DAY WITHOUT END

April 22 2023

DAY WITHOUT END

Introduction.

Something different. It’s still me, but not my usual lecturing style. This time: some pure fantasy. 

Why?

We face an avalanche of challenges unlike at any other time in history. Climate change is rapidly altering the conditions of life. I deeply believe that we are in the environmental endgame. Add tensions over Ukraine and Taiwan, which have revived the specter of a conflict between nuclear superpowers, as well as the breakneck developments in artificial intelligence, and these events raise serious concerns about the risk of a global catastrophe, which will hit us “like a thief in the night,” will fall on us suddenly.

That’s why I believe it’s time to consider the future. “The future belongs to those who prepare for it”, it is said. What future? Is there a future, a future beyond complete collapse?  

My 65,000 words book, “Day without End”, offers a feeble reflection how I imagine what surely is to come: the promised New Creation. What follows is the opening chapter, with others to follow.

DAY WITHOUT END

CHAPTER ONE

“Eat it.”

That mysterious command jolts me awake and, at once, I notice an apple in my hand and an approaching figure, a man from all indications. How did that apple get there and who is this fellow who knows that I have an apple even before I realize it?

I look at that apple. I glance at that slowly moving creature. Where is the connection? Did he put it in my hand when I was asleep and then sneaked away?

There’s that voice again: “Eat it.” The sound vibrates through the total silence, repeating the words as ripples on a quiet pond: “Eat it, eat it.”

He comes closer and my eyes now find their focus. To me he looks familiar, but I cannot place him. He looks like a long lost relative, like a brother I’ve never known. He is about my height and build, slim and trim. He has strong, flowing hair, slightly disorderly as if the wind has blown through it. His eyes are a deep blue, much bluer than mine. Amazing eyes this man has, penetrating, all-seeing it seems, understanding, full of sparkle. A slight smile hovers over his face, soft, inviting, encouraging.

His nearness makes me feel as comfortable as if he has been my lifelong friend. I’m so amazed, stupidly gazing at him, I forget to follow up on his suggestion, which sounds more like a command.

“Who are you?” I finally say.

He looks straight at me: “My name is Cornelius and I was there when you were born at your parents’ home.”

Was he a doctor, a male midwife? No, impossible. I rub my nose in bewilderment. It all seemed so long ago but his words make me focus on my early days.

“I was assigned to you from the moment you were conceived. I assisted at your birth. You were a big boy and had I not been there, you might not have survived the delivery. Did you know that you suffered damage to your nose when you were born?” I touch my nose again, now consciously, recalling how my nose bone had two curious twists in it. I had always wondered about them.

“You were my special charge on a twenty-four-hour basis. I kept track of all your movements and your thoughts and I have it all here on a video in four dimensions if you like, or in five perhaps, because it not only records what you said, but also what you thought and what you wanted to do, but could not for some reason.”

I still stare at him, the apple lying lamely in my hand. I must look a bit stupid, my mouth agape in amazement. He breaks out in a smile: “Now my job is to simply be a friend to you and introduce you to this new world and some of her new people.”

I stammer, “You, you are my guardian angel? What does that mean? What did you do? How come I never knew? What was your job?” I then blurt out something stupid, the first thing that comes to mind: “Tell me, were you there when I cross-country skied around a bend in the Laurentians and suddenly a huge bull moose stood in my way, his big belly hanging over the trail and the only way for me to clear him was to go between his long legs?”

Cornelius simply nods. I continue, a bit more relaxed now, “I must have tickled his underbody because I shook so much that my back must have felt like a washboard. I remember praying that he would not move. Did you keep him in place there?”

He throws up his hands, as in mock despair, while again nodding in affirmation. “Of course, I did. The second you passed under him, I let go and he bounded away. But take it easy, you have all the time in the world, no rush. And please, do eat that apple.”

I look at the apple and am not quite convinced. Suppose he is a phony. Adam was tricked to eat an apple and we know where it got us all.

Cornelius sees my hesitation and laughs, laughs till the apple shakes in my hand. Finally, he says: “No, don’t worry. This is not the apple of the Paradise Tree and I am not the snake…”

I look at him and know that he speaks the truth. I look at the apple, turning it in my hand. It is no different from any other apple I have ever seen, yet I find it fascinating. Silly, perhaps, but somehow, its red seems redder, its roundness rounder, its firmness firmer. Why am I so captivated by it? I don’t know. I have eaten thousands of apples in my life and I never reacted like this. Is it because it is the first food item I have touched here? When it landed the impact left a bit of an indentation, a very slight bruise, almost too slight to see. I touch the bruise; I can feel a strange softness, see a faint discoloring, smell the generous apple aroma. So, I take a bite, and another. In a flash I become new. I have never eaten a thing that made me so conscious of what was happening to me. I feel the food flow through my system, the juices enter my intestines. I feel the vitamins revive my being; the calories fuel my somewhat depleted energy level. All my faculties respond to the nourishment. With the food comes a sudden surge of strength, as well as more questions. Is this all true? Is this a dream? I pinch my arm. I feel a slight wave of almost pleasurable pain, if that is possible.

