

### DANDELIONS IN PARADISE

by

Kit Duncan

~~~

Smashwords Edition

Wingsong Publishing House

Nashville TN

Copyright © 2007 by Kit Duncan

All rights reserved.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part by any means without express permission from its author.

For additional information:

Kit Duncan

kitduncan56@yahoo.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Other Books by Kit Duncan

Corban

Tea With Mrs Saunders

Dear Aunt Myrna

Nonfiction

A Dance of Empowerment

Life's Road Trip

To

## Barry Michael Craig

17 May 1954 - 28 June 1976

### Smitty!

# Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

About the Author

#  CHAPTER ONE

Life was very, very good.

I had just returned home from a six week book tour two days earlier. My fourth novel had been on several best sellers' lists for months. My agent had called that morning and said a producer in LA was interested in negotiating film rights for my second novel; I wasn't familiar with his work but Robert said he had an excellent reputation. The spring daffodils had just started blooming, and the forsythia bushes in my front yard were getting yellow knobs on their branches.

Yes, sir, life was good. Life was very, very good.

I don't usually drive at night. Don't see quite as well as I did when I was a young whippersnapper. But I hadn't visited my best friend Janey since before I left in February. Her daughter and her family were visiting from out of state. Janey's grandson Jeremy was turning four months on Sunday, and she wanted me to see him. I wasn't that enthusiastic about being around a baby, but when you're good friends with someone you like to appear interested in what is terribly important to them.

As it turned out, Janey's grandson was terribly important to her. Grandmama's are funny that way.

Besides, it was only eight miles to her house. What could possibly happen in eight miles? I pulled out of my drive and headed east on the highway. I rolled the window down about an inch or two. The cool evening air felt good, and I whistled some mindless little tune that had been with me for days.

I've often heard that when a person dies they see a bright light ahead of them.

I did not see a bright light. I saw two bright lights. Head lights. Of a semi tractor trailer.

In my experience, getting hit by a truck pretty much wrecks your whole day, even when you've been having a good day.

Nature, who does not have a reputation for being consistently gentle, does occasionally behave mercifully. Sometimes she puts people to sleep when they die.

Or maybe she just knocks them senseless.

Anyway, not knowing too many details of the hours just after your death is a great blessing. I understand there is a lot of commotion, and dying is aggravating enough without being bombarded with too much eternity all at once.

I didn't dream much just after I died, not the way you do when you're sleeping. Just a few fragments, distorted memories, wisps of a lifetime bouncing off one another. Nothing dramatic.

And then the dreams fell dormant, silent, still. They dissipated into a fog, and I was left with nothing but a little breezy air swirling around me. Bored, I opened my eyes.

An old man was rocking in a chair about five feet away from me, reading a book. He was dressed casually, a faded pair of brown corduroys, a crumpled white shirt, and a burgundy cardigan with a little hole in the left elbow. His legs were crossed. He was barefoot, and his left foot was dangling limply. He was bald headed, though a thicket of tight, curly white hair circled the back half of his head, and he had a scruffy beard and mustache. Bifocals were perched lazily across the middle of his broad nose, and as he read his book his thick lips smiled, and every now and then he giggled out loud.

I sat up and crossed my legs. We were in a field, a meadow. Bluebonnets and a few Indian paint brushes were a blanket as far as I could see, and a small clump of locust trees grew nearby. I could hear spring birds chirping, and there was a gentle wind caressing the flowers and the grass. In the distance I saw a small frame house with a thin line of smoke coming out of the chimney. A large shed was in the back of the house. The sky was crystal blue, and far, far off in the horizon were a few dim puffs of clouds.

I wonder if it rains in Heaven, I silently, mindlessly asked myself. Then, more curious about this old man in the rocking chair than Heaven's weather patterns, I coughed. The man didn't move. I coughed a little louder. He chuckled a bit as he turned the page.

"Are you God?" I asked, and I realized my tone was more demanding than inquisitive.

My voice startled the old man, and his eyes snapped at me with a jerk. Then, closing his book, he smiled and said, "Oh, good. You're finally awake. Another couple of hours and I'd have this here book finished."

"What are you reading?" I asked.

You wait your whole life to meet the Almighty, and the second question you ask is what he's reading.

"This?" he held the book up. " _Catcher in the Rye_. You ever read it?"

"Yes," I said. "In my twenties. I thought it was good, but I don't remember laughing much when I read it."

"Well," he said, "I reckon it depends on your outlook. I think it's hilarious."

"The ending's pretty sad," I told him.

"Good Lord!" he retorted impatiently. "Don't tell me how it ends! You'll ruin it for me!" His voice softened then, and he apologized, then added, "Anyway, folks usually can't tell an ending from a beginning."

He started to open the book again, then closed it and set it firmly on his lap and uncrossed his legs.

"So!" he said with a chirp. "You're the new gal in town! How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," I said without conviction. "I mean, I guess I'm okay. You?" I thought I may as well be polite.

"Oh, I'm doing great!" the old man beamed. "Just great. Very great, I have to say. Thanks for asking."

He stood up and stuffed the book into his back pocket. He stretched his arms and breathed in the spring air, then reached for my hand and swung me up next to him. His grip was stronger than he appeared.

"There, that's better," he said. "Now, let's have a look at you."

"What's to see?" I asked a little nervously.

He didn't answer me, just stared into my face for a long time. He didn't look at the rest of me, and he didn't ask me to turn around. Slowly a little grin curled on the edges of his lips, just under his white shaggy mustache.

"Yep," he said finally. "Yep, I reckon you'll do fine."

"What am I going to do fine?" I asked.

"Oh, sorry," he apologized for his lack of clarity. "You do this a few hundred years or so and it's easy to be insensitive to others who are brand new to it."

"New to what?" I asked.

"Why, dying, of course," he said, and he looked a little impatient, then gave his head a quick shake, and a slight smile edged back into his face. "Alot of folks don't realize they're dead when they quit living. Of course," he scratched his bald head, "alot of folks don't seem to know they're alive before they die."

"Say," I said with a squint. "You're a quirky little fellow." I didn't mean to sound rude, but he was a bit peculiar.

"Am I?" he laughed. "More quirky than you?"

"You think I'm quirky?" I said with a little defensiveness.

"Well," he said, "You're no Mother Teresa. Now there's a real saint!"

"So I'm not going to be a saint?"

"I should think not!" the old man laughed. "But then, I don't have much say in it. I just don't believe you're going to qualify."

I looked at him, confused. "So," I asked. "You're not in charge?"

His laughter roared across the meadow, and startled three birds sitting in the locust trees. "Me?" he asked? "Heavens, no!" Then he giggled at his pun. "'Heavens, no,'" he quoted himself, "Get it?"

"Yes," I sighed. "Got it. But if you're not, well, God, who are you?"

"I'm Silas Peters."

"Silas Peters?" I asked. "Like Simon Peter?"

The old man frowned. "No. Not like Simon Peter. Like Silas Peters. People are always confusing us. I'm not sure which one of us is more irritated at that. I don't even like fish, and he's a good sixteen hundred years older than I am. Besides, he's so old fashioned. Still wears those silly tunics from time to time. I told him to get himself some Levis, maybe even a cowboy hat, but he won't do it. I think he just likes to impress people, but he says no, tunic's are just more dignified."

"So you've met Peter? What's he like?" I asked. I wasn't really that interested, but I thought I should make a little small talk.

"Peter? Oh, yes, we've run into each other a couple times. Nice fellow. Cusses like the sailor he is, but he's got a great, beautiful heart. I like him right well."

The conversation lagged again.

"So," I looked around the meadow, "Is this my place? Is this my home in Heaven? It surely is lovely," and I smiled.

Silas did not smile. "Your place? Heaven?" And he laughed again, and I think he was laughing at me.

"What's so funny?"

His laughter stopped in mid air, and his face went serious. "Well," he said. "In the first place, no, this is not your place. This is my place. But thanks for the compliment. And secondly, no, this ain't Heaven."

"If not Heaven," I asked, "then where?"

"Why," the old man answered, and his eyes were twinkling now, "This is Paradise!"

"Thought they were the same thing," I said.

"I expect," Silas said, "that you'll soon discover a lot of things you've thought before ain't quite accurate."

#  CHAPTER TWO

"First things first, I guess," Silas said, and he started walking toward the little house in the distance. He stopped, turned around, and said, "Hey! Are you coming or do I have to call in some angels and have you flown there?"

"So, there are angels around here?" I asked, catching up with him. He had a spry pace for an old man.

"Angels? Here in Paradise? Nah. I was just teasing," and then he thought a second and added, "Well, maybe a few."

"So, are there angels in Heaven, then?" I asked.

"Angels in Heaven?" he repeated me again. "Yes, yes, there are quite a few. Most of them are on Earth, though, and most of the other planets, and there's usually a few wondering around Paradise, every now and then even the Basement, but yeah, I saw a mess of them during Heaven's last Open House."

"Heaven has Open Houses?"

"Why, sure they do!" he retorted. "About every ninety-eight years or so. They give a big party, all sorts of games and tours. A real celestial carnival! All of the three spheres give Open Houses."

"The three spheres?" I asked.

"Yeah," Silas answered. "The Three Spheres of Eternity. Heaven, Paradise, and...."

"Hell?"

Silas stopped and looked at me. "We call it the Basement."

"And this Basement has an Open House, too?"

We resumed walking toward Silas' house. "Yeah, they do," he said, "but most of us don't attend. Air conditioning don't work half the time, and the residents have the worst manners. But I'd encourage anyone to go at least once, just to see it. Helps deter folks from taking up residence there, you know."

We reached the house, and Silas sat down on a rocking chair on the front porch. He motioned for me to sit on the wicker next to him, and I did.

"But how do you go to Hell, I mean the Basement, once you've been assigned to Heaven or Paradise?" I asked.

"What do you think this is, eternity?" Silas asked, then he laughed and added. "Well, yes, this is eternity. But assignments to residences are always temporary. You can't have free will and permanent status, you know."

I hadn't thought about that. Eternal assignments, I had always figured, were permanent assignments. You lived, you died, you went to your eternal reward, or your eternal punishment. I said as much to Silas.

"Oh, no," he corrected me, and I waited for him to add something else, but he didn't.

"So, then," I asked, "How do you get to Heaven?"

Silas frowned at my ignorance. "Same as you get anywhere else. The way you walk takes you where you're going. Here, have a peach," he offered me a bowl of fruit from the table next to him.

"No, thanks," I declined politely.

"You'll be hungry," he warned. "Better have a bite."

"Hungry?" I repeated. "I thought I was a spirit. Spirits don't have hunger pangs."

Without warning, Silas reached with his other hand and pinched me sharply on my leg.

"Ouch!" I screamed. "Why'd you do that?"

"That feel spiritual to you?" he asked.

"That felt painful," I scowled, rubbing my leg.

"That's the trouble with you newbies," Silas said, still extending the bowl toward me. "You think in black and white, either, or. When you were alive, were you not both physical as well as spiritual?"

"I suppose I was," I said, and reached for a peach. Silas set the bowl back on the table.

"Well, then, there you have it." he looked out across his meadow, satisfied he had adequately made his point.

He had not made his point. I was more confused than ever.

"I don't get it," I said. "How can I feel anything if I'm dead."

"Oh, balderdash," Silas said. "Some people go through their whole lives not feeling anything. Of course, most of those folks aren't going to feel much in eternity, either. But you felt things when you were alive, didn't you? Why would you think you'd not feel anything now?"

"You're confusing physical feelings with emotional feelings," I challenged him.

"Not as much difference in the two as you might imagine," he countered. "Eat your peach. Careful for the pit \- we don't get a lot of dentists in Paradise."

I ate quietly, wiped the juice from my mouth with the back of my hand. Without being asked, Silas handed me a wet cloth.

"Are they in the Basement or Heaven?" I asked.

"Who?"

"Dentists."

"Well," Silas answered slowly, thoughtfully. "A good many of them are in the Basement, and a good many of them are in Heaven. There's something disturbing about people who earn their living inflicting pain, isn't there? But Dentists are extremists. They administer terrible pain and they relieve terrible pain. It's quite a dichotomy for them. They don't all handle it very well. Which is why, as a profession, they have one of the highest suicide rates."

"So the Basement has electricity?" I wondered out loud.

"What?" Silas asked. "Oh, that," he answered. "The air conditioning. No. That's just a figure of speech. It's stifling down there! No windows. No light, except little greenish shadows. And the noise is blistering on the ears. All that moaning and complaining and bickering and yelling and screaming and crying. And then there's the gnashing of the teeth. Oh, that's annoying! But that's what most of them did when they were alive, and we generally keep doing what we did when we were alive when we get done living."

He paused a bit, then added, "I don't know that much about the Basement, though. I only went to their Open House once, and I left early. One day I'm going to get the stomach to take the tour, just so I know. But there are things I don't care to know yet."

"You ever meet someone who's lived there?" I asked.

"A few folks," Silas said. "But they don't like to talk about it, and I don't pry."

"So," I looked around me, "Where are all the other people?"

"What other people?" Silas looked around with me.

"The other folks who live in Paradise."

"Oh," he answered. "Some of them live in town, some of them are visiting friends and relatives in other towns. Some of them live in other towns. A group left yesterday for Vlurispor. I think that's how you say it."

"Vlurispor?" I repeated the word as best I could, but I don't think I got the accent mark right. "Where's that?"

"Not sure," Silas said. "Two or three galaxies away from Earth, maybe four, I don't know exactly. I overheard some folks at the general store talking about it last week."

"So it's a planet?"

"Yes, yes," he answered, obviously not very interested. "A planet."

"With life on it?"

"Yes, I imagine so. I don't reckon folks would care to go there otherwise, do you?"

"I suppose not," I conceded. I thought a little while before asking my next question. "So where do the aliens go when they die?"

"What aliens?" Silas asked.

"The ones on other planets that support life."

"Same places as we do," he said, and there was a little impatience laced in his words. "Heaven, Paradise, or the Basement. And we do not call them 'aliens.'"

"What do we call them?"

"People. We call them people."

"Don't they look different than us, though?"

"Well," Silas said, and he seemed more interested in the conversation now. "They don't look all that different than the folks on Earth. They have similar variations of skin and hair color, facial features, follicle textures, that kind of thing." He interrupted himself and added, "No, I take that back. There's one planet whose people are born with kind of an orange skin and white hair, and as they get older their hair turns blonde or light brown and the skin becomes kind of a mocha color. Their eyes are either purple or green. Very attractive adults, but the babies are butt ugly."

"So this group from Paradise headed for Vlurispor," I said, and I think I pronounced it a little better this time. "Are they going to visit or to stay?"

"Reincarnating, of course. You don't get to just visit life, you know. You gotta commit a lifetime to living or you don't get to go."

"So they're going to live lives as," I searched for the right noun, "Vlurisporians?"

"That's what I was told."

"And so there's such a thing as reincarnation?"

"Oh, absolutely. Every major culture and religion knows that, though they may call it something different. Some folks call it being 'born again,' though they don't always understand the pragmatic dimension of the phrase. But maybe we can discuss this another time," Silas said. "I'm tired. I think I'll take a nap."

And with a slight nod the old man slumped back into his rocking chair and was soon snoring.

#  CHAPTER THREE

I'm not sure what I had expected eternity to be like, but I did not imagine I would be sitting next to a crotchety old man sleeping in a well worn rocking chair on a wind swept porch in the middle of a Texas landscape. Before I had time to contemplate this any further the front screen door squeaked, then slammed, and a woman nearly the same age as the old man walked onto the porch carrying a tray of chocolate chip cookies.

"Hey!" her voice was warm, and cackled with aged joy. "You must be starving after your trip."

She wasn't nearly as tall as Silas, and she was a good five inches shorter than me. She wasn't so much chubby as she was thick. Her hips were wide and round, and the bodice of her lavender gingham dress with tiny flowers reflected an ample bosom, like one might expect on a traditional grandmother. I could barely see her wiry white hair folded in a loose knot under her faded navy blue bandana. Her apron was cream colored and, except for a small grease stain near the middle, spotless.

"Trip?" I asked.

"From Earth. From life. Oh, I'm ravenous every time I get back. Ain't you hungry, Sugar?" She shoved the bowl of peaches aside and set the cookies on the table next to Silas. She added flatly. "I see Silas has been pushing those nasty ol' peaches on you. No wonder ya ain't hungry."

"I only had one," I told her.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "I can't eat a bite of 'em. Gives me gas something terrible. I'm up all night! But you didn't come all the way to eternity to listen to my gastrointestinal problems, did you, Honey?"

