Or Not to Be (26 page)

Now, at six years old, I was dead again,
and it didn’t hurt. It wasn’t scary. But I missed my mom and daddy. I missed my
smelly dog. I sort of missed my baby brother. I could be with them, but they
didn’t know I was there.

It was Grampa’s idea to send me back.

I asked him, “How come I kept almost dying
after I was born?”

“Well, Eddie, it seems your antimatter
wanted to join your matter real bad. They were a good, strong match, but they
weren’t ready for each other. The matter, a special group of molecules in your
brain, had more growing to do, and your antimatter wasn’t expecting to join it
for a few months. Once your body was born, the antimatter accelerated to it at
the speed of light. I know you don’t understand how fast that is, but it’s way
faster than your dad’s car.”

“Dad’s car is superfast! On the highway,
when we go for rides without Mom, he really gets her going.”

“I know. I’ve spent some energy watching
you. Now your antimatter joined your body with some incredible force.”

“Like a punch?”

“Yes! Quite a lot like a punch. And it
bounced back off right away, then landed again and popped away sort of like a
bouncing ball—each bounce gets lower until the ball stops bouncing. Do you see
what I mean?”

I thought about a bouncing ball, and that
made sense. I liked to play with the balls on the playground at school.

“So then what made my antimatter finally
stick?”

“Well, a good match between matter and
antimatter makes a strong attraction for each other. Kind of like two magnets.
Once the antimatter slows down its bouncing, it can feel the attraction for the
matter better.”

“Why was my antimatter coming in so fast?
Is it always that fast?”

“The antimatter of you is what you are now,
Eddie. It’s your soul. It doesn’t weigh much compared to the atoms and
molecules of your body, and naturally travels at the speed of light. When your
body arrived early, your antimatter whipped in fast to get to it. That caused
the force and the bouncing.”

Grampa was so smart. I think he knew
everything. “Once it stopped bouncing and stuck, I didn’t die anymore?’

“That’s right.”

“Well, how come I died on my sixth
birthday?”

“That has puzzled me. Your body was
getting stronger in the last months, until your white blood cell count went
back up a week ago. It’s possible your body was just weak enough that when your
deathday, which, in your case, happens to be your birthday, came along, you
just slipped through the crack.”

These were some big ideas for a little
kid, but I got the gist of what Grampa was saying. “Eddie, your crack in
space-time is still open. You haven’t traveled far since you died.” He paused
for a long time then said, almost in a whisper, “Why don’t you slip back in?”

It sounded like he was telling me a
secret, so I whispered, too. “Back into what?”

“Back into your life. Go back. Be a kid.
Live a good, long life. I’ll enjoy watching it.”

And that’s what I did. Grampa helped me
travel back in time about half an Earth day. Then he helped my antimatter cling
to my body during the night that I died. He sort of hovered above me and used
his antimatter force field to push down on mine and keep it in my body.

The next morning I woke up. The doctor
decided my white blood count was low enough to send me home for a few days, and
my mom threw the best birthday party I ever had.

Although I was so young, I instinctively
knew I couldn’t make my living family understand what had happened to me. Mom
would say it was just a dream, and Daddy would make a joke about it. I also had
a strong feeling that Grampa wasn’t supposed to do what he did for me. The next
time I died, I found out I was right about that.

It might be because I had these life-death
crossovers so young that I remember a lot about them. They gave me an insight
into what life and death really mean, but they isolated me from the rest of
humanity who were blissfully unaware of it all. At times, for the rest of my
life, I felt lonely and joked with the few close friends I found that I wanted
to return to my home planet.

43

When I turned twenty
, it happened again: I died in my sleep on April
second. I didn’t wake up on my birthday-deathday. I was on the dead side.
That’s when I met the little red-haired girl from kindergarten.

This time I wasn’t sick; my antimatter
just detached. Luckily, my new guide joined me right away and clearly explained
my situation.

“You’re dead,” she said.

“Oh. Again?”

“Yes. Mistake this time, though. Just a
little slip-through, so they sent me to do a Rebound. Looks like your
space-time crack is wider than normal—a bit flexible, not zipped up too
tight—possibly because your birthday and deathday are the same.”

“Do I know you?”

“Here’s a big hint: I used to cry in
kindergarten when they made me rub your bald head and said my hair would fall
out, too.”

I remembered her. “Was your name Lizzie?”

“That was me. Still is, even though I’m
dead, too.”

“What happened to you?” I asked. It seemed
polite to sound interested, although I wasn’t so much.

“Suicide. I was fifteen and pissed at the
world. Tattooed, pierced, shaved head. Could not get happy, so I just quit. I’m
your guide this time because I’m a stellar Rebounder, and you need to go back
quick. I couldn’t go back—the gift of choice is only allowed once each trip,
so, since I chose to die, there were no choices left for me on the dead side.
Anyhoo, now I have the lovely job of quick escorts when someone slips through
who shouldn’t be here yet. That’s you, fella. So get going.”

“Wait! Please, wait,” I stalled. “Am I
really in a hurry? Can’t I hang around for a while and think and maybe ask some
questions?”

She answered carefully, “No, there’s no
hurry. It’s just that you’re a special case this time. There’s no reason to
make any difficult decisions. You’re expected to go back. Your matter is
waiting and healthy, so back you go. About the other, I don’t usually answer
questions. Not my specialty. I’m not that kind of guide, like your grampa. I’m
more like a traffic cop here on the dead side. Do you understand?”

