, in this diner. I'm not sure why you chose an all-night diner, perhaps it's those late-night American films we watched as a kid."

“You were there?... Ok, you're me." Keating interrupted himself.

"That's it. Now you're getting the feel of it."

"Well what do I call you? If you’re me?”

“Ha! That is your main concern? The human soul is a wonderful thing.”

“Sorry, it’s the way my mind works.”

“Correction. It’s the way your soul works. Our soul works. You are nothing but a soul right now. Not wanting to get technical again, but you have no mind, or body for that matter. All this doesn’t exist in a physical realm. We don’t exist. See that woman pouring coffee over there? She doesn't exist. You made her. This is like a dream. Except it's not, you're just a soul out of time. All of this is a manifestation of your soul. Which is you. The crude physical vessel bit is over for the moment.”

“Crude? My body wasn’t crude. I liked it. I also liked my mind. Well, I think I did. It could have been a bit less anxious some of the time."

"Are you anxious now?"

"No, I'm not," Keating realised as he looked down at the lime green veneer of the table. It's the first time he'd noticed the table. "This table is awful! So this table is my soul’s imagination?”

“More a manifestation, yes. Let’s not get too technical. You’re fresh from dying. You have an eternity to remember.”

“But I thought there is no time here, in the diner, with its fake waitress, gaudy tables and unreadable menus.” Keating tilted the menu again but the glare of the light remained. “Why can’t I read this blasted menu?”

“Ok, here's my big speech. This place is out of time, which is why when you remember, it’ll be remembering everything in an instant. It’ll be now. There is only now, you see. The only reason why it doesn’t feel like everything is now is because you’ve chosen to have this linear conversation. You’ve created this reality; me, the diner, the waitress, the menu, and yes the gaudy table. The infinite awareness within you chose this as you left the realm of the multiple and entered the realm of the absolute because the old, scared, human you is still clinging onto the laws of the relative universe you just left. It’s all very normal, so I’m told. Not wanting to get too technical of course.”

There was a silence. Keating put down the menu for the first time in forever.

“So what do I call you?” Keating repeated.

He was met with a hysterical laugh.

“Why is this your only concern? All the talk of time and death and knowledge and Gods and you want to know this? How fantastic! I surprise even myself. I have no name but your name, or perhaps, no name at all.”

“No, I have to call you something.” Keating pressed the point home. He wanted to nail this one thing down. He needed a reference point, to have a flag in the ground of rational thinking, somewhere.

“You need a reference point, I understand.”

“Yes! Just a name. A title. Something. Before we talk. I'd like that.”

“So call me Keating. Or me. Or us. There is no separate name as we are one.”

“I can’t use my name, it's too... weird. I don't like that you look like me as it is, even if I did choose it. Look, I’ll have to call you something. If you’re going to be with me for a bit? You are, aren't you?” Keating panicked momentarily, before slipping back to his default calm.

“I’m here for us as long as we need me.”

"Good. Thanks. Even though we are one, you need a name.” A silence fell and an eternity passed. “I’ll call you One.”

“Hmmm, One. One it is. I like your thinking.”

“My soul’s thinking?”

One smiled.

It was forever before Keating spoke again. “Is that OK?” he said, looking back at One, in case he’d offended his only help.

“Of course. I knew you were going to call me that anyway. I am, after all, you. Now, would you like some coffee?”