"I suppose I didn't," I said. "But I'm not really sure why I'm here, or how I got here."

"Oh, that!" she waved her hand. "Happens all the time around here. Well, more lately than normal, actually. We get a few months' notice, then the newbies just sort of show up. Sometimes the packets run late and we get 'em unexpected. Why, one morning we got out of bed and we had six newbies all at once, two by the locust trees, one in the back yard, three just littering the field out there. Normally we only get one or two at a time but there was a glitch of some sort that day. Why, Rawlings, two farms over, he had three dozen that same week. Liked to have never gotten them all rounded up. Lord, what a mess that was! Here, you help yourself to a cookie, anyhow. They're your favorite, nice and soft, like you like 'em."

I took a cookie and ate it slowly. She was right. It was moist, exactly the way I liked my chocolate chip cookies. I was wondering how this lady could possibly know what I liked, or anything about me for that matter. I was just about to ask when she sat down on the old porch stoop, mopped her forehead with her apron, and started talking again.

"Looks like another beautiful day in Paradise!"

"Aren't all days in Paradise nice?" I asked.

"Oh, lands no!" she said. "Why, we've had hail and storms, and every few hundred years or so we're liable to get ourselves a tornado. Not that turbulent weather ain't beautiful, though," she hastened to add. "Just makes a mess of things sometimes, is all. 'Course, just 'cause a thing's messy don't mean it's bad. Just a little inconvenient is all. Me, I like a good cloudburst from time to time. But ol' Silas, he sees a little puff of cloud in the distance he gets all kinds of twitterpated. I believe he was born in a storm once. Oh, weather just makes a wreck of him."

"So," I asked hesitantly, "You're Mrs Peters?"

She laughed loud, and her head shot back. "Mrs Peters?" she cackled. "I should say not! Oh, that's funny. Sy'll have quite a chuckle of that when he wakes up."

"You're not married, then?"

"Married?" she looked very serious all of a sudden. "Married? Well, now, let me think. Yes. Twice. First time was three lives ago, let's see, where were we? Little town just east of Paris, got married in 1785. Yep. Got hitched four years before the revolution, which unfortunately made me a young widow. He insisted on storming the Bastille with some of his buddies. Always was a little stubborn. I lived another forty-six years without him, and I'll tell you what's the truth, that was one of the longest lives I ever spent."

I sat quietly, mesmerized.

"Normally we get to spend a little more time together when we go down there," she continued. "Well, except our first life together. Very bad timing, I'm afraid. Somewhere in Europe, I can't even remember what country it was now. 1349. Deplorable timing, I'm afraid. We never even crossed paths. Cursed plague - took us both as infants."

"So you don't always get married?"

"No, we seldom get married," she answered. "But we nearly always find each other. Once I was on a whaling crew and his ship had gotten stranded on some ice. He was with his father conducting some kind of research. Oh, Silas made a gorgeous young woman! Still obstinate as the day is long, but, my, he sure made a pretty gal."

I wrinkled my forehead. The old lady looked at me and smiled.

"Oh, this must all seem so peculiar to you, Honey!"

"A little," I minimized my confusion.

"Well," she said, "It ain't no big mystery. Nothing is, once you understand it, you know."

"So sometimes you're the guy and he's the girl?"

"Every now and then. We don't get to select our gender when we return to life. All we get to choose is when to go back, and what planet, and the rest is, well, kind of like fate, I reckon. Why, one time we were both men. I was a poet and he was an actor. We lived in London. Now, that was a little dicey, I can tell you. Let's see, that was sometime around the early seventeenth century, I think. Yes, Yes, Elizabeth was queen. Uh huh, I remember now."

"So," I hesitated a little, trying to balance my curiosity with my desire to not be rude. "You were...?"

"As a three dollar bill!" she cackled. "And I can tell you what, it wasn't no picnic! Wasn't none of those gay rights and tolerance such as there is today. Still, being soulmates ain't something you can just turn on and off. You find your soulmate, poof, you're stuck with each other. For eternity, unless you screw it up."

Silas shifted in his sleep, made a gagging kind of sound that caught deep in his throat and exited through his nose. It sounded like the blending of a pig being poked and a hen being caught by its tail. He shifted and was soon snoring again. The old lady smiled warmly at him.

"Yes," she purred softly. "What a find! Hey, Honey, hand me one of them cookies, will you?"

I offered her the tray of chocolate chips, and she took a handful of them.

"Does everyone have a soulmate?" I asked.

"What's that?" she was chewing vigorously. She gulped, smacked her thick lips together a little, and said, "My, these are tasty, ain't they?"

"I was wondering," I repeated. "Do we all find our soulmate?"

"Oh," she answered. "'Fraid not. No. Most of us do well to just find the love of our life. Soulmates are pretty rare. At least when you're young. Usually takes quite a few lifetimes to figure out how to pull it off. Ain't easy being a soulmate, you know. Why, I went through, let's see," she thought a minute. "Yes, around fifteen, maybe more lifetimes, before I found ol' Silas. He only had a few lifetimes before we met, and that's some kind of record, I believe. Takes a lot of work to do it right. Say," she looked at me, "You got a soulmate? I didn't see nothing about it in your information packet."

"I don't think so," I said.

"Oh, you'd know for sure if you did, at least up here. Now, down there, you don't always know. In fact, the word 'soulmate' is mighty over-used anymore. People fall in love and right away they're professing eternal devotion, but that ain't how it works. Nah, you gotta live a pretty long time together, and apart, before you know for certain.

"Besides, being soulmates ain't necessarily about being in love," the old woman added. "Why, I've known of two mother-daughter teams, and a brother team, and there are dozens of friendship teams. No sex involved at all - just that mighty connection that surpasses time. Hard to explain. But," she paused a little, and a puckish grin sprinted across her face, "I gotta tell ya, I do like the sex. Hand me some more of them cookies, Honey!"

#  CHAPTER FOUR

Silas shifted in the old rocking chair, gurgled, and then, with a start, his eyes flew wide open.

"What's that, Sallie?"

"I was just telling this young 'un about us," Sallie answered. "Here," she stood up and reached for the tray of cookies. Offering them to Silas, she said, "Have one."

Silas obediently took one of her cookies and chewed it slowly. "Mmmmm!" he said with a long purr. "Now that is tasty!" Sallie leaned over him and kissed his forehead.

"I've got some mending to catch up on. And Silas, the back yard's going to need mowing before too long." With that, she disappeared back into the little house.

Silas stood up and stretched. My legs were feeling a little cramped, and I stood up next to him. "Well," he said with a twinkle, "What do you think of my Sallie?"

"She's something else," I said. I wasn't sure what to think of her, but I liked her very much. She was forthright but kind, and not at all pretentious. "Yes," I added. "She seems like a fine woman."

"Indeed!" Silas agreed. "And I should know! Want to walk around a little?" Before I could answer Silas had stepped off the porch and headed out across the meadow. I followed.

"Now, we were talking about reincarnation, weren't we?" Silas asked.

"Yes," I answered.

"It's a wonderful little cycle. I like it a lot. Gives you a chance to correct mistakes, or make new ones."

"So," I coughed a little. "Does everyone go through reincarnation?"

"Oh," he said. "Most of us do. Every now and then you find someone who doesn't want to be alive, but most of us enjoy it from time to time. 'Course, the folks in the Basement, they have to agree to reincarnation before they can come to Paradise, and they can't get to Heaven unless they come here first."

"How's that?" I asked.

"Well," Silas explained. "Here's the thing about the Basement. People get there only one way, you know."

"No."

"No, you don't know, or no, you don't agree with me?"

"No, I don't know. Sorry," I said.

"Well," Silas said. "The only way a person gets to the Basement is that they simply don't care. They don't care for themselves, they don't care for others. No compassion, no respect, that kind of thing. And we wind up in eternity living the way we lived in life. I believe I've already told you this."

I nodded, and Silas continued, "So if a person goes through a life not caring for himself, herself, or others, why, there's no alternative than the Basement. No discussion, just boom, there."

"But they can get out?" I asked.

"Oh, sure, sure," Silas said. "But it ain't easy."

"How do you do it?"

"Simple. You just got to care for others and for yourself. But that's a little tough to accomplish when you're surrounded by a community of indifference, even hatred. You got to work really, really hard to behave compassionately when it's not the norm. But when you do you get the opportunity to return to life and see if you can get it right. That's the only way to escape the Basement."

"So it can be done."

"Absolutely," Silas said. "Not only that, but some of the finest folks I've met in Paradise have lived one time or another in the Basement. I even know of a couple of people in Heaven who started out in the Basement. Pretty rare, but it happens. And of course, it can go the other way, too."

"Like falling from grace?" I asked.

"More like shooting yourself in the foot," Silas answered. "It takes an absolute moron to go down the ladder around here. You know, Heaven to Paradise, Paradise to the Basement. An absolute moron."

"How's that?"

"Well," Silas stopped walking and looked very sternly into my eyes. "I can appreciate how someone who hasn't had good things, hasn't known very many decent people, can be blind to love and kindness and gentleness. What I can't understand is how someone who has experienced these things can just toss them aside. See what I mean?"

I nodded, and Silas continued walking. I caught up with him quickly.

"You were speaking earlier about free will," I said.

"Yes," Silas answered.

"I was wondering, I mean," I didn't know quite how to phrase my question. "We have free will on earth, and free will up here, but it seems like you have a lot of problems if you have free will."

"Oh, that's true enough!" Silas exclaimed. "Free will is a messy, messy business. But you take it away all you have left is robotic automation, and who in the world would want that? But I think we have less problems here than we do in life."

"Why's that?"

"Most problems, you think about it, are caused because people don't get what they want, or they're afraid of losing what they have. Most problems are caused by loss, real or anticipated or just plain imagined. And up here, we just don't have as much loss, that's all. "Oh, we have to work for things, of course. Septic system overflows if you don't tend to it, house needs repainting from time to time if you live in it long enough. But there's just not the kind of fears and tension here like there are when you're alive."

"How does temptation play into this?" I asked. "I mean, are we ever tempted to do naughty things here?"

"Oh, absolutely," Silas said. "But you live a few decent lives you learn how to crave good things more than bad, how to want beauty and fun, how to nurture a kind heart. You channel your ambitions well, you don't need to worry about temptation too much, 'cause ugliness won't hold much an attraction for you. Folks don't need behavior modification. Folks need ambition modification."

We walked in silence among the bluebonnets but somehow we never seemed to step on them. After awhile I asked, "Sallie said something about a farmer. Mr Rawlings?"

"Yes," Silas said. "Stanley Rawlings. A honey of a guy. What about him?"

"Well, it wasn't about him really. Just something the way Sallie said it, something about 'two farms over. 'I didn't know there were farms in Paradise."

Silas stopped again, and when he spoke his voice was incredulous. "What in blazes do you think this is?"

I was taken aback, and a little wounded at his tone. "What 'what' is?"

"This!" he said firmly, and he stomped the ground, turned, and waved his arms wide about him. "This!" he repeated.

"Silas," I said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

His hands dropped against his legs and he sighed heavily. "I'm sorry," his voice was contrite. "I'm not as patient as I ought to be. Well, what I mean is this farm. Surely you can see that this is a farm."

I looked around the meadow again. I didn't see, hard as I looked, any signs of a farm. I looked back at Silas and shrugged my shoulders in ignorance.

"Why," Silas exclaimed. "The bluebonnets! Can't you see the bluebonnets? And the Indian brushes?"

"Sure," I protested, "but I don't see a farm."

"It's a bluebonnet farm!" Silas said, exasperated. "We raise bluebonnets!"

"Oh."

"Well, where do you think bluebonnets come from?"

"Seeds?" I suggested.

"And where do you think the seeds come from?"

"Bluebonnets?"

Silas scratched his head wearily. He turned and began walking away from me, and just under his breath I heard him growl, "Newbies!"

#  CHAPTER FIVE

Silas and I walked in silence for a long time, and we stopped when the little purple flowers met a dirt road. A dented mail box sat on a slightly tilted pole. The hand painted words read, "Silas Peters and Sallie."

Silas opened the mail box and took out a small handful of envelopes and flyers. He flipped through them casually.

"Junk, junk, bill, catalogue, bill, junk." He opened a thick white envelope and read the first part of the enclosed letter. "Another newbie next month or so. Looks like they're fixing to have an earthquake in China again. It'll be busy around here awhile. We're getting a lady and her two children. Goodness, I hate working with newbie young'uns. But Sallie, she gets enamoured over the little ones." He slammed the stack of papers back into the mail box.

"Well," he said as he turned around and looked across the meadow, "this is the edge of my place. One hundred sixty acres of bluebonnets."

"It's beautiful," I said.

"Paradise," he replied with a smile, and he turned back around and faced the road. I turned with him.

Across the road was another field, a little more contoured than the bluebonnet farm. Short trees splattered the landscape of small hills and valleys. I didn't recognize the trees. Most of them were about eight to fifteen feet tall, and they barely had any leaves on them.

"What are those?" I asked.

"Rose of Sharon," Silas answered. "Minnie Lakes lives there with her Mama. There's always other folks coming and going, I can't keep up with them. Minnie raises these trees. They'll start budding out before long. Beautiful trees - bud out in late spring, stay in bloom pretty much all summer."

"So there are seasons in Paradise?"

"Oh, absolutely!" Silas said. "Want to go to town with me? I've got to pick up some yarn for Sallie. Something teal or aqua, she said."

I nodded, and we began walking, bluebonnets on our left and Roses of Sharon on our right.

"Of course, it's a little more mild around here," Silas explained as we walked. "Spring and fall, they're pretty similar to what you'd find in, say, Missouri or thereabouts. But the winters are pretty mild, doesn't usually get down below thirty or so. And summers, I don't think it's ever peaked out above eight-five. Now Heaven and the Basement, their seasons don't really fluctuate much. Heaven stays pretty much between seventy and eighty most of the time, and they don't ever have storms, just a few showers from time to time. And the Basement, well, it's all indoors anyways, and stifling as hell." He laughed suddenly and repeated, "'Stifling as hell!' Get it?" And he laughed again.

After a time, the Rose of Sharon trees stopped and the bluebonnets stopped. In their places were a field of tulips on one side of the road and a cedar grove on the other.

Silas nodded toward the cedars. "Now that," he said, "is work. Lots of pruning, and collecting, and thinning. Cornelius' place. He and his family run the place, when they're there anyway. Well, usually someone's there. But they like to keep reincarnating, and most times there's not more than three or four people on the farm at any one time. They love to reincarnate!"

"How many are there?" I asked.

"People?" Silas asked. I nodded.

"Oh, gosh, let me think a minute. Well, I'll tell you, I don't believe I've ever seen them all at the same time, but I guess there's at least eight, maybe nine altogether. Sallie'd likely know for sure."

"And when they die they always come back here?"

"Pretty much, eventually. Well," Silas corrected himself. "Now James, a few generations back, he met up with a little gal in Bogota, they got killed at the same time, set up a little bakery shop in town. Didn't hold, though, and she went back to life. James moved back to the farm, and that was that."

"So we can move around here?"

Silas looked at me like I was stupid. "Move around? Why, aren't we moving around right now?"

"I suppose we are," I conceded, then asked, "And do we always look the same?"

"No."

"Well, then, what do we look like?" I asked.

"We look pretty much like we do when we die in our most recent lives, except after we've been here a few months we can select what age we'd like to resemble."

"But, if you change how you look in between incarnations," I wondered, "how do your family, friends, neighbors recognize you?"

"Spirit eyes."

"How's that?"

"We see with our spirit, and we are known by our spirit. You cannot hide who you are from someone who sees with their spirit. So it doesn't matter what you look like. We always recognize one another by the spirit. You can hide from a lot of things, but you cannot hide from your spirit."

"And can you change your spirit?"

"Not up here, no. Little adjustments, maybe, as you come to learn more and more. But for major transformations you got to return to life. Circumstances down there, they can knock you on your spiritual axis if you let them. What some folks call trials and tribulations, problems, such as that - why, they ain't nothing but spirit opportunities, ways to help us grow. Takes a lot to see that, though, and most folks gotta live several lifetimes before they figure it out."

On the right side of the road, in the distance, I saw what seemed to be a rainbow carpet. We walked on, and the closer we got, the more radiant the carpet seemed. When we finally reached the field, I stopped, and Silas stopped with me. I gasped at the beauty.

"Gorganians," he said. "These flowers are indigenous to a planet I can't pronounce. Most colorful planet in the universe, I'm told. Purple sky at night, pink sky during the day, grass is kind of a blend of red and blue, and their water is pink. It rains in pink. Pretty little things, ain't they?"