I did. But I felt good. Peaceful. No
hurry. Suspended. And there were so many things to think about. Things I never
made time for in my life of studying science and math all day and night.

“I think I’ll take my time,” I announced.
“I won’t ask hard questions. Just let me bounce some ideas off you. You can
give your opinions on things, can’t you?”

“Sometimes.”

“All right, let’s start with this: if you
were still a kid, just fifteen when you died, do you know as much about the
universe and life and all the big questions as someone who lived, say, to be
eighty?”

“Sure. When you die, your antimatter
becomes part of the fabric of the universe. You know everything. Maybe not all
at once. That would probably hurt. But gradually, as you think of things, you
realize there are no mysteries that you can’t fathom. It’s cool. Makes me
wonder why I spent so much time studying from those books in school while I
lived.”

“Then, right now, all I have to do is
think of something that I want to understand and it will come to me?”

“Pretty much, that’s how it seems to me.
But since you’re going back soon, and I mean very soon—I have other people to
help, you know—it’s possible you might not be able to get to the big and deep
questions.”

The big and deep. That sounded incredible.
There was so much to the big and deep. I didn’t even know where to start. It
seemed to me that I could ponder the universe at my leisure forever and maybe
never cover all of the big and deep. For the curious geek in me, this was an
enticing feature of death.

“And that’s exactly why I had to get to
you so fast—to intercept and point you back—because we all knew you’d like the
dead side a bit more than a normal guy.” Apparently Lizzie could hear me
thinking. “So, how about it? Ready to get back into the ol’ body?”

“Not yet. I can’t stop thinking of more
big and deep questions. Let’s start with this one. I want to understand what
happened when I died and came back when I was six. Grampa helped me, but he
didn’t call himself a Rebounder. What kind of guide was he?”

“No guide, no
matter what kind they are, may
ever
make the decision for a newly
dead soul when there is a choice to be made. In your case, right now, there is
no decision: you slipped through unexpectedly and accidentally, so you must go
back. No question. No discussion. No decision. No choices. Just get back in
there. But when you were six, your grampa made the decision for you.”

“That doesn’t seem so bad to me. I was
little, and I needed his help. He was the perfect guide for me.”

“Of course he was the right guide for
you,” Lizzie said. “He loved you and made you feel safe. The right guide is
always chosen. When the newly dead begin to agonize over their decision,
multiple guides can be sent it. But a guide isn’t supposed to do more than help
the newly dead realize that they have to make decisions, and help them travel
to where and when they want to go. Your grampa made your decision for you and
then helped you carry it out.”

“I guess it makes sense that there are
some restrictions for guides. But just like rules and laws in life, are there
reasons for the rules out here, or are they just there to keep things uniform?”

“Please!” she boomed. “Do not belittle the
universe by comparing it to your little home planet and rules crafted by humans!”

“Sorry.” I had a vivid flashback of her
temper when she was five and her subsequent screeching back in kindergarten.
Lizzie hadn’t changed.

Finally, she continued more calmly. “Of
course there are reasons for guide rules. In this case, the rule of no help
with decisions is because guides know so much. We’ve had the opportunity to
travel at light speed, forward and backward in time, watching over our people
on the living side and checking out the coolest and farthest corners of the
universe. Don’t you see that knowledge of these things is too big and deep for
a mere living human on our tiny rock of a planet in our little Milky Way galaxy
in our remote corner of all of space?”

“Yeah! Put it that way and it makes me
feel so small.”

“So small. Yes. And so vital. All matter
and antimatter exist in a frantic dance. Together, the most miniscule pieces of
matter and antimatter combine to make our beautiful wondrous universe. With all
this knowledge, a guide could think she had godlike powers when she helped the newly
dead. No small hunk of antimatter, no single soul, may act in a manner to try
to control either space or time. Once your grampa decided he was making you go
back, he used the power of his antimatter to influence yours. This well-meant
mistake resulted in the ultimate sacrifice.”

“What happened to him?” I asked, almost
afraid to hear the answer.

“He’s not in pain of any kind. What he
lost was his freedom to roam and explore the universe. He gave up part of his
death for you.”

“Is he alive then?”

“Not alive like a single human or a flower
is alive. He sort of got redistributed.”

That sounded bad. “Where is he now?”

“Actually, I have said all I can on this
big and deep point. You have the ability to reason the details out on your own.
But, really, you shouldn’t waste your energy on this. You should concentrate on
the task at hand here. You must return to your healthy twenty-year-old atoms. I
won’t go into the details, but I personally know that there is a lot more
living for you to get to. Ready now?”

“No!” I yelled back like a petulant
kindergartener. I was so far from ready. I was intoxicated from all that she
told me. “Why do I remember dying and coming back when I was six?”

“Eddie, give it up and just go back!”

I didn’t respond. She clearly couldn’t make
me, so I was staying dead until I was ready to live. Eventually, Lizzie caved.

“You’re right. You are not supposed to
remember any of that. The human mind gets messed up when it understands too
much of death. All of this should remain a mystery on the living side. Have you
shared any of your experiences with anyone?”

“Nobody. Ever. It seemed that no one knew
or remembered I had died, so I sort of sensed that I should keep it to myself. Now,
let’s get back to my questions. I have two on the table that you are dancing
around. What happened to Grampa, and why do I remember so much about being
dead?”

“These two things are related. If you
figure out one, you’ll get the other. Kind of like a puzzle.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me?”