It does the same to my mind. I close my eyes for a moment, and as in fast-forward motion, as if a video was playing before my eyes, I recall the immediate past. With the speed of light, as in a dream, I hear in the far, far distance faint strains of trumpet notes fading away. Then nothing. Complete quiet. Total silence. I see how I hesitantly open my eyes and all I notice is a thin mist. I now revisualize how I closed my eyes to listen to the silence, yet I had the strange notion that the Silence is listening to me.

How perfectly content I am, just being here, asleep, sort of. Dreaming?

Now my mind races back to — to when? An hour ago? A week? A millennium? I don’t know. I clearly recapture how I was on my regular Sunday walk when suddenly there was a blinding light, like lightning. But not one streak, thousands of them, surrounding us with streams of fire flashing to the earth.

Trees were struck, but instead of bursting into flames they simply devolved. Like a rapidly rewinding film they shrank from full-grown to seedlings, dwindling to seeds buried back in the earth. Uncreated. The road along which I walked melted, not into a puddle of hot tar, but right to dust; concrete and asphalt reduced to their basic elements. Cars dissolved, even as they moved. And the people in them? Gone. Evaporated. A little wisp of smoke was all that was left. Or was it a trail of dust?

I didn’t say a word, didn’t even have time to wonder why all this was happening before the intense heat engulfed me, too. There was no pain, no discomfort, just purifying fire. I remember smiling as I faded away. My last glance was toward the sky, where I could see the sun, blackened as if all its fire had descended to earth, and the moon, too, was different: a dark, bloody red. I felt my body glow, and then I fell asleep, warm and cozy. All this was accompanied by glorious sound: the all-pervasive resonance of a trumpet. At least it sounded like the music of a single instrument. Some virtuoso player repeated the same theme in innumerable variations: wake up; reveille; rise from your sleep; the hour has come. It was as if the very energy of God was conveyed in these notes, penetrating to the very bottom of the seas and the very top of the mountain peaks: the universe was simply saturated with this utterly compelling rhythm.

That was then. This is now. Here stands this strangely familiar man looking at me. He knows, I am sure, what is happening to me. And what is that? With new eyes I look at myself. I am totally naked. Not a shred of clothing on my body, but with such a beautifully smooth skin, a healthy pink, who would want them? My tongue travels through my mouth, missing familiar gaps. My teeth are all back in place. That is good news and it does not end there: my normally ribbed and cracked fingernails look polished and manicured, even a little glossy, emanating a healthy gleam. Gone too are the clumsy calcium deposits inside my hands. My nose is still big, and the birthmark is still there below my heart. That too is good news. Yes, it’s me all right. Whoa! I’m not circumcised any more. Now that’s a change!

That sight triggers associations to my first moments in life. I can see the scene of my birth, dangling upside down from the firm grip of the family doctor. “Martha,” the doctor says. “Martha, I wish you well. This was quite the struggle and something of a miracle too. You have another son. Quite a chubby lad.”

I see my mother nod in relieved silence as the doctor places me in a diaper suspended from a spring scale he holds in his hand. No wonder. I check in well over five kilograms. “Only one small problem. His foreskin is too tight. I’ll have to circumcise him to prevent infection later. He’s a good size so I don’t have to wait. Sister, can you fetch my scalpel and sterilize it?” I even experience the pain again, realize that this small operation without anaesthetic has bothered me all my life.

I look at Cornelius, who looks at me in silence, allowing me to reflect. I stretch lazily as my thoughts return to the present. Here I am. But where? I am sure that this angel knows. Am I in the New Creation? It must be. But why just me and this man? If this is the New Creation, then millions of other people must be here, too, but I see no one, hear nothing but that pervasive silence. I never thought it would start like this. So quiet. So peaceful. So different.

Slowly, understanding seeps through me along with the eloquent silence. The Silence expands within me, filling me, driving out the last echoes of the still faintly vibrating noise of my former life. My mind starts to clear. I am still all by myself, have time to calm down, to rid myself of the harried, hectic pace of my former life. The Silence within me tells me that I must gradually ease myself into this forever-land.

I have no idea how long I linger at the edge of eternity, slowly collecting my thoughts, sorting out my feelings and orienting my emotions, forcing myself to unwind. Although my brain still suffers a bit of a brown-out, my mind’s eye not quite focused, and my thinking still somewhat muddled, a few facts are becoming clear to me: I am still me; even better: I am a more perfect me. Am I now The Perfect Me? I wonder.

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