The flowers were about five to ten inches tall, and each one had thick, multicolored petals with multiple shades of yellow, orange, green, violet.

"They're breathtaking," I whispered in awe. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Me, neither," Silas said. "Sallie, she wants our next life to be on that planet. She keeps inviting Stoilisk and his wife over for dinner, constantly pumps them for information."

"You don't want to go?"

"Not really," Silas answered quietly and sighed. Then, with a chipper in his voice, he added, "But I don't want to spend a lifetime away from Sallie. She wants to go, I expect we'll go. But not for awhile yet."

"When do you think you might leave?" I asked.

"Well, we've only been back here a few decades or so. We decided after our last life we'd stay around at least until the next Open House in Heaven, which comes up in a few more years. They've built a new wing on the Museum and we want to see it before we take off again."

"Museum?"

"Yes," Silas said. "Museum of Unnatural History. Very peculiar to my way of thinking, a lot of folks really enjoy it. Anyway, they've just finished their latest addition on the building. Sallie's dying to see it." Silas giggled. "Get it? 'Dying' to see it."

I rolled my eyes a little.

"So, I guess Heaven's got quite a bit of extraordinary architecture?" I asked.

Silas, his self-amusement waning, answered, "Architecture? Why, yes, they do get pretty exorbitant up there. A little too fancy for my taste, too palatial, if you want to know the truth. Very classy joints, restaurants, hotels, theme parks, libraries, museums, shopping malls, concert halls. All that gold and platinum and precious jewels, though, sort of bores you after awhile. But some folks, they just love it. Most folks, actually. Sallie's mad for it, goes there every Open House we're around for. Sallie wants to live in Heaven, at least for one eternity, but I don't, and she says she won't have Heaven without me. I'm going to surprise her someday, though, and we're going to have at least one eternity there. She'll like that fine."

"Guess they've got quite a few cathedrals and temples there?" I asked. "Mosques, synagogues?"

Silas looked at me blankly, then frowned at my ignorance again.

"What on earth would they need those for?" he asked.

I raised my eyebrows. "Religious services? Worship?" I suggested. "I mean, there must be an awfully lot of religious folks in Heaven."

Silas laughed then, a little chuckle that barely shook his thin shoulders. "Not so many as you might imagine," he said. "In fact, in my experience, religion oftentimes impedes the path to Heaven. You get too wedded to a religion, it's liable to make you intolerant of other religions, or of no religions. Why, more people have been killed in the name of this or that ideology than all the disease and famine in history. No, little Newbie," he shook his head sadly. "Folks make it to Heaven despite their religion, not because of it. Takes a few lifetimes for folks to understand this, but most of them do. Eventually."

"But I thought...."

"Now, don't get me wrong," Silas said. "There are some decent folks who have strong religious fervor. Why, some of my best friends are religious. But you gotta remember, there's no real relationship between faith and morality. Oh, some folks of faith are very moral, no question about it. But there are many people with impeccable morals who have no adherence to any religion whatsoever. And I know some very devout people who would soon as tell a lie as say a prayer. They all find themselves neighbors in eternity. Heaven. Paradise. And the Basement. Ah," he said with a lift in his voice. "Here's our turnoff."

#  CHAPTER SIX

The dirt road intersected with another dirt road. We turned to the right and walked another couple of miles before we came to the outskirts of a small community. A green sign welcomed us.

Paradise Lost and Found Population: 1,471, When Everyone's Home. Est. 1847.

"That's the name of your town?" I asked as we passed the sign. 'Paradise Lost and Found?'"

Silas scoffed a little and said, "No, that's just a little eternal humor. The name of the town is Wilsonville, but Cory Larson thinks that name is dull, and every time we put up a new sign he slips out here and replaces it. About five years ago we just gave up and left his silly sign up."

The sidewalks were planks, with awnings over them. At first glance, I felt like I was stepping onto a Hollywood set filming a Western. But as we walked a little further it seemed more like a mid nineteen-fifties town, the sort of place you'd expect Beaver Cleaver and his family to live in. There were a few side streets, houses with painted clapboard siding, white picket fences, brightly painted shutters. The main street had an assortment of shops, a post office, a newspaper, two hotels, and an old fashioned Opera House. The marquee above the door read, "South Pacific. Tuesday through Friday. Matinee on Saturday. Tickets on Sale Today."

"Sallie wants to see that. Better stop while I remember," Silas said, and he walked up to the ticket window. I didn't see him give the booth attendant any money, but when he walked back toward me he was putting the tickets in his pocket. "I got three, just in case you want to join us. You like Rodgers and Hammerstein Two?"

"Too?"

"No, Two. Oscar Hammerstein. He was a second."

"Yes, I do," I said. "Never saw _South Pacific_ , though. But it was Mom's favorite show of all time."

"Oh, it's okay, I guess. I like a little more drama, a little less lovey-dovey silliness. But Sallie, she loves this stuff. She went with me a few summers ago when they were doing _Death of a Salesman_ , though. Now there's a play that'll snatch you by the throat."

We walked by a two story stone building. A large brass sign by the door read, "Wilsonville Public Libra." The last two letters were missing.

"Cory Larson's handiwork?" I asked, nodding toward the sign.

Silas looked, frowned, and said, "'Fraid so. He likes one of the librarians who was born in October in her last life, and he thinks altering the sign where she works is amusing. They're supposed to fix it sometime next week. Someone needs to bat that boy upside the head. I said as much once, at a town meeting. But no, pretty much the rest of the town disagreed, said he has a 'good heart.' Well," Silas giggled low. "I guess that's true. Boy'd do just about anything for anyone. And around here, a good heart will get you through a lot of crap. Still," Silas grumbled again, "I wish he'd take up another hobby."

We passed two women and a little girl, about eight years old. They said hi to Silas as we walked by, and he smiled warmly at them. Across the street, two men were playing checkers, and another man was standing behind one of them. I over heard the man standing up say, "No, not there, George! He'll corner you!" One of the men at the table glared up at him and hissed through gritted teeth, "Tom, quit telling me where to move. You're worse than a...."

Their voices trailed off then, and I wondered what Tom was worse than.

"Ah, here we are." Silas stopped in front of a whitewashed frame building. The sign, painted in a beautiful oak finish wood, said, "Genial Story."

"General Store?" I interpreted.

Silas sighed and answered, "Yes. McMillan finally got tired of replacing the old signs. Every time he did Cory'd just defile it. We talked with Cory about it and he said that 'Genial Story' was more descriptive, said folks came here to talk more than buy. I reckon every soul, even in Paradise, gets to have at least one vice. So anyway, McMillan had this one made a few years back, and so far Cory's left it alone.

"Cory's a fine enough young man, I guess," Silas concluded, "but my goodness, I'll be glad when he decides to reincarnate!"

We entered the little store, and my first thought was that, all vandalism aside, Cory Larson was right. The room was abuzz with voices and laughter. Three men and two women were sitting in straight whicker chairs around a stove pipe, another group of people were sitting at a table eating pie and drinking lemonade, and there were several small clumps of people talking with one another. A group of four children rushed past us and out the door, laughing and giggling as they crashed through the double screen door.

A tall woman who appeared to be in her mid to late thirties was behind the counter. She handed a white packet to another woman, then looked at us as we approached the counter.

"Afternoon, Mrs McMillan," Silas said. "Sallie wants two loaves of that blue-green yarn."

"Two spiels of teal?" the woman asked.

"Whatever."

Mrs McMillan went around the counter and disappeared behind a small group of people. She returned a moment later. "This do?" She showed Silas the yarn.

"I reckon it will."

Mrs McMillan wrapped the yarn in white paper and handed it to Silas. "What's Sallie making now?"

"Another afghan," Silas sighed.

He introduced me to Mrs McMillan, and she reached over the counter and shook my hand warmly.

"Staying long?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," I replied. I was confused about how "long" was defined in eternity. Silas smiled at my confusion, put his hand on my shoulder and escorted me out the store.

We were nearly back to the bluebonnet farm when I observed, "You didn't pay for anything."

"What's that?" Silas asked.

"For the tickets or the yarn," I said. "I didn't see you pay for them."

"Oh," Silas grinned. "I paid for them alright. Ain't no free lunch, even in eternity." He didn't say anything else, as if he had explained the matter thoroughly.

"I didn't see you give Mrs McMillan any money," I persisted. "Or the lady in the ticket booth."

"Well," Silas said, his voice not very stern but a little frustrated nonetheless. "I paid for it. You newbies. You're so narrow sometimes."

"But I don't understand," I whined. I knew I was irritating him, but I really wanted to know how Silas had paid for the tickets and the yarn.

He stopped walking and looked at me with sober eyes. He sighed deeply, then his shoulders relaxed and he smiled again.

"I'm sorry. I can be so impatient. Sallie says that's why we keep getting so many newbies lately, says I need to develop more patience. She's probably right. I'm sorry."

He walked again, and I followed. After a little while he said, "Economic exchanges are universal. But currency from one society to another tends to be unique. Our currency in eternity is just, well, different than what you're used to."

"But I didn't see you exchange anything," I protested. "Not with either one of them."

"Didn't see!?!" Silas stopped and glared at me. "How in the name of all that is holy could you not see! I was as charming as the day is long! Didn't you see me being a big ol' sweetheart! My God, I was so pleasant I about choked on my own kindness!"

I'm not accustomed to being yelled at, and I told Silas so. Just because I was new to eternity, I said hotly, did not give him the right to scream at me. If he couldn't be civil, I said, maybe he needed to just have me assigned to someone else.

My tone was low and slow, the way it gets when I'm extremely agitated. If I don't speak low and slow when I'm angry I'm liable to start talking loud and fast, and then I become harsh, and next thing you know I'm having to apologize. I do not like to apologize. So, when I'm angry I speak low and slow.

Besides, it's a control thing. You talk low and slow and your audience has to bend in to hear you.

Silas leaned his ear toward me to catch my final few words. "What's that?" he asked. "I didn't hear the last part."

"I said you're an ass!" and I stomped away from him.

Silas caught up with me a little while later, just before we reached the bluebonnet meadow. I ignored him, and as we walked by the mailbox he caught my elbow.

"Look," he swung me gently around toward him. "I really am sorry. You just explain all this to newbies over and over and over, you get kind of aggravated."

"Well," I said, without much feeling. "I'm sorry for being an annoyance." I stomped away, and I heard him follow, then he stopped, grabbed the contents from the mail box, and ran up behind me.

"Look," Silas' voice sounded contrite. "You're not annoying, really. Truly. It's me. I'm just going through some changes, that's all. Ask me anything. I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

I stopped and looked at Silas. "Well, I want to know everything, I suppose," I said. "I'm flooded with questions. All I asked about right then, though, was about the money. That's all." I walked toward the house, and he followed.

Just as we reached the porch, I heard Silas' voice behind me.

"Hey, Newbie!" he called at me.

I turned around and folded my arms defiantly.

"Ever hear of Nietzsche?"

#  CHAPTER SEVEN

"Superman Nietzsche?" I asked. "The fellow who went crazy and was found hugging a horse? The guy who was such an influence on Hitler?"

"Yes, he wrote _Superman_ ," Silas said wearily. "Yeah, he did go a little nuts, had some sort of disease, I think, that affected his brain, and he felt sorry for the horse when he found it being beaten. At least that's what I heard somewhere. And no, Hitler confused much of what Nietzsche wrote, distorted it to his own agenda. Nietzsche wasn't anti-Semitic at all. His sister was, and she 'edited' his last book after he died. Causes a lot of confusion, I'm afraid."

"Oh," I said flatly. "And this has what to do with money?"

"Something he wrote in one of his books. Let's see, which one was it?" Silas scratched his head. "Oh, the one with the axioms. _Human, All Too Human_. You ever read it?"

"No, I don't think so."

"You'd remember it if you had, I think."

"I expect there are a good many of books I've read that I can't remember," I said. But I wasn't being honest, I realized immediately. I could remember nearly every book I had ever read. Maybe not the entire contents, of course, but I knew if I had read something or not.

"Ever read anything by Nietzsche?" Silas asked.

"No," I said.

"Well, doesn't matter right now," Silas said. "But anyway, there's a quote from one of his books. The idea's not really that original to him, because we've been practicing it in eternity since, well, eternity."

"What's the quote?" I asked.

"'Only the boldest Utopians would dream of the economy of kindness.'"

I looked at Silas, and he looked at me. At the same time we both sat down on the stoop, and we sat quietly for a long, long time. Silas finally broke our silence.

"It's all that matters," he said. "In all that exists, in all that is and all that will ever be, kindness is all that matters. As you can see," he chuckled a little, "I definitely don't have it down pat, and sometimes I wonder how it is I've never lived in the Basement. I can get powerfully impatient sometimes."

"I noticed," I said dryly.

"But I rally back pretty quickly," Silas said. "Usually. What's important, though, I guess, is not that we are a hundred percent kind a hundred percent of the time. That would be perfection, and like as not, a little dull. But we must still keep it in our foremost attention as best we can. Treat one another respectfully, compassionately. How we manage that has everything to do with our status, and our sense of joy, both here in eternity and especially in our lifetimes."

"So being nice to one another is how you pay for things up here?"

"Oh, nice, baloney!" Silas snorted. "Nice don't have nothing to do with it. A wall-eyed, pigeon-toed monkey can be nice. Don't take no brains at all to be nice. No. I'm talking about actual kindness, from the heart, from the core of your spirit. Ain't easy, though, takes a lot of practice, takes a lot of commitment. Anyone can act nice for a little while, but compassion, now that only comes from eons of caring, even when it hurts to care. Besides that," he looked around to make sure we were alone, then turned back toward me and whispered, "I'll let you in on a little known secret."

I leaned toward him.

"Some of the most compassionate people are a little rough around the edges, socially speaking." Silas nodded his head wisely. "Know what I mean?" And he grinned a wide flash of teeth.

"Ya'll 'bout ready for supper?"

Silas and I both jumped and swung around. Sallie was standing just inside the screen door, and she giggled at us. "You being naughty again, Silas?" she winked a grin at Silas, and he looked a little sheepish.

"Well, get on in here, 'fore it gets cold," Sallie said, and she stepped away from the door.

"You haven't tasted Paradise till you've flapped your lips around Sallie's fried chicken," Silas whispered to me as we went inside.

It didn't occur to me at the time to ask where the chicken came from, or the mashed potatoes, green beans, or homemade biscuits. I hadn't realized how hungry I was. It had been hours since I'd eaten the peach and chocolate chip cookies.

One works up quite an appetite first day back in eternity.

I offered to help with the dishes, but Sallie brushed me away. "No, Honey" she said. "You go on out back and rest a spell. Silas and me'll take care of the plates."

Silas started to protest, but Sallie tossed a tea towel at him that landed on his left shoulder. "Here. You dry."

"Yes, Dear," he said in mock servitude, but before I had gone out the back door I heard him excitedly telling Sallie about the tickets for the musical, and she squealed a little delight.

Bluebonnets grew up all the way to the edge of the front porch, but in the back of the house there was a large yard of shaggy, patchy grass. Two white Adirondacks sat near one another under a walnut tree, with a little green table between them. Across the yard was the large shed. An assortment of flowers and bushes lined the edges of the yard.

Sallie was right. The grass was pretty tall and could use a good mowing. Little yellow buds spotted the yard. Dandelions. Weeds. I smiled at an old, faded out memory.

I was four years old. I woke up one spring morning and discovered our front yard full of the most beautiful little flowers I had ever seen. I grabbed as many as my stubby little fingers could pluck and rushed back into the house, and enthusiastically offered my mother the precious bouquet.

She laughed at me, not with malice, but I felt my eyes sting with tears anyway.

"Why, Peanut," she said, "These are just weeds. These are dandelions, not flowers."

"But they're so pretty!" I whined, holding back my tears as best I could. "I thought you'd like them."

Mom squatted down beside me and took the bunch of dandelions from my hands. She sniffed them as if inhaling the sweetest fragrance in the world, and then she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and squeezed me with a long hug. A tear found its way down my cheek, and Mom smiled tenderly and wiped the tear away.

"Come on, little Peanut," she said, taking my hand. "Let's find us some water for these precious little flowers."

I was still smiling several minutes later when I heard the back door slam. Silas grabbed a lawn chair that was folded up against the back of the house, and he and Sallie walked toward me. Sallie sat on the Adirondack next to me, and Silas opened his chair and sat down.

"Nothing like a good sunset," Silas said. "My favorite time of the day. Everything winding down and getting ready for the night."

