Future Self Afterlife

I’ve never been able to explain that day at the pool.

I used to say, "It was some kind of worm hole."

I used to say, "Maybe it was some kind of wrinkle in time."

Now it is simply a memory of having gone down a slide at the pool and having ended up a better person because of it. Mostly due to ending up taking my final leap into the waiting arms of complete insanity.

My day at the pool had been planned for a week; giant beach towel, iced tea, a good book.

And then this:

"Anyone who doesn’t go down the slide is a pussy!" he kept yelling. He was an over-sized man wearing sunshine yellow swim trunks. He had apparently decided everyone at the pool should go down the slide at least once. Or they were a pussy. Asshole.

Yeah, I went down the slide. Mostly because my balls had not yet developed to the point of me being able to tell him to shut his fuckin’ pie hole, or being able to ignore him completely.

The moment I popped out at the end of the slide I realized I was just going to keep going through the bottom of the pool. I thought I was going to drown, but ended up standing, fully clothed and perfectly dry, at a glass window that was so big that I could not see where it ended or began. Before me was deep space. As in, I expected to turn around and find myself eye to eye with the cast of the original Star Trek.

Instead, I found myself being swooped up and then held by an invisible entity about 100 feet out and away from anything I could stand on. And no, I was not being held in some kind of cradled position that indicated I was getting ready to receive the light, nourishment or wisdom of Mother Earth, The Great One or Aunt Jamima.

Whatever that son of a bitch entity was, it was only holding onto one of my fingers and dangling me above a space so vast that I was positive my shaking would turn my finger to dust. I would be sucked into the middle of nowhere and have to think my way out of a square box that was simply a circle with no end.

And then I pissed myself and watched the urine float away in strangely beautiful droplets into space. I cried bitter tears and cursed the entity that was holding me because it was laughing and said,

"You’ve pissed yourself, and now you’re pissing all over space."

Fuck.

Behind me floated a small swing. It was made of a two by two foot weathered pine board with two ropes that were attached to (a star? the Milkyway? someone’s cruelest thought?).

"Here is your fear, my darling," the entity said. "Go."

The board snuggled itself up under my ass, the entity let go of my finger, I grasped the ropes on either side of me, and was left to gently swing above all the universe.

I was surrounded by silence so deep that even all of my internal organs seemed to sigh in the stillness. No wind. Not even a breeze to make a light sound in my ears.

Next thing I knew I was propelled as if out of a slingshot into a perfect circle around the earth at a speed so simultaneously fast and slow that either way was beyond my comprehension. My mind teetered on the verge of utter wildness.

The first time I passed the enormous window I could see people sitting at tables scattered throughout a formal restaurant. White table cloths were adorned with shining silver. People drank perfectly clear water from crystal goblets in-between smiling at or listening to one another.

The second time I passed the enormous window I could see some of the people had pulled their chairs to the window and were excitedly pointing as I approached.

I risked (what did I risk?) by letting go of one of the ropes to flip all of them the bird and spread my legs wide to grab my crotch and scream that they could all,

"Fuckin’ bite it, mother fuckers!"

Their hands flew to their mouths and they all looked to each other for an explanation.

"She cannot yet see us," one of them whispered. "How terribly sad."

The third time I went by, every person in the restaurant was now sitting or standing by the window. Their faces held blank expressions, and I could feel their hopefulness that they would not, once again, be exposed to a wild and gesticulating creature that dangled perilously from the swing with just one arm.

I continued to grip the ropes at my sides, but hung my head and cried at the sight of them with gratitude so intense that I thought I could feel my heart expanding to the maximum capacity my chest cavity would allow. I looked up and found the eyes of the man who had said,

"She cannot yet see us. How terribly sad."

The swing turned and sent me directly toward them. I was whisked into the waiting arms of those who I had so foully offended on my second time around. They lay me down in a garden of warm golden grasses and glowing sunflowers. They held me and let me weep until I could weep no more.

"I see you now. I see you," I said to the man.

He smiled, and they all came together to help me to my feet.

"I…I…I…," I said, as another heave of weeping escaped my lips.

"Rest easier with your heart from here on out, young one," a woman’s voice said. I turned and found her just behind my left shoulder where she had put her warm hand onto the back of my arm. She was me, and I her. We looked into one another’s eyes and made an agreement that I would rest easier with my heart so that I could indeed be on the path to becoming her some day.

They wiped my tears, dusted off my jeans, and helped me back onto the swing.

"Enjoy the ride, kid!" I heard one of them say with happy enthusiasm, as I swung back around the earth one more time. One more time to, finally, let my heart rest easy even though I knew how much I still could not see.

In the end, I got back to the top of the slide where I had just climbed the ladder and was preparing to make my way down just to get the bastard in the yellow swim trunks to shut his fuckin’ pie hole. I changed my mind and decided to go back down the ladder. I realized he was standing at the bottom of the ladder and challenging my change of mind.

"Give it a rest," I said. "I’m stronger than nine yards of garlic, and have half a mind to come down there and break my entire leg off in your ass."

He didn’t care, but I kept moving anyway. Down the ladder I went to collect my towel and leave the pool all together. A woman has to get busy, after all, if she’s going to become the future-self she’s just had the opportunity to meet.

Oh, and the part about this being my final leap into insanity? It was. In the sense that ending up being myself has been all about forgetting everything I once knew about the truth. That, my darlings, is sheer and wonderful insanity and, indeed, the 'Afterlife' that was gifted to me.