I was surprised that there would be nighttime in eternity. As I thought about it, though, if there were seasons in eternity it only made sense that there would be day and night as well.

And Silas was right, of course. The sky was brilliant with sunset, golds, and oranges, and reds, and blues, and greens. The flatter the horizon, the more gorgeous the sunset.

"Need to get to the weeding tomorrow, Silas," Sallie said.

"Nah," Silas countered. "I think I'm just going to wait till they turn into fuzzy clock balls."

"Suit yourself," Sallie replied. "But if you don't mow before long we'll get eat up with chiggers."

"Chiggers?" I asked. "In Paradise?" I scratched my right leg.

"She's yanking your chain," Silas answered. "Sallie, quit teasing!"

They both chuckled. "Sorry," Sallie giggled.

I had more questions, many more questions. But I wondered if perhaps Silas and Sallie were both weary of answering, so I sat quietly and listened to them talk in that calm, relaxed way that lovers and friends do after centuries of being together. They seemed oblivious to me after a short time, and I closed my eyes, and relaxed in the chair. When I opened my eyes again it was dark and I was alone in the yard.

#  CHAPTER EIGHT

There was a slight chill in the air, and I shivered as I walked back toward the house. Silas and Sallie were sitting in well worn faded green overstuffed chairs in the living room. Silas had changed clothes and was wearing a clean but very faded set of overalls with a little less faded blue shirt underneath. He was reading _Catcher in the Rye_ , and Sallie was darning the elbow of his sweater.

They both looked up and smiled when I walked in.

"Have a nice nap, Sweetie?" Sallie asked as I sat down on the couch.

"Yes," I said politely. "I didn't realize I was so tired."

"Well," she turned the sweater's sleeve around, bit off the thread, folded it, and set it gently on the table next to her. "There," she said to Silas. "And would you quit wearing your good clothes in the meadow?"

"Yes, Dear," he smiled, not looking up from his book. "Just wanted to get all slickered up to welcome the Newbie."

Sallie ignored Silas and looked back at me. "Well, I ain't surprised, anyhow," she said. "I'm exhausted every time I get back. I don't last a whole day 'fore I gotta lie down. You've been going for hours. You always have so much energy when you get back to eternity?"

"I'm not sure," I said, puzzled. "I've never been back before."

"Sure you have!" Silas looked up from his book. "According to your packet, this is your seventh trip back."

"Eighth," Sallie corrected.

"Eighth," Silas repeated.

Sallie reached on the floor behind her chair and picked up her new teal yarn and a crochet needle. Silas turned the page. I blinked three or four times in a row real fast, the way folks do sometimes when they're confused, as if fast blinking will bring about clarity.

"Eighth?" I asked.

In a chorus, they both said, without looking up, "Eighth."

I could see they were engrossed in their projects. Silas giggled a little as he read a passage, and Sallie had begun crocheting. Still, I was too curious to remain silent for long.

"Uh..." I hesitated.

"Yes?" Sallie answered, without looking up.

"Just curious," I said in a faltering voice.

"Yes?" Sallie answered again, acting mesmerized with her afghan. A very tiny curl edged up the corners of her lips.

"Oh, shoot, Woman," Silas laughed. "Quit teasing the poor Newbie. Just tell her!"

"Tell me what?"

"Well, alright then," Sallie pushed her yarn aside. "I know you won't remember everything for about another year and it's going to drive you nuts till you do, and you're going to drive everyone 'round you nuts till you do, so I may as well go on and tell you."

"Tell me what?" I repeated.

"Well, you just finished up your eighth lifetime, Honey, that's all. Nothing big about it, very natural, happens to most of us eventually. But it takes a year or so for everything to catch up with you. Most everything catches up with you eventually. Don't know why it takes so long, though. You know why that is, Silas?"

"No."

"Well, neither do I."

"Why what is?" I asked.

"Oh," she said, "the delay. Works kind of the opposite as when you're born."

I was more confused than ever. Silas peered at Sallie over his glasses. "Sugar Plumb," he said. "Just tell her."

"Okay," Sallie said, and she clasped her hands together and set forward on her overstuffed chair. She cleared her throat, and I perked my left ear, which hears a bit better than my right one, toward her. I was certain I didn't want to miss anything of what she was about to say.

"Let's start with when we're born, it's easier that'a way."

"Okay," I said, out of politeness more than agreement.

"Now then, usually when a baby is born it has all the knowledge and memories of every life it's ever lived. Unless it reincarnates right after it gets to eternity, because..."

"Because it takes about a year to remember everything," I finished for her.

"Right!" Sallie looked at Silas and said, "My, this one's a fast study." Silas just grunted.

"But as time goes on," Sallie continued, "those memories start to kinda get foggy, like the way it is when you wake up from a dream. If you think real good about a dream right at first you're liable to remember it longer, but you don't think about it much and in quick order it just flits away like a butterfly, and there's no catching it back. Right?"

"That's true," I said.

"Well, sir," she said, "the problem is, by the time the baby's old enough to talk about its previous lives and eternities, the memories have already disappeared. After that, only way you can recollect those earlier times while you're still alive is through a little déjà vu, maybe a dream ever now and then, maybe a little premonition, little patches of feeling like you've known someone before but can't quite place 'em. You understand?"

"Not entirely," I said. "But I think I know what you're talking about. It's like, you dream you're someplace back in time, and the dream is so real, not like a regular dream at all. Very spooky, very unnerving."

"Well, you're only scared of what you don't know," Silas said as he turned a page.

Sallie looked at him, back at me, and then continued. "So while you're alive, you never know for a certainty about your past lives, not real clearly anyway. Oh, some folks might get close to it with channeling, hypnosis, that sort of thing, but to be honest with you, I'm not sure how reliable most of that is. Maybe some of it, I don't know for certain. But for most of us, no, we don't remember too well anything before the time we're maybe three or four in our present lives, do we?"

"I don't think so," I agreed.

"Exactly," she nodded. "But now, on this side of life, after you die, it's the opposite. You get here and right away you remember 'most everything about your most recent life. But in a little while things start seeping through and a year, thereabouts, down the road, it just starts pouring in, and first thing you know you remember you were one of the Pharaoh's handmaidens!"

"Now you're just showing off!" Silas scolded good naturedly. He placed his book on his lap and looked at me. "A little notoriety is a dangerous thing, Newbie."

Sallie shot a mock frown at him, and he returned it, and then they both laughed.

"You're just jealous," she teased him. "Best you did was work at the Globe."

"Hey!" Silas said. "I was a fine, fine actor. _Taming of the Shrew_ would never have gone on that first night if it hadn't been for me. And let me tell you," he tossed a quick wink at me, "I know a thing or two about taming shrews!"

They laughed again.

"So," I wasn't sure if I was allowed to know yet, but I thought I'd ask anyway. "Who was I? I mean, before?"

Silas and Sallie looked at each other. Silas raised his thick white eyebrows a little bit and shrugged his shoulders. "Well," he said, "Ain't no law against telling. You'll start to figure it out in a little while anyway, 'specially once your box gets here."

"Besides," Sallie added before I could ask what box she was talking about, "if it'll help you sleep better tonight. I know I'm always crazy with curiosity whenever I first get back."

Silas stood up, walked to the cluttered desk, fumbled through a stack of papers. "Oh, here you are," he said, and took a large white envelope with him back to his chair. "Now," he added, "Let's take a look here."

He adjusted his glasses a little and flipped through a few pages, murmured to himself, whistled once, then said, "Ah, yes, here it is." He whistled again, then looked at me.

"You're younger than you look," he said.

"I'm nearly sixty," I said, and was suddenly embarrassed. He wasn't talking about my physical age at all.

"Says here you've only been in existence since 1532. Eight lives in less than six centuries. That's pushing it. You must really enjoy living!"

"What's that got to do with it?" I asked.

"Well," Sallie explained. "Unless you're waiting for someone, or an Open House, people who really love to be alive do tend to reincarnate real quick like. What's it say, Silas?"

"Let's see," he studied the pages again before continuing. "You incarnated only forty nine years after you were born here. In 1581 you were born into a Pueblo tribe." He stopped reading, looked up at me, and said, "Ouch. Don't reckon you care much for heights, huh?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Slipped off the side of a cliff in your teens."

"No," I said. "Scared to death of anything over three feet high."

"I can see why," Sallie said. "What else, Silas?"

"Early sixteen hundreds, looks like you were in Japan. Impressive." He looked at Sallie. "Samurai."

"Hmmmm," she said approvingly.

"Oh, oh," Silas said. "Didn't do so well in that line of work, either. Dead by your early thirties."

"Sword fight?" I asked.

"Snake bite."

"Not much honor there," Sallie said, then added quickly. "'Course, there's no disgrace either! But snakes do have such a bad reputation, 'specially in these parts."

"And then, in 1649," Silas continued. "No, didn't do well there, either."

"What?"

"African tribe, west coast. Died crossing over on a slave ship. What a pity."

I was becoming impatient. So far, I had heard nothing to suggest I could possibly have enjoyed any of my lives very much.

"What else?" I asked sullenly.

Silas studied some more. "Oh, now this is interesting." He looked up at me. "Looks like you lived in New Zealand for, let's see," he counted on his fingers, "Almost seventy years. That takes us up to the seventeen hundreds."

"How'd I die? In New Zealand?"

"Yes."

He read from the packet again. "Not good." He looked at me and grinned an evil grin. "You old dog!"

"What?"

"Killed by a spear at the hands of a jealous husband. Naughty."

Sallie giggled. "Go on," she said. "What's next?"

"Well, here in 1794 you show up.... Well. Son of a gun."

"What?"

"Pirate."

"You're kidding!" Sallie said. "Let me see that!" She took the packet from Silas' hands and read silently, then handed it back to him and looked at me. "And not too good a pirate, I'm afraid," she shook her head.

"What? Gang plank?"

"Worse. Dysentery."

"Crap!" I muttered.

"Exactly," Silas said. "Let's move on. Now, then, here we are in the eighteen hundreds. Oh, this is good. Married, good wife, nine children, and in your mid forties mustered out of.... Wait. No. Never mind."

"Mustered?"

"Michigan, 17th. Left in April 1862, killed near Jackson TN 11 October 1862."

"You were wearing the wrong color, Sweetheart," Sallie said sadly, then laughed. "Oh, well, my Uncle Nolan fought on the wrong side hisself. I still loved the old rascal."

Silas laughed with her.

"What's next?" Sallie asked.

"Well, late 1800's looks like you were born in Ireland, wound up dancing in a burlesque show in New York City. Hmmm."

"What?" Sallie and I asked at the same time.

"Busted during Prohibition. Knocked out a cop, did a little time, got mixed up with more bootlegging after you got out. No, I take that back. After you escaped. But during the Depression looks like you went to a Normal School, became a high school English teacher, married some fellow, had two kids, and died just before the second world war. No, wait. The two kids were before you got married, while you were still living in New York."

"How?"

"How'd you have kids?"

"How'd I die?"

"Hit by a pig truck just outside Hoboken."

"Not very dignified, is it?" Sallie observed.

"Uh uh," Silas agreed. "But it's no worse than when you were trampled by that little...."

"Oh, she doesn't want to hear that silly old story!" Sallie interrupted him.

"Lamb," Silas finished his sentence.

"It was a ram," Sallie corrected him. "And it was huge. And it ran faster than I did."

"Well, you shouldn't have been messing with it to begin with," Silas scolded.

#  CHAPTER NINE

"You'll sleep in here on the feather bed," Sallie escorted me to the spare bedroom later that night. "Sorry 'bout the mess. I keep most of my mending in here. Extra blankets in the closet if you get chilly. Well, you sleep tight, Honey. See you in the morning."

She hugged me and kissed me on the forehead, and I suddenly felt very lonely.

I slept hard that night, the way you do when you're exhausted. In the morning I woke up late, the fragrance of a huge country breakfast wafting all through the house. I shuffled sleeply into the kitchen.

"Well, there you are, Sleepy Head!" Sallie sang out. She and Silas were halfway through breakfast. An empty plate was already set for me.

Silas smiled politely at me, then went back to the newspaper he was reading.

"Coffee?" Sallie offered.

"No, thanks," I said.

"Hmmm," Silas mumbled.

"What?" asked Sallie.

"Looks like John Steinbeck's coming through end of the summer. Pushing his latest book."

"Oh, good!" Sallie exclaimed. "That last one was the best he ever wrote. And he's so much fun to be with. Think we can get him back over for dinner?"

"Dunno," Silas said, and he turned his paper over and kept reading.

"Steinbeck?" I asked. "The writer?"

"Oh, yes," Sallie said. "He comes through, what, about every five or six years, Sy?"

Silas nodded and grunted.

"And he still writes?" I asked

"Why, what else would he do?" Sallie asked. "Now, some authors, they maybe write for one or two lifetimes, then they're done with it. Steinbeck, my goodness, I think he's written every lifetime he's lived. And, of course, he writes here in eternity. Just keeps getting better! Don't you think so, Sy?"

Silas murmured something through his paper, and Sallie looked back at me.

"Now, Sugar," she smiled at me, "What you got on docket for today?"

I had just taken a bite of toast and chewed as quickly as I could while figuring out how to respond.

"Docket?"

She nodded.

"I'm not sure," I said.

"Well," she patted my hand as she stood up and began moving dishes to the sink. "Reckon you'll figure it out as the day goes along."

I ate another piece of toast and two pieces of sausage, and Silas kept turning the pages of his newspaper. Sallie was standing at the sink, humming, and looking out the window, glancing down at the dishes every now and then. Suddenly, she dropped her dish rag and a fork into the sudsy water, wiped her hands on her apron excitedly, and exclaimed, "Oh, Silas! Look! The storks!" She ran out of the kitchen and we could hear the front screen door slam behind her.

Silas looked up, then casually folded his paper and set it slowly on the table. "Well," he said, with a blend of exasperation and affection, "There'll be no peace around here 'less we go have a look."

I followed him out onto the porch. Sallie was looking up into the sky, cupping her hand over her eyes to shield them from the bright morning sun. At first I didn't see anything unusual. Then she pointed and squealed, "There they are! See!?"

I followed her finger. I could barely make the birds out at first, but then they became larger against the canvas sky. I counted five, six, seven.

"And, oh, Sy, look! Twins!"

She was right. Each of the storks, except one, was carrying a single bundle from its beak. One of the storks was carrying two bundles.

"Is this for real?" I whispered to Silas. This just felt entirely too hokey to me. Storks carrying babies in Paradise. Ridicules!

"'Fraid so," Silas whispered back. "Must seem a little queer to you, huh?"

"Like something out of a fairy tale," I said.

"Well," he turned around to go back inside. "There's a lot more truth in fairy tales than most people know." The screen door slammed behind him.

"But storks?" I said to the empty air.

Sallie watched the lanky birds make their way high above the bluebonnets until they disappeared over the horizon. She sighed a happy breath, sat down in the rocking chair, and closed her eyes. I sat in the wicker chair next to her. When she opened her eyes again, she smiled at me.

"I love the little ones," she said.

"Had any of your own?" I asked, and immediately worried I was being too personal.

"A couple," she said. "Before I met Silas. He's not patient with youngsters. Says they're too much like newbies."

"What's wrong with newbies?" I asked with a frown.

"The problem's not with newbies. It's with Silas. He just gets impatient with all the questions. But I tell him, 'It's the business of old souls to educate young ones.' And not just the business, mind you," Sallie said. "It's a great honor, a wonderful honor, to be entrusted with teaching. Not everyone's cut out for it."

"But if Silas isn't, well, appropriate, for the work, why keep sending him newbies?" I asked.

"Oh," Sallie laughed. "That's what's so comical. He's one of the best teachers in eternity! And deep down, I think he loves to do it. It's just a paradox, I reckon. I've never understood it, don't know as if I ever will. No, not in a million years, probably. If he'd just get his impatience in check, why, I expect he'd be a marvel! He can be a cranky ol' bird sometimes," Sallie laughed, "but you'd have to search a long ways to find his equal. Just a dab short-fused from time to time."

"Well, yeah," I agreed as respectfully as I could.

"I expect his impatience is his little cross to bear, until he gets tired enough hauling it around it to set it aside. And I have to say," Sallie grinned, "he has gotten somewhat better over the centuries. Not much, mind you. But a little."

"So," I asked, changing the topic. "Where do babies come from?" I laughed at myself as soon as the question came out, and Sallie giggled, too.

"Baby souls blossom out in an unsteady rhythm around here. Every few years or so a few of 'em just sort of squeeze into existence. There's a little patch between Paradise and Heaven...."

"Not a cabbage patch!" I laughed, but I was afraid she'd say yes.

Instead, Sallie's face suddenly looked very serious. "No, no. Not cabbages! My goodness, what a silly notion!"

I shrugged and smiled, a little embarrassed.

"But, no," she continued. "It's just a little oasis of sorts, with a big pond, some trees, flowers. A garden, really. And the storks flock around there quite a bit, too. Anyhow, the new souls just sort of blink into existence. I'm not sure that's the best way to describe it, but that's what happens. Like a little poof."

"But where do they poof from?"

"Each soul," Sallie leaned forward in the rocking chair, "is made up of little tiny fragments of all other souls in the universe. And from time to time, the universe just kind of burps them into existence. That's the best I know how to explain it."

"So they don't actually have mothers and fathers?"

"They have thousands of parents, thousands of siblings. Millions. Billions. No soul is designed in isolation, Honey."

"But then," I asked, "Who raises them?"

"Why, anyone in Paradise or Heaven who wants to. I'm afraid the folks in the Basement don't qualify to parent new souls. I think you can understand that."

"Yes," I nodded.

"If a person or a couple wants to raise a soul, they just get their names on a list, and at the right time the stork delivers the soul to them, and they teach it what it needs to know until its first incarnation."

"So all souls incarnate?"

"Well," Sallie said, "Most. Not all. Some just don't have the ambition for life, and I guess there's nothing wrong in that. Why, a couple of Cornelius' boys have never left home. Spiritual laziness, seems to me, but they're good men, nothing wrong with them, hard workers, really. Just don't have a taste for living, is all. They're very big on what they like to call 'feeling secure,' but to my way of thinking, security keeps you clinging to side of the pool instead of swimming. More fun to swim, I say. But I reckon it takes all kinds to make up an eternity."

"And you still have contact with the two you raised?" I asked. Now I was sure I was being too personal, but Sallie never showed it in her face.

"Well, when you can catch them home!" she laughed. "One of them has been incarnating and reincarnating almost nonstop since the middle part of the Shang Dynasty. I get postcards from her ever so often."

"And the other?" I asked.

"Oh, he's a rascal, that one," Sallie said. "Stayed tied to my apron a little too long, I'm afraid. Finally I had to shove him out of the nest, told him I wanted to reincarnate and he'd be well advised to get a life himself."

"Did he?"

"Eventually," Sallie said. "After I died and came home he was still there. We had an argument, I can't even remember what it was about. He left in the night, said he was just going to jump in the pond and be done with it." She laughed.

"Did you hear from him again?"

"Oh, yes. He visits fairly often. Once he finally incarnated he couldn't get enough of it. He's on his twelfth life right now. Gets himself in trouble now and then, but he always bounces back. He's got a good little ol' heart."

"So," I asked, "You're his mother?"

"Yes," she said as she closed her eyes and started rocking. "I'm what we call his first mother. So yes, God help me, I am his mama." She chuckled a little.

We sat quietly, each in our own thoughts. I heard the back screen door slam, and a few minutes later the rhythmic sounds of a push mower.

"Anyway," I said, "Storks bringing babies - why, that's the silliest thing I've ever heard!"

Sallie didn't open her eyes. "No sillier than how babies are born in life." She said. "Now that's just plain messy!"

#  CHAPTER TEN

The back door slammed again, and I heard water running in the kitchen sink. A moment later Silas was standing at the front door, wiping his hands on his overalls.

"I got the yard mowed," he said. He waited for a response, didn't get one, and he disappeared back into the house.

Sallie opened her eyes and smiled at me. "Well, if I don't tell him what a fine job he did he'll be pouting all afternoon," she said, getting up out of the rocker. I followed her past Silas, who was sulking in the living room. Sallie and I stood side by side looking out the back door into the yard.

She turned away from the door. "Dear," Sallie said.

"Yes, Dear." He had picked up his copy of Catcher in the Rye and pretended to be reading.

"Did you mean to mow around the weeds?"

"Yes."

Sallie looked back outside. The grass, most of it anyway, was cut. Little yellow dandelions speckled the yard, intact, safe from the blade. Sallie looked at me and winked.

"Nice job, Dear," she said as she went into the kitchen.

"Thank you, Dear," Silas said. After she left the room, Silas put his book down and winked at me. I smiled back at him.

"Well, I can't get my work done sitting on my bottom parts," he said, closing the book. He grunted a bit as he stood up from his chair. "You coming?"

"Okay, sure," I said. I wasn't sure I had a choice.

Silas stopped at the kitchen doorway. "The newbie and I are going to go walk the bluebonnets. When's dinner?"

"Be a couple hours or so," Sallie said. I heard the clanking of a pan. "Don't work too hard out there!" she called as Silas and I stepped out onto the porch.

Silas broke the silence when we were halfway to the locust trees. "I expect you've got a mess of questions piled up for me. May as well get to 'em."

"You don't mind?" I asked.

"Mind?" Silas said. "Of course, I mind. But we all have our little crosses to bear, don't we?"

"Until we get tired enough of hauling 'em around to set 'em aside," I quoted Sallie.

"Hmmm," Silas looked at me, his eyes twinkling. "I see you and Miss Sallie have been talking behind my back."

I grinned, and we kept walking.

We reached the trees, and Silas sat down in the rocking chair. There was a second chair, a yellow folding lawn chair with a little fray on one of the strips. It hadn't been there the day before.

"Brought it out here this morning, before you got up," Silas explained. "Thought you'd rather sit on it than the ground. Either way, take your pick. Don't matter one way or the other to me."

I sat in the lawn chair.

"Well, let's get started. Ain't got all day, you know." But he was still grinning at me.

"Well, Sallie said something about a pond."

"The one in town?"

"No,..." but Silas interrupted me before I could finish my sentence.

"It's on the other side of Wilsonville, not far from the softball field. Every town has one. And Heaven's got plenty of them. Even the Basement has one, but it's in a special room. In the Basement you don't get to jump in the pond until it's approved. It's the only sphere where you don't get to decide when to reincarnate. Heaven and Paradise, you can jump in anytime you like."

Too intimidated to tell him that wasn't the pond I was talking about, I simply nodded.

"So, what about the pond do you want to know?" Silas asked.

"Well," I spoke the word slowly, conjuring up a question as quickly as I could. "Any good fishing there?" Lame. I knew it the minute I asked, but a question, once asked, doesn't go away. It just flops around until it's answered or dies a tedious death.

"Fishing? I should say not!"

"You don't fish in the pond?"

"Certainly not. There's no fish there anyway. You want to go fishing, talk with Jake Kaufman. He's got a little lake he keeps stocked in catfish."

"Swimming, then?" I asked.

Silas laughed. "Swimming," he repeated, a giggle still catching in his voice. "In the pond?"

I nodded.

"No. No swimming."

"Then what?" I asked.

"Why," Silas said, "It's for jumping in."

"Right," I said. "For swimming."

"No. Not for swimming. You jump in, you reincarnate."

I blinked.

"Oh, not always right away," he said. "You might splash around a little, just for fun. Especially on a hot day. Maybe even float on your back a few seconds. But it doesn't take long, life just sucks you down and before you know it, you're pouring back into the Land of the Living."

"So, the pond is a portal from eternity to living?"

"Well," Silas scratched his beard. "Yes, yes, I suppose you could put it that way. Folks want to get born again, they jump into the pond. It's that simple."

"And nine months later they're born?"

"Thereabouts, yes."

"Just like that?"

Silas snapped his fingers. "Just like that, Newbie."

"And you say every town has a pond?"

"Oh, absolutely," he said. "The choice to be alive is never too far from any of us. Unless we're in the Basement, of course," Silas added quickly. "That's the whole problem with the Basement, you know. Limitations. Confinement. Separation."

"So the pond," I asked, "is like a..."

"Listen, Newbie, it's just this simple," Silas interrupted, "and no more complicated than this. You want to be alive, you jump into the pond. You don't wade in, you don't tip your toe in, you jump. 'Make yourself a big humdinger of splash,' I always say. Gives you a nice head start. You gonna be timid about being alive you may as well stay put."

"I see."

"Of course, be careful walking around the pond unless you're sure you want to reincarnate," Silas warned.

"Why would I go there if I didn't want to be born again?"

"Oh, most people don't. I mean, there's nothing down there but a little puddle. Ponds, most of 'em, ain't but maybe twenty foot across. And a park bench. Most our ponds have a park bench or two close by.

"But a few years back, around this time of year, we got a cold snap," Silas continued. "Real peculiar. Put just a thin little sheet of ice across the pond. Couple boys from town decided they were going to skate across it. Not with skates, but with their feet, you know?"

I nodded as if I knew, but I really was a little confused.

"Well, naturally, they went right through the ice. God knows where they wound up." He chuckled a little, then said, "Kids!"

We both grinned.

"And whatever you do, never go near the pond when Cory Larson is around."

"No?" I asked.

"Never. He's a rascal. He likes to shove people in. One of these days I'd like to shove him in!" Silas frowned, then smiled again. "Oh, not that it does all that much harm, really. People slip in from time to time, accidents happen, not much comes of it usually. They just get born before they're ready."

"I'd think it would be pretty upsetting being born again if you're not prepared for it?" I said.

"Oh, who's ever really prepared for living?" Silas said. "I mean, it's probably better if you make a good, conscious, well thought out plan about when to go back. But life, and death, well, sometimes plans are over-rated. Sometimes falling might actually be better, I don't know. Why, once, a couple hundred years ago, Sallie and I were taking a little stroll one evening, came upon a pond, and whoosh, just like that, she smiles at me, waves so long, and hops right in."

"You go in after her?"

"Heck, no! I went home, waited a couple years, caught up with her later. That was when she was on the whaler and I was helping my pa with his research." He giggled at his memory. "I was stunning in that life!" he beamed. "Hated the corsets, and the hat pins, and those heels pinched the living tar out of my feet. But my, I was a looker!"

"Now, here's a little tidbit I bet you didn't know," Silas said after he had thoroughly enjoyed the memory of his great beauty. "About the water in the pond."

"What's wrong with the water?"

"Nothing," he frowned at me. "The water's fine. The thing is, in life, you know how water evaporates?"

"The water cycle."

"Exactly. Clouds, rain, ground water, lakes rivers and oceans, more clouds. That sort of thing."

"Uh huh," I said.

"Well, the thing is," Silas said, "It's just like that up here. Only, and this is the part most living folks don't know, the same water up here is the same water down there. Bet you didn't know that, did you?"

"I didn't" I agreed. "How's that happen?"

"Why," Silas said, "the water cycle. Only the cycle is much broader than most people alive realize. You see, when it rains, say, in Kentucky, that's where you're from, right?"

"Yes."

"Okay, when it rains in Kentucky that water comes from clouds that were formed, at least in part, by the ground water up here. And when it rains up here, why, that water comes from clouds that were partly formed by droplets from down there. It's a huge cycle. It's no accident, you know," Silas said, "that water is a very popular metaphor for life. Most people, at least those living ones, just don't take the metaphor quite far enough."

"That's amazing," I said.

"Bet your ashes!" Silas said. "And more than amazing, think about this. Every time you take a shower, or drink a glass of lemonade, or swim in the ocean, or get caught in the rain, or someone squirts you with a water pistol, you're getting touched by something that connects directly between life and eternity. Why, the water you wash the dishes with in Kentucky, just a few days later, might be water that saints are using to do their laundry with. See what I mean? Just a great big cycle! That's all eternity is. A great big, damp cycle!"

#  CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Now then," Silas was rocking his chair idly. "What else you need to know right now? What else just can't possibly wait to catch up with you?"

"Catch up with me?"

"Like we was telling you last night, Newbie. Another little while and you'll start recollecting all this from your previous lives and eternities. Things nearly always catch up with you eventually. I don't know why some of you newbies just got to have all the answers right now."

"I guess some of us just aren't too patient," I said. He jerked his head toward me, saw that I was teasing him, and relaxed again.

"Well," he tugged on the right side of his mustache, but all the pulling in the world couldn't help him find a suitable response. He finally humphed a low growl, but he had a sparkle in his eyes, and a faint hint of smile.

"So how long do I have to stay?" I asked.

"Have to stay?" he nearly shouted at me. "You mean in eternity?"

I nodded.

"What's the rush? Don't you want to stick around, take in Heaven's next Open House, look about a bit?"

"I suppose so," I said, without much commitment. "I mean, sure, it's interesting. Sure. I was just wondering how long a person is required to stay here before they reincarnate. I mean, is there a regulation or something about it?"

Silas snorted. "There ain't that many rules up here. In the Basement, oh, absolutely. Enough laws to make you choke. Probably why there's so many attorneys living there," he giggled at his own joke, but I didn't giggle back. He cleared his throat and continued, "But here and in Heaven? No, there's really not that many restrictions. Most people just kind of manage themselves, take responsibility for their own selves. A society made up of decent citizens don't need a bunch of rules to keep 'em in line."

"So a person could just, what, jump into the pond anytime they wanted?" I asked.

"Well," Silas said, "like I say, there's no law against it, if that's what you want to do. You just walk right down there, jump in, and next thing you know you're being born all over again. You not leaving us so soon, are you?" He cocked his head to the side.

"No, not right away," I grinned. "That would give you too much pleasure!"

"Oh," he acted wounded, but I could tell he was amused. "Mind your manners, Newbie!" Silas stood up. "Let's walk."

We headed away from the house and before long we were behind the locust trees. Silas' gait was not slow, but meandering. He scanned the purple flowers all about him as we walked, and every now and then he'd stop and tenderly rub a petal between his fingers. After a while, we came to a dirt road, and across the road was a field, rows and rows, as far as I could see, of plowed furrows.

"Lucy and Ray Chomski will be planting their potatoes in the next week or so. Some of us are going over to help them."

Silas turned to the left and we walked along the road until we came to an intersection with another dirt road. The bluebonnets and the potato farm ended, and on the other side of the new dirt road, next to the potato rows, was a green field with thin grass-like stalks swaying gently in the breeze. "First season's wheat," Silas said. He nodded to the field in front of us and added, "Rhubarb's going in there. I hate rhubarb." And he made a sour face, and turned left.

When we could see the locusts in the far distance, Silas turned again and walked in their direction, not toward them, but not away from them, either. He continued scanning and touching his bluebonnets. Suddenly, he stopped, stood up straight, inhaled deeply, and said, "Well, that about does it for the day!" And he walked so briskly back toward the house I had to scurry to keep up with him.

He poked his head through the front door, called out, "Sallie, we're home!" and then he plopped himself into the rocking chair on the porch.

"Dinner's ready in a few minutes!" Sallie yelled back.

"You're done for the day?" I asked as I sat down next to Silas.

"Yep!"

"But you didn't do anything."

"Why, I worked my field!" Silas exclaimed. "What in the world did you think I was doing out there?"

"Looked to me like you were just walking around," I said, taken aback once again by this old man.

"No," he corrected, and his voice was already gentling up again. He scratched his head, not because his scalp itched but because he was exasperated. "Let me see if I can explain this to you, Newbie. Some plants, you got to toil hard with them to make 'em do anything. Other plants don't need much toiling, but you got to give them lots of attention. A little petting, a lot of affection. That's what some plants thrive on.

"You don't prune a bluebonnet, Newbie. You just adore it. The trick is in knowing which plants need pruning, and which ones just need to be adored. Just like with people."

"And I can tell you this," he added after a minute. "Sometimes it's a heck of a lot easier to prune than it is to adore!"

"So," I asked a little slowly, "you either love a plant or you don't?"

"No!" Silas scolded me. "I didn't say 'love,' now did I? Did you hear me say 'love?'"

I shook my head no. "But you did say 'adore.' Isn't that the same thing?"

"No!"

Silas jerked his head away from me and folded his arms resolutely over his chest. His jaw was a stone, clamped like a chunk of granite. He pursed his lips, and he frowned so hard his white eyebrows nearly touched one another. I sat quietly, not knowing what to do. I figured since I didn't know what to do maybe it was better to do nothing.

Silas relaxed again after a short time, looked at me, uncrossed his arms, and tapped his fingers rapidly on the arm of the rocker.

"Okay," his voice was steady, but I could tell he was having to work to restrain himself. "Adore, now that's like a feeling, see. It's like a sense of warmth and tenderness, and it ain't always natural. Sometimes you gotta work to conjure it up, you gotta practice it a long, long time before you get a good grasp on it. Sometimes it comes real easy, sometimes it don't. You understand that much?"

"Okay," I said.

"Now, love, well, that's a whole 'nother batch of worms, or can of worms, something like that," Silas sounded a little flustered, but he kept speaking. "Love ain't nothing about feeling. Love is about doing. Love is about giving a plant, or a person, what they need, not what they want. You adore something or someone, you give 'em what they want. You love something or someone, you give 'em what they need."

"So," I summarized slowly. "Both adoring and pruning are about love?"

Silas jerked forward and shouted loudly, "No!" Immediately, he clapped both hands over his mouth, crouched down into his rocker, scrunched his head between his shoulders, and looked with wide saucer eyes toward the screen door. When he was certain Sallie had not heard his outburst, his muscles loosened up just a little, and, in a near whisper, he said. "No, not if a person only wants to be adored or pruned, but don't need it. Love is all about giving what is needed, what is in the other's best interest."

"But you're saying we can actually select our feelings?" I asked.

"Why, of course!" he growled. "Oh, in extreme circumstances, someone shoves a pistol in your face or a dagger near your throat, yeah, I reckon you're likely going to feel some fear. But you don't have to hang onto any feeling, you know. And you can train yourself, if you got any sense at all, to nurture certain feelings, and to, well, not nurture others. See?"

"Kind of," I whispered back.

"Good!" he snapped. "'Cause I'm tired of talking of it!" He crossed his arms again, closed his eyes, and started rocking very fast.

#  CHAPTER TWELVE

I leaned back in the wicker chair and looked out over the bluebonnets. Silas' rocking slowed down, and after a short time I heard him snoring. His nap was short lived, though.

"Dinner's ready!" Sallie was standing at the doorway. "Ol' man's asleep again, huh?" She looked down at Silas and opened the screen carefully. It creaked as she stepped onto the porch. She bent over and kissed him on his forehead, and whispered. "Time to eat, Baby."

Silas gurgled a little, opened his eyes, and smiled up at Sallie.

We sat down at the table.

"This is all we're having?" Silas pointed at the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He was more curious than demanding.

Sallie sat down in the chair next to him and sighed lightly. "We were going to have pork chops," she said. "With corn and okra."

"So how'd chops and vegetables turn into sandwiches?" Silas asked.

"Well, it's not that complicated," Sallie said nonchalantly as she picked up her sandwich. "All you do is add a little grease fire to the mix, next thing you know, well, there you have it."

We ate the sandwiches, and Silas and Sallie washed them down with iced tea. Sallie had made me a glass of lemonade, said she knew it was my favorite, and she was right.

We walked to town that evening to see _South Pacific_. A troupe from out of town was performing, and I thought they did a pretty good job. Silas complained on the way home that the lady playing the part of Nellie was a little off-key, but Sallie said she thought the lady sang just fine and that Silas was being picky and overly sensitive. I don't have that good an ear for music, and I couldn't tell for sure if the actress sang in tune or not. But the musical, I told them, seemed to be very well done overall, and they both nodded.

I woke up the next morning fairly early. The house was still. I stretched and yawned, and rolled over on my side, and let the day catch up with me slowly.

"Now, that's peculiar," I thought all of a sudden. Most of my life, whenever I thought of dying, I always imagined that one of the first things I'd want to do was see people I loved who had gone on ahead of me.

And yet I realized I had not asked about my family. I sat up, felt a little guilty, but more confused. I loved my family. I adored them. Why had they not been in the forefront of my mind for two days?

I walked outside. Silas was nowhere to be found, but across the bluebonnet field I saw Sallie walking toward me, a small batch of envelopes and slick, bright colored papers in her hand. She saw me from a distance, waved excitedly, and her step quickened.

"Silas and me had some cereal this morning," she said as she stepped up onto the porch. "You hungry?" I walked with her into the house.

"Not really," I said.

She flipped through the mail, threw a couple pieces into the garbage, and tossed the rest of it on the desk. She sat down, and picked up the teal yarn and crochet needle. I sat down on the chair beside her.

"Well," Sallie said after a little time. "I expect you're wondering of your family about now, huh?"

"How'd you know that?" I asked.

"Oh, happens all the time long about now. Eternity's a big place, so much to take in all at once. No matter how much you care for folks who've already died, usually takes a few days to get around to asking about them. Just natural, I suppose. Don't know why, just seems to happen that way generally." She shot me a quick gleam from the corner of her eye and kept crocheting.

"Well," I said. "Yes. Yes, I was hoping to see them. I mean, if I can."

Sallie set the yarn aside and stood up. She rummaged among some papers on the desk, found my information packet, and sat on the couch. Patting the seat next to her, she said, "Come here, Sweetie. Let's see what we can see."

Obediently, I moved to the couch.

"Now," she said. "Who's first on our list?"

"Mom," I said.

"Yes, yes," she was scanning the pages, flipping over, scanning some more. "Oh, yes. Here she is." She read silently a few seconds, then said, "Sorry." She looked at me.

"Sorry?" I asked, and I felt my voice rise. "You mean I can't see Mom?"

"She's not here," Sallie said. She read from the packet, then looked back at me. "Says here she reincarnated about a month after she got here. Early 2002. Sorry. You'll have to wait until she dies again. Must have been an awfully happy lady, going back that quickly."

I nodded sadly, then realized how ironic my sorrow was. Mom had been happy all her life, and she went back to life quickly. This was not something to be sad about, I realized. Still, I was disappointed.

"Who's next"

"Pop."

Sallie looked down her list. She shook her head slowly. "No. No, Honey. Sorry. He stayed around about a year after he got here." She read the packet and smiled sweetly. "Says he had something very important to do before he left again. But anyway, he's gone now. Anyone else?"

"Michael." I said. "Did he hang around?"

Michael and I had dated all through high school, broken up in college, and had remained close friends. In 1976, just after his twenty-second birthday, he had been killed on his motorcycle by a drunk driver.

"Let's see," Sallie read, flipped, read some more. She looked up at me. "Computers, huh?"

"Yes," I answered. "He was an electronic wizard, years before the advent of PC's. He could program in Fortran and Cobol with his eyes closed. An absolute prodigy. Everyone said so. I always thought it a great tragedy that he died just before computers became so common. He would have had a blast with them."

"Well, Honey," Sallie said, looking gently into my face. "Seems like he didn't miss much. He reincarnated almost immediately."

I smiled and imagined. In my fantasy, Michael helped design the Internet, wrote the code for five of the most popular video games in history, and was now working on a top secret holographic imagining project.

Or maybe he became a bush pilot, went on photo safaris, climbed Mt Everest, became an opera star.

"I never knew anyone who had so many interests, who knew so much about so many things. He was the most talented and the most brilliant man I ever knew."

"But you broke up with him?"

"Bad case of college," I said.

"College?"

"I was blinded by new people, new places. Didn't appreciate what I had."

"Oh, Honey," Sallie patted my hand. "Happens to folks all the time. Now, anyone else you're wanting to meet?"

My grandparents, who had died in the eighties, had lived a short time in Heaven after their last lives but had also reincarnated earlier than most people.

"My, goodness!" Sallie said, setting the packet aside. "You've sure loved a mess of happy people!"

"That's true," I said with a long sigh. "I figured that part out early, I guess. "Mopey folks, they just don't have much appeal for me. I get tired of their whininess, complaining all the time, never able to enjoy anything. So I wound up not really being that close to too many people. But the ones I love do tend to be pretty happy. Not always cheerful, but real joyful, you know what I mean?"

Sallie nodded and smiled.

"They have happy, contented hearts," I continued. "You are what you eat. If I hung around too much with people waddling around all droopey drawered most the time, why, I was likely to get sucked into their chronic despair. I didn't want that, decided I'd rather be happy and alone, if that's what it took, than to be surrounded by all that dead weight."

She giggled. "Yes, dead weight indeed. Folks like that don't know much about being alive in the first place. But, lands, being around that kind of sulleness, why, that would bore me. Bore me to death!"

We both laughed.

"Not that I dislike sad people!" I sad suddenly.

"No, I didn't think that," Sallie answered.

"Just don't care to be around people who make a habit of it, that's all."

Sallie was shaking her head yes, and looking back at my packet. "Oh, here's one. She's actually in Paradise right now." She looked up and smiled brightly. "Your Aunt Helena!"

"But I didn't like her when I was alive," I said. "Never had much in common with her. Can't imagine what we'd talk about now."

Sallie didn't quit smiling, but looked back down at the packet again. She looked up, raised her eye brows, and said, "Uncle Joe?"

"Oh, yes!" I exclaimed. "Absolutely! When can I see him?"

Sallie studied the paper again, and the smile faded. "Well, not right away. He and his cousin Ethel both live outside New Falls, and that's, let's see, oh, at least a four or five week walk from here."

"Couldn't I drive, or get a bus? Maybe a plane?"

Sallie chuckled a little and said, "No, Honey Child, I'm afraid not. Around here, unless you can hitch a ride with a stork, which ain't too likely, you have to walk to get where you're going."

I frowned, but the frown was short-lived. "Hey!" I said excitedly. "What about Mark and Amy?"

"Let's see," she looked down, then back up. "Polack?"

I nodded.

"Well," she said, "Yes, you can see them. Probably. Maybe. Most likely."

"They haven't reincarnated again yet, have they?"

"No, Sallie said. "It's just that they're both in Heaven, and it'll take at least a month, maybe longer for the paperwork to get processed."

"What paperwork?"

"Well," Sallie explained. "Folks in Heaven, they can visit here or the Basement anytime they want, but folks in Paradise can only visit the Basement. We can't go to Heaven as long as we're living in Paradise, except for the Open Houses. So if we want to visit someone in Heaven we have to submit a request, and if the person we want to see wants to see us, they'll come here."

"Red tape in eternity," I sighed heavily. Sallie patted my hand cheerfully, and put the packet back on the desk. "It's okay, Honey," she said as she picked her yarn up. "We've got all the time in the world! Just like I tell Sy, things happen when they're ready to happen, no need to push 'em along."

#  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The days passed by in a natural rhythm. Every morning Silas and I walked the bluebonnet fields, came home, and had dinner with Sallie. She was a wonderful cook, and eating at her table was a great blessing. The afternoons were spent either in town or doing chores around the house. Usually after supper Silas, Sallie, and I sat in the back yard, though about once a week we all walked into town and ate at the restaurant. It was a relaxed setting, friendly, clean, and the food was good. Mostly, though, I enjoyed the walking.

One day, just after dinner, Silas and I painted most of the front side of the shed. Silas got agitated with me because I refused to climb the ladder past the second rung from the bottom, said I was being a big baby, said I needed to let go of my lifetimes of fear. I told him I'd let go of being afraid of heights whenever he developed some patience, and he sulked away for a couple hours. We never finished painting the shed, and by suppertime he was being civil with me again.

I went with Silas a couple of afternoons to help Lucy and Ray put in the potatoes. Silas said it looked like half the town had come in, but he was exaggerating. There weren't more than seventy-five to ninety or so of us in the field either day.

It was during my second week in Paradise that Silas asked me about softball. We were walking the bluebonnets.

"I understand you used to pitch for the Presbyterians," he said.

"What?" I stopped walking, and Silas stopped and looked back at me.

"The Presbyterians. Didn't you pitch for them one summer?"

I hadn't thought about this in years, and I smiled just a faint smile. "Yeah," I said slowly. Then I shook my head and said, "No, no, I didn't pitch for the Presbyterians. I pitched for the Episcopalians the summer before I started high school. My friend who asked me to join the team was a Presbyterian."

"What were you?"

"Catholic."

"Why didn't you pitch for the Catholics?"

"They didn't ask me to play."

Silas stuck out his lower lip, raised his eyebrows, and nodded his head. "Makes sense." We started walking again. Every now and then he'd bend over and touch a bluebonnet, and sometimes I'd bend down a touch one, too After awhile he spoke again.

"Wanna pitch again?"

"Silas," I laughed, "that was over forty years ago."

"Oh," Silas said. "Well, just thought I'd ask." He continued walking and bending over and touching.

"What about it?" my curiosity finally bested me.

"Oh, nothing really," he acted uninterested. The less interested he seemed the more interested I became.

"No, really," I pleaded. He stopped and grinned.

"We need a pitcher for our game with Chatemore tomorrow night. Lee Chang left yesterday for a trip to visit one of his daughters from three lifetimes ago. He's the only pitcher we got. He's gonna be gone a month or so. We need a pitcher."

"Well," I said, "I'm flattered you ask, of course. But like I said, that was nearly half a century ago. And to be honest with you, I wasn't that good. I only agreed because Rochelle asked and I didn't have much else to do with my summer. Besides," I lowered my head, then bent down to a bluebonnet, hoping my next words would be a little muffled. "We lost every game."

"Every game?"

I stood back up, put my hands on my hips, and sighed. "Yes. Every single game. Everyone was aggravated with me. The Catholics, who said I betrayed them by playing for another team. Rochelle, who said I embarrassed her in front of her friends by being such a lousy player. The Episcopalians, for, well, obvious reasons. The only ones who were tickled with my performance were the Baptists and the Presbyterians."

"Winners?"

"Yeah. Baptist won first place in the league, Presbyterians came in second."

"So, you don't want to pitch for us?"

"What happens if we lose the game?"

"We probably will lose the game. Chang's a lousy pitcher, too. We always lose. Wanna pitch for us?"

The next afternoon Sallie packed a picnic and the three of us headed for town. It had rained overnight, and she told Silas to wear his boots, but he refused. His toes squished in the mud all the way to Wilsonville, and he slipped twice, but caught his balance both times. When we got to town Sallie and I waited for him outside while he went into McMillan's store, washed his feet, and came back outside wearing a new pair of sneakers.

The bleachers in the softball diamond were already filled. The fans of both towns were mingled together, and everyone seemed to be chattering nonstop. Sallie waved to a couple of ladies in the stands, said goodbye to Silas and me, and climbed up to join her friends.

"Come on," Silas tugged at my elbow. "Let's get warmed up."

The teams from both towns had old people, young people, in between aged people. Men and women, boys and girls. Some black folks, some yellow folks, some brown folks, some red folks, some white folks. And two mocha colored men with blond hair and purple eyes.

Silas and I were in the dugout waiting to bat. He poked me in the ribs with his elbow and nodded toward the field "Boy, that angel can sure play ball, can't he?"

"Where?" I searched over the ball field, but I didn't see anyone who looked much like an angel.

"There! On third base! He just hit a triple. Brought Shakra and Mrs. Ellis home. You didn't see that?" He slapped me playfully upside my head.

I swatted his hand away and ducked. "Of course, I saw the play," I said. "But where's the angel?"

"I told you, Newbie. Right there. On third base. Oh, look, he's going to try to steal home!"

The runner on third base didn't look much like an angel to me. He was dressed in jeans and a green polo shirt, and wearing a New York Yankees ball cap. He looked to be in his thirties. His hair was nearly shoulder length and he had about three days' of stubble on his face. All in all, not much to look at.

"Shoot!" Silas smacked his fist on his knee. The angel got up and wiped at the mud on his jeans, and shrugged playfully at the bleachers as he walked back toward our dugout.

"Doesn't look much like an angel," I said.

"Hush, Newbie!" Silas whispered in a growl. "Don't be rude!"

Team spirit was fierce on both sides, but all in all good-natured. Chatemore's shortstop didn't like one of the calls the field umpire made, and there was quite a commotion for a few minutes, but it got resolved pretty quickly.

It occurred to me that if nations conducted themselves the way Paradise plays softball there would soon be no wars.

As I had promised Silas, I was a lousy pitcher. No one seemed to care, though. I walked about half the batters who faced me, but every now and then someone would get a hit and for a few minutes there would be quite an uproar on the field and in the bleachers.

We lost the game but I struck out a player in the fourth inning.

Later that night, when I was boasting about it on the way home, Silas scolded me with a chuckle. "Oh, I wouldn't make that big a fuss about it," he told me. "The kid was only nine years old, for goodness sake."

"Still," I cradled my pride. "An out's an out."

Sallie giggled.

After the game was over we found a little spot under a tree not far from the softball diamond. Another couple from Chatemore had also brought a picnic, and the five of us ate together.

I must have been hungry, because when I finished eating I realized my companions were only about half way through their meal. They were talking excitedly with one another, all at once, the way people in small groups frequently do. I smiled politely for a little while, and then, bored, said I was going to walk around a little. Sallie told me not to get lost. Silas told me no, go ahead, get lost. Then he laughed and put that little twinkle in his eyes.

There was a large moon out. Spring was in full swing now, and the air only a little chilly. I wondered how my forsythia bushes outside my house in Kentucky were looking now, and I wondered if the daffodils still had their blooms. I wondered if Janey missed me and how her grandbaby was getting along, and I wondered if my death had caused my book sales to skyrocket. I grinned and imagined they had.

I could barely hear Sallie and Silas' conversations with the couple from Chatemore. I squinted into the night, could hardly make out their shadows. I turned around, took three or four steps, and bumped my knee into a park bench.

The moon was reflecting off a small pool of water. The pond, I realized. I sat down on the bench, and looked at the moonbeams bouncing off the water for a long, long time.

#  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"So what's the deal with the angels?" I asked the next morning while Silas and I were walking the bluebonnets.

"What do you mean, the deal?"

"What's their story?"

"You mean the two at the game last night?"

"Yeah."

"Well, they just showed up at the store yesterday afternoon, said they were going to spend the night in town, and McMillan asked them if they wanted to come to the game. My goodness, that one could hit, couldn't he! The little guy with the cutoffs, though, he wasn't much. Couldn't bat. Couldn't throw. Couldn't catch. But seemed like a decent enough fellow anyway. They were leaving this morning, McMillan said. Headed for Zairella. That's the nearest express port."

"What's an express port?"

"Oh, it's just someone's fancy way of saying a waterless pond. There's no water. Just a hole in the ground. Angels use them to move between the three spheres and life."

"Where do angels live?" I asked.

"I just told you, Newbie! Between the three spheres and life."

"Don't they have homes, though?"

Silas sighed deeply and closed his eyes, and his lips were moving, though no words were coming out. I watched his mouth closely to see if I could make out what he wasn't saying.

Five, six, seven, eight....

He was counting to ten.

He looked back at me with a plastic smile, his voice shackled in a slow motion monotone as he spoke.

"Angels move. Angels don't reside nowhere. They move around. They are travelers. They are not nesters."

"Oh," I said.

"Oh," he repeated, mockingly. He stopped and bent over, caressed a bluebonnet, and when he stood back up he was smiling again.

"The thing about adoring something," he said, "is that it helps you adore other things. Even when other things are annoying the holy crap out of you."

I kept my mouth shut for a few minutes, but then curiosity won over again.

"So, the angels travel," I said.

Silas nodded.

"What do they do while they're traveling?"

"Well, mostly they just sort of keep an eye on things."

"You mean, they don't intervene?"

"Well, if you mean, poke their noses into other people's business, no, they do not intervene."

"But how do they help?"

"Who said anything about helping? Heavens, you are..."

"But I always thought it was an angel's job to be helpful."

"Misconception. Angels attend. They're really quite passive, you know. Oh, they'll ask questions from time to time, knowing that folks are often healed by their own answers."

"So they just go around asking questions?"

"Newbie, there are many ways of asking questions. All an angel does is to encourage folks to clarify for themselves. That's all. Well, and a lot of times they just hang around. I've found that having someone close by is all a person needs sometimes."

"Like the blue van?" I asked.

"What blue van?"

"Oh," I shook my head and walked ahead of Silas. "It's nothing. You'll just laugh at me."

He caught up with me quickly, matched my pace, and said, "Listen, I'm probably going to laugh at you twenty-five times before the day's over. May as well laugh at you for the blue van as anything else."

"It was years ago, when I was living in Massachusetts," I said, slowing down a little. "Just before Christmas. I was leaving Hartford from work and driving home to Springfield. Traffic was horrible, it had started snowing around one, and the east bound lanes were nearly choked by the time I got to I-91."

Silas listened quietly. I continued. "Well, not two minutes from the office I hit a patch of ice, swerved all over the road. Horns were blaring, cars were donutting, it was a mess."

"Anyone get hurt?"

"That's what was so strange," I said. "All those cars, all that ice, and somehow we just all got back on the highway and rolled forward. Not even a fender bender."

"You must have been terrified," Silas said, and he nearly seemed empathetic.

"Petrified!" I exclaimed. "I was stiff as a board with fear. And then, just before I got to the exit to get on I-91 North, a blue van pulled up behind me. Now, I was going pretty slowly by now, trying not to go too slow, but, well, I was pretty much crawling. And this van sort of eased in behind me and on my tail."

"How long did it follow you?" Silas asked.

"All the way to my exit in Springfield." I said. "It felt like that van was sort of keeping a lookout for me, but I always thought maybe I just imagined it. I mean, thousands of cars drive that corridor every day. Maybe the van just wanted to drive slow, too, I don't know."

"But you felt better knowing it was there."

"Oh, yes!" I said with great animation. "I couldn't see the driver's face through the snow. It was like a blizzard out there, and most of the cars around me were still buzzing past me. I remember it was just before the holidays, and a lot of the cars had skis on their hoods, headed for Vermont. And I was from Kentucky, remember. I had never driven in that kind of weather until I moved to Massachusetts."

"So, even though you never saw the face in the van you knew he was there. Well, or she. One of the two."

"Yes. Someone was close by, and I'll tell you, Silas, it made that trip home manageable. The van went on north toward Vermont when I got off my exit to go home. The salt trucks and plows had already been on the side roads, and I got to my house without a hitch. But I always wondered about that blue van."

Silas and I walked silently a little while, and then I asked, "You think the driver of that blue van might have been an angel, Silas?"

"Maybe," Silas said, tugging on his beard. Then he looked up at me and winked. "Or it might have just been someone going skiing in Vermont."

#  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Now, the thing about angels, Sweetie," Sallie told me at the dinner table later that day, "is that it's hard to tell 'em from anyone else. By their nature, they just kinda blend in. Pass me the biscuits, will you, Sy?"

She reached for the butter and kept talking. "Now up here, most folks, after they've been in eternity a spell or two, can spot 'em right off."

"Spirit eyes," I said, and Silas smiled at me.

"Right," Sallie said. "But it's a cultivated vision. Takes a while to develop perception. Well, that's true with anything, isn't it? Sy, quit hogging those peas."

Silas handed Sallie the bowl of peas.

"But the living can never see an angel?" I asked.

"Oh, they can see an angel, just like they can see anyone else," Sallie said. "Only most times they don't know they're seeing an angel."

"I wonder why that is," I asked.

"Don't know, exactly," Sallie said. "What do you think, Sy?"

"I think the liver's a little overdone," Silas complained.

"I heard that sometimes people are angels and don't even know it," I said. "Any truth in that?"

"Probably," grunted Silas.

"But not for sure?" I asked.

"I said 'probably,'" Silas said with an edge on his voice. "That means, yes, there may be some truth to it and no, I'm not certain if it's true or not. Probably."

"Well," Sallie scooted her chair away from the table. "I've always thought it was like OJT."

"How's that?" I asked.

"On the job training," she said. "Or maybe it's a way of recruiting angels, I don't know. I'm afraid the angels as a group are pretty secretive about these things. There's a lot of speculation. But people, living and in eternity, do angel-like behaviors from time to time, lots of times don't even realize they're doing it. Maybe the angels are keeping a watch on those folks to see if they want to hire them. Ever thought of being an angel, Honey?"

"Me?" I asked, then laughed, and Silas laughed. I thought his laughter was a little louder and longer than was polite, but I said nothing.

"Sure, why not?" Sallie asked as she began clearing the table. "Why, I bet you'd make a lovely angel."

"I don't think so," I said. But I smiled at the image.

"Me, neither," chuckled Silas as he left the table. I heard the back door slam.

I helped Sallie with the dishes, and after they were dried and put away we joined Silas in the back yard.

"Hey!" Sallie exclaimed. "Look at that! The clocks are out!"

"What clocks?" I asked. "And why is Silas sitting in the yard?"

The little yellow dandelion blooms had been replaced by thin crystal globes.

Sallie ran over to Silas and sat down next to him. She picked up a long stalk of a dandelion, held it a little above her face, tilted her head back, and blew against the fluffy globe head, and the seeds softly floated into the air. She blew several more times, then announced, "Well, according to this, it's only nine o'clock. What's yours say, Sy?"

Silas huffed and puffed on a dandelion globe, and when he caught his breath, he said, "Ten. Hey, Newbie, you try it, see what time yours says."

I hadn't blown dandelion globes since I was a child. I walked toward Sallie and Silas, sat down opposite them, and snatched up a dandelion a little hard. A couple seeds slipped into the air.

"That counts as one," Silas said.

"Does not," said Sallie. "Blow on it, Honey. Let's see what time it says."

I blew on the globe twelve times. "Looks like noon," said Sallie.

"Or one," said Silas.

We stood up and walked around the yard, all of us picking stalks and blowing globes and counting. In the end, by our calculations, the time was somewhere between eight in the morning and five in the afternoon.

"Not very accurate," I said, when most the globes in the yard were gone.

"Time seldom is," said Silas. "Time is always arbitrary."

"Besides," added Sallie, "It's not so important to know what time it is as it to know what to do with the time you have. What you do with your time," she smiled, "is how you define your existence."

It was several days later when I received my jump box.

Sallie and I were sitting on the porch breaking green beans. Silas came around the side of the house pulling a red wagon behind him. I asked him where he was headed, and he ignored me, just said he'd be home after while and for me stay out of trouble.

"What kind of trouble can a person get into here in Paradise?" I called after him.

"You'd be surprised!" he yelled back over his shoulder.

"I haven't seen a Radio Flyer in years," I told Sallie. "And that one's hardly got any rust on it at all."

"It's in good shape, that's a fact," she smiled. "Sy keeps it well oiled."

"What's he doing with it?" I asked.

"He didn't tell me. Just said he had to go to town, said something had come to the post office and he needed the wagon. Oh, my!" she looked up with a glint of excitement. "I wonder if it's that new wash bowl I ordered from the catalogue a couple months ago!"

It was late in the day when Silas returned. I could see him in the distance, walking through the bluebonnets, tugging at the wagon behind him. Sallie was in the kitchen. I opened the screen door and called to her.

"Silas is coming!"

She was wiping her hands on her apron when she opened the door and looked across the field. "I wonder what it is?" She said. "Come on, let's go meet him," and she sprinted down the steps. I followed close behind her.

Silas stopped as we approached and wiped his forehead with the back of his arm. "Here, Newbie," he dropped the handle of the wagon. "You haul it the rest of the way." He winked at Sallie as he walked past her.

Sallie and I stood by the wagon and looked down.

"Oh, my goodness!" she squealed. "It's your jump box!"

"My junk box?" I asked.

"No," she laughed. "Your jump box. Come on, I'll help you pull!"

Silas was waiting for us on the porch, sitting in the rocking chair. He had a large grin on his face, and as we came near the house, he got up and walked toward us. "Here," he reached for the handle. "I'll pack it up to the porch."

He picked the wood box up by its two brass handles, heaved and groaned in exaggeration. Sallie grabbed the little table by the wicker chair and scooted it toward him, and he set the box gently on the table. "My goodness, Newbie, what did you pack in this thing!"

"Oh, quit," Sallie said. "It's not that heavy. No heavier than yours, that's for sure."

Silas laughed and stepped back, leaning with his elbow against the post by the steps. Sallie pulled the rocking chair closer to the box, and folded her hands excitedly. I just stood looking at the box with a quizzical stare.

"So," I said. "What's a jump box?"

#  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Just open it up!" Silas said with a hint of impatience.

"Now, Sy," Sallie scolded him gently. "Best to tell her before she opens it."

"I suppose so," Silas mumbled.

"A jump box is a little collection of things to help you jump start your memories of your previous lives. Except for the one you just lived, 'cause you have those memories already." Silas smiled warmly. "You'll get your memories intact eventually, but a jump box helps you start remembering a little more quick-like."

"Who selects the things in the box?" I asked.

"You do," she said. "During each of your eternities you get to choose one little thing from your previous life, and then it's waiting for you in your jump box next time you die."

"Well," Silas corrected her. "Not always actually waiting for you."

"That's true," Sallie agreed. "Usually takes a few weeks. Remember that one little newbie we had, Sy? Took his jump box three months to get here."

"I remember," Silas frowned. "Most annoying newbie I ever had. Heavens, he asked the questions. Morning to night, wouldn't shut up. Couldn't remember a blessed thing about his other lives. Liked to drove me to distraction!"

"Dear," Sallie said. "I think we're getting a little off course."

"Sorry," Silas muttered. "But, my goodness, he was irritating!"

"So the things in this box," I asked, "are things I've chosen from my previous lives?"

"Except your most recent life."

"I see."

"And no more than one thing, plus it's got to fit in the box. Remember that one fellow over in Klankerton, Sallie?"

Sallie chuckled. "Henri," she remembered with a smile. "Wanted to have his pool table put into his box. Said it was his lucky table."

"Silly fool," Silas said. "Didn't he realize how heavy slate is?"

"Well," Sallie added, "and the sheer bulk of it."

"So he didn't get his pool table?"

"No," Silas and Sallie chimed together.

"He selected his stick instead. You know, the kind that screws apart. That seemed to make him happy."

"Silly fool," Silas snarled under his breath.

"Well, enough of that," Sallie sang. "Let's see what you've selected, Honey!"

"The box looks familiar somehow," I said, stroking the top of it. It was simple, made of walnut. The edges were sanded down, and the hardware was brass. A small peanut was etched in the middle.

"You haven't seen this particular box before, Sweetie," Sallie said. "This box is new. Oh, that's right. You don't remember yet. Your last eternity, your box fell off a shelf, the hinge got bent and one of the boards was knocked apart. Got banged up pretty bad."

"But it sure does look familiar," I repeated.

"Well," Sallie smiled, and her eyes gleamed as she spoke. "I think you're familiar with the woodworker. He made you a few things in your last life."

I stared at the box, touched its corners, ran my fingers slowly across the peanut. I looked back up at Sallie.

"Pop built this box?"

A tear slipped out of the corner of Sallie's right eye, and even Silas' eyes were misty. He sniffed suddenly, pulled out his handkerchief, and murmured, "Cursed pollen!"

I lifted the box as gently, almost reverently, as I could. Pop had had some small brass name plates engraved, and for years before he died he screwed the little plates onto each of the items he made. When I had raised the box just over my eyes, I tilted it a little to the side and read out loud, Made by Craig Leonard

A second plate, slightly smaller, was screwed in just below the first one. It said "For Our Little Peanut."

I set the box back on the table.

Silas blew his nose, and Sallie wiped her cheek with her apron. We sat silently for a short while.

"Well," I smiled at them, "Let's see what we've got here." I opened the lid as one opens a newly discovered treasure chest.

At first glance, the contents seemed casual, ordinary. No gold coins, no rubies, no silver cups.

"So, what'cha got there?" Silas and Sallie both leaned toward the box at the same time, peering in.

"Well," I picked up a silk scarf, carefully folded, and shook it out. It had an intricate Japanese design on it.

"Oh, now, that's just lovely!" Sallie said, and I handed it to her. "Must be from when you were a Samurai, huh?"

"I don't know," I said. "Don't remember."

"It'll take a few days to start kicking in," Silas assured me. "Don't rush it. You newbies! Always so impatient!" Sallie and I smiled at each other.

"What else?" Sallie asked me.

"Well, here's a little, I don't know what this is." I turned it over in my hands a couple times."

"Here," Sallie reached for it, flipped it over once, and said, "Oh, that's an amulet. Common in Africa."

"Let me see," Silas reached over. "Uh huh. Ivory carved amulet. Nice work, too."

In all, there were seven items in my jump box. None of them flickered even a hint of memory for me, but the last thing I picked up intrigued me.

"What's this?" I asked. "Looks like some kind of a flute."

It was obviously handmade, and very rustic. It looked like cedar wood, but I wasn't sure. It had five holes bored on one side. The totem, attached at one end with a little slit near its base, was so poorly carved I couldn't make out what kind of animal it was supposed to be. A small white feather with a dark brown tip hung by a piece of rawhide. "What are these?" I pointed to several small indentions and showed Sallie.

Sally cocked her head a little, and said, "Looks like teeth marks. What do you think, Sy?"

Silas adjusted his bifocals, studied the flute, and said, "Uh huh. Teeth marks. Anyway," he added with a grin, "that's just about the ugliest thing I've ever seen."

"Play us a little tune," Sallie said, and Silas smiled warmly.

"I don't know how to play this!" I protested.

"Oh," Silas said, "Just blow. Put it in your mouth and blow." He giggled and added, "At least as long as you're blowing the flute you won't be able to ask any questions!" He shot a quick wink at Sallie, and they both grinned.

"Well," I sighed. "Just remember. Ya'll asked for it!"

I stood up, adjusted my shoulders a little, and blew.

A hideous screech pierced the air, and I stopped abruptly.

"See?" I smiled awkwardly. "Told you I didn't know how to play this thing."

"Try just breathing into it very, very gently," Sallie suggested. "Just put your lips up against it, and barely breathe."

"Fine," I shrugged. "If it will please you." She winked at me and nodded. I glanced at Silas, and he added softly, "Go on, little Newbie."

I raised the flute to my lips, closed my eyes, inhaled, covered all five holes with my fingers, and exhaled slowly, very slowly. A deep, rich, sweet tone floated from the flute, and without thinking, I kept blowing. I inhaled, exhaled, wriggled my fingers, and blew very softly.

The music was intoxicating, addicting. I could hardly quit. For what seemed like a long, long time I kept blowing, and the music filled the afternoon, and for a moment it seemed that all eternity paused.

I opened my eyes and lowered the flute. I stared at it in my hands, then looked at Sallie, over at Silas, back at Sallie.

"What in the world was that?" I asked.

"That was you, Sweetie," Sallie said. "Lovely.

Very, very lovely." Silas was grinning, and he shook his head in agreement.

"Lovely," he repeated her words. "Very, very lovely."

At supper that evening, I said, "You know, I don't mean to sound proud, but honest to God, that was some of the most beautiful music I think I've ever heard."

"Ain't proud to acknowledge what's in you," Sallie said, and Silas, chewing a bite of catfish, nodded his agreement.

"Besides," Sallie added, reaching for another biscuit, "the most beautiful things in life, and eternity, come from deep within you."

"And the ugliest, too," Silas mumbled. Sallie slapped his hand playfully, and he winked at me.

"Hand me some of them butter beans, Newbie," he said.

Late that night, long after Silas and Sallie had gone to bed, I got up and looked out the window. There was no moon, and it was very dark outside. I reached down on the table by my bed, felt for the flute, picked it up like the treasure it was, and walked out to the walnut tree.

I played until dawn was barely licking the eastern edge of the meadow of bluebonnets.

#  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"What happens to the babies?" I asked Silas one morning. "The ones who die early. Where do they go?"

"They go back where they came from," Silas said. "Hand me that rake over there, will you?"

I walked to the shed and retrieved the garden rake.

"Not that one!" he yelled. "The one next to it! With the fan-like head. Yeah, that's the one. Bring it here." He paused a second, then added, "Please."

After the dandelion globes had been reduced to mere stalks with little greenish disks on top, Silas had mowed the whole back yard again. The stalks and the tall grass littered the yard, made it unsightly, Sallie said. Sallie hated unsightly things. She liked things tidy and pleasant. Not perfect, just pleasant. All of this Silas told me while he raked the yard.

"Need any help?" I asked.

"No, no," he growled. "You just relax, you just sit under the tree. You just take it easy."

"Fine," I said, and I plopped down on one of the Adirondacks. After a little while, when the yard was full of little piles of clippings, Silas came and sat next to me.

"What about the babies?" I asked again.

"What babies?"

"The ones who die. I asked you about them a while ago."

"Oh, the babies," Silas said, mopping his head with her handkerchief. "I already told you, they go back where they started. Babies from Heaven go back to Heaven, babies from Paradise go back to Paradise, end of story."

"What about babies from the Basement?" I grimaced, not sure I was prepared to hear about newborn babies and young children dying and being sent directly to hell.

"I already told you, Newbie. Heaven to Heaven, Paradise to Paradise. You're not listening! Ain't you got your ears on?"

"But you said that from time to time when a person living in the Basement conjures up enough compassion they might be allowed to jump in the pond and return to life. What happens if they die early? What happens to those babies?"

"Oh, I see," Silas nodded his head. "Well, I guess I haven't been clear."

I agreed, and he frowned.

"Well, the thing is," he explained. "No little one born straight from the Basement ever dies young. I mean, not before their twenties or thirties, thereabouts.

It's a little gift from nature. Everyone gets a chance, no matter what they've done in any previous life."

"So there's no such thing as a 'bad seed?'"

"No. Oh, there are glitches that happen, nature being imperfect. But that doesn't have anything to do with a previous life. Sometimes a little kid, a young person, runs into problems, mental problems, stuff like that. It's not because they're fresh out of the Basement. Usually it's because of something in their upbringing, not enough love, not the right kind of love. You don't handle a little one with a good balance of affection and direction, you're likely going to see some behavior problems."

"But sometimes children are born into wonderful homes, raised by fine parents. And they still turn out, well, not quite right."

"That's true," Silas said. "Life's not fair. Eternity don't even always seem fair. But anyway, nine times out of ten, problems aren't caused by nature. Problems are more likely caused by choices. When people figure that out we'll all be in better shape!"

"What about when a baby or a little kid dies and comes back here?"

"Well," Silas said. "It's no big thing, not up here, anyway. Now, down there, among the living, they reckon it's about the worse thing that can happen, a young person dying. I'm not saying it's a great thing, understand. I'm just saying that everything works out okay. A couple of things can happen to the kid, depending on circumstances."

"Like what?"

"Well, for instance, we might just haul it back over to the pond and bounce it right back into life. I like doing that. It's kind of fun, and the babies generally squeal with delight."

"I see," I said without much feeling. The thought of throwing babies, even if they were going to dive headlong back in among the living, didn't sound like much of a good time to me. "What else?"

"Well, sometimes we just hang onto 'em awhile.

Someone on one of the farms or towns will raise 'em up. Kind of like keeping a newbie around. After awhile they'll make their own decision whether or not to go back to living.

"I know this one fellow, bless his heart, he's been born at least ten times, maybe more," Silas giggled. "Within three years, every time, he plops back into Paradise somewhere. No, wait," Silas tapped his forehead. "I've misspoken myself. Once he was nine years old. Anyway, he'll stay up here for, oh, I don't know, a hundred years or more, then go jump back into the pond. Next thing you know, bang, there he is again. Life just don't get a good hold on him is all. He's got a good outlook about it, though. Bless his heart."

"Seems like it's an unnecessary heartbreak for the parents, though," I said. "Losing a baby, I mean."

"Oh, it's hard on 'em alright," Silas said. "And I don't mean to sound like I got no feeling about it. Happened to me a couple times."

"You had kids?"

"Shoot," Silas said, "I've sired seven all told."

I was trying to get an image of Silas changing a diaper but shook the picture vigorously from my head when he started talking again.

"But, Newbie, pain or not, life happens. So does death. We don't have a lot of control over some things, and we can get awfully aggravated. Angry, miserable. Most pain, though, from little things to the really big ones, like losing your child, is just an opportunity to grow. Tough, tough lessons, sure. But life's just like nurturing a garden, you know."

"How's that?"

"Well, you turn over the soil, work your carcass off, dump some manure on the ground, blend it all in real good, plant, tend, water, plead a little from time to time. And in the end you might have a prize pumpkin. You might have a wilted little tomato plant. You might just get a little stem or two, or you might get an average crop. You do the best you can, or near to it. Then life gets rained on, hailed at, blown against, flooded, dehydrated, ripped apart, put back together. You can stomp against nature if you like, or you can do the best you can with what you have."

"So, what you're saying," I asked, "is that life pretty much sucks raw eggs?"

"Oh, for God's sake, Newbie!" Silas yelled. "Clean out your ears! No!" he took a deep breath, and through clenched teeth, he slowly, deliberately said, "I'm saying that life ain't fair. That things sometimes happen, sometimes really bad things. And when nasty things happen, a fool rolls over and whines, and a wiser person makes the best with what's left over, moves ahead. Plants a new garden, maybe, I don't know. But no, life does not suck raw eggs, Newbie."

Silas stood up and reached for his rake. "Grab that garbage lid over yonder, will you?"

I took the lid to him, and we worked together filling the lid with clippings, dumping them in a compost pile behind the shed, raking some more, and hauling more clippings behind the shed.

"I wonder," I said as we closed the shed door.

"What's that?" Silas asked.

"I wonder if I'm ever going to understand all this."

Just before we reached the back door of the house Silas stopped and put his hand on my shoulder. "Newbie," he said, and our eyes locked. "You understand more than you know. I'm just too impatient, is all. I ain't never gonna give Sallie that eternity in Heaven if I don't quit flying off at the handle! Well, we better wash up. I expect supper's nearly ready."

#  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A few days later, just after dinner, I heard Silas and Sallie on the front porch.

"Oh, hold still, you ol' geeser, 'fore I slit your throat again!"

Alarmed, I slipped quietly to the front door and peeked out the screen, careful not to make a sound.

"Easy with that razor, Woman!" Silas retorted.

"Then sit still!"

Silas was sitting on the wicker chair, facing the meadow of bluebonnets. Sallie was hunched over behind him, her elbows arched. She was leaning a little to the left.

"Tilt you head, Sy. No, no, the other way! There. That's better."

Relieved, I eased out onto the porch and sat on the stoop in front of Silas.

"Getting a hair cut, huh?" I asked Silas rhetorically.

"Well, what the blazes does it look like?" Silas snarled at me.

Sallie clipped a tight little white curl from over his ear and said, "Oh, don't mind him, Honey. He's just testy 'cause he's got to get cleaned up, that's all."

"Cleaned up?" I repeated. "For what?

"Oh, that idiot's going to jump today. Gonna make a big ruckus of it. I swear, I'll be glad when he's gone!"

"Who?" I asked.

"Little Cory," Sallie said. "Now Silas, I'm not telling you again. Hold still!"

"Cory Larson?"

"Yep," Sallie said. "Gonna jump in the pond this afternoon. "Around five."

"Well," I chuckled a little, "I thought you'd be happy about his going, Silas."

"Oh, I am, I am." Silas said.

"Quit squirmin'!" Sallie ordered.

I decided to forego questions until Sallie was finished, which didn't take long.

"There," she said, "I reckon you'll do." She picked up a little hand broom and swept his neck and shoulders, removed the white towel from his throat, and swept some more. She walked around in front of him and eyed him carefully with a long, steady smile. Silas was scowling.

"My, you clean up right nice!"

Silas' face shot up into a grin that seemed the crease half the bottom of his face. Sallie pulled the rocking chair over near him and sat down.

"So you're getting all slicked up just to go watch Cory jump in the pond?" I asked.

"Well, Honey," Sallie said, "Going back to life is a pretty big jump!"

"Jump!" Silas laughed. "Jump! Get it?"

Sallie and I only looked at him blankly, and he lowered his head a little. "I thought it was funny. You know, jump into life?"

We both smiled at him politely, but we didn't either one think it was nearly as funny as Silas did. He giggled quietly under his breath.

"So, this is going to be, what, like a party?" I asked.

"Oh, absolutely," Sallie said. "It's kind of like getting' hitched, I reckon. Some folks like to make a big production of it, some just like to slip away and do it real quiet like. I love a big jump, though, all that dancing and music, and...."

"...the cake," Silas interrupted. "Everyone brings cake."

"So, you coming?" Sallie asked me.

"Me?" and she nodded.

"Well, I don't know. Was I invited? I wouldn't want to intrude."

"Oh, heavens!" Sallie cackled. "You don't get invited to a jump, you just go. Just like when a baby's born in life. The baby don't send out invitations, you just go visit 'cause you care, that's all."

"I don't really know Cory," I said. "Only met him that once, at the softball game."

"Meeting Cory once is enough!" Silas said under his breath.

"Now, Silas," Sallie scolded him. "You know you don't have to go if you don't want to."

"Well," Silas winked at me, "I want to make sure he gets good and gone. An' if he don't sink fast enough I might have to hold his head under the water a little. I'd like to choke the life right into him. Get it? 'Choke the life right into him?'" he laughed, and we laughed, too.

"Besides," Silas cocked his head a little to the side. "I don't want to appear rude. Man goes out of his way to make an announcement in the paper, we might as well pay our respects."

Later, as we were walking to town to watch Cory jump in the pond, I asked Sallie what she had meant earlier when she had threatened to slit Silas' throat again. I was carrying the lemon cake Sallie had baked earlier.

"Did you kill him in a previous life?" I asked. I wondered if soulmates perhaps occasionally got so fed up with one another they resorted to murder.

Silas laughed harder than Sallie, and Sallie laughed plenty hard. They laughed so hard they had to stop walking, and Silas bent over at the waist a little and Sallie clutched her chest with her left hand.

When they got done laughing at me, Sallie, through errant gulps of giggles, said, "No. I didn't never kill ol' Sy. Mighta wanted to a couple times." She winked at him, and he winked back. "But no, it wasn't me."

"It was that no count Radford fellow," Silas said, but there wasn't the kind of rancor you might expect in the tone of a man talking about his murderer.

"It was back before the Depression," Sallie told me. "Bad time to live in the South, I'm afraid. Bad indeed."

"The newbie don't want to hear all this," Silas protested. "Not much merit in repeating it."

"Well," Sallie said. "It was your death. I expect you have the right to tell it or not."

"Well, then," Silas told her, "I'd just as soon we drop it."

We walked along the dusty road quietly for awhile.

"The thing is," Silas said a few steps later. "Radford, he wasn't so bad as he was just plain ignorant, that's all. Just a victim of the times and place, that's all."

"Oh, I'm not so sure about that," Sallie countered. "He had a choice. They all had a choice. The whole lot of 'em. Yes, sir, they did have a choice."

"If you say so," Silas said. "But it's awfully hard going against the flow. When a whole community, an entire region, believes such and such a thing, it's right difficult to stand apart and say something different."

"Difficult or not," Sallie huffed, "they every one of 'em had a choice."

"And they lived by their choice," Silas told her.

"And died by 'em, thank God!" Sallie added.

"So this Radford, I don't guess he lives in Paradise?" If I had taken time to think before asking, I doubt I would have pursued the conversation. But a lot of us talk too quickly, and a lot of us talk too much.

"No!" Silas and Sallie said at the same time.

"Not Heaven, I don't suppose?"

"Absolutely not!"

"Reincarnated?"

"Won't have a crack at jumping in the pond for at least, what, another century or two, I expect. And that's only if he can muster up some kind of goodness within him," Sallie said angrily. I couldn't remember ever seeing Sallie so aggravated as she was at the mention of Radford. "I swannee," she heaved a thick sigh. "I don't believe that man's got a lick of kindness anywhere within him."

"Oh, Sallie," Silas' voice was tender, as if trying to calm her by his tone. "There's something good within all of us. Folks like Radford, their kindness just lies deep, deep inside is all. It's just kinda tough to get to it sometimes, is all. Give him a little time, he may work it out for himself yet."

"He's a scoundrel!" Sally said, unmoved by Silas' assurances, "and I don't care if he rots there!"

She was so enraged, tears were rimming in her eyes. Silas reached over and gently took her hand. They slowed their pace some, and I speeded up a little, not real noticeably, just enough so that after a short time they were walking well behind me. They didn't catch up with me until right before we reached town.

#  CHAPTER NINETEEN

It looked like at least three hundred or more people had shown up to see Cory off. Tables with white linen clothes were piled high with cakes of every sort. Pitchers of lemonade and iced tea were scattered unevenly among the cakes, and every now and then there were stacks of small plates and some forks, and red and blue Dixie cups.

The party had already started before we got there. Gus Mitchum and Khalid Khomer were playing a fiddle duet.

"I've heard that song before," I said to Silas and Sallie. "Isn't that _Carry Me Back to Ol' Virginny_? " I asked.

"Yes, I think it is," Silas nodded.

Sallie agreed, "Uh huh, it sure is."

"I'm a little surprised they'd be playing a song like that, with its long history of controversy."

"Controversy?" Silas looked at me quizzically. "Why, there ain't nothing controversial about it. Cory just likes the song a lot, says it reminds him of one of his girlfriends in his last life. Her name was Virginia. That's all."

"Oh," I said, embarrassed.

"Besides," Sallie whispered. "Most folks don't even know the words. And it's the title what's important. At least for this evening."

"So Cory wants to find his old girlfriend in his next life?"

"Maybe," Silas said with a sly grin. "Wait, watch, and wizen up."

The next tune was _Oh Susannah_!

"Who's Susannah? " I asked.

"Susan," Silas whispered. Susan McFarland. Now, hush! I want to hear this one."

The next string of songs included _Georgia on My Mind_ , Rod McKuen's _Jean_ , _Sweet Caroline_ , _Take a Letter, Maria_ , _You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille_ , and _Mrs Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter_.

"Good Lord," Sallie whispered under her breath. "I didn't realize Cory Larson was such a ladies' man!"

"Hmmm," Silas answered. He swung his hand out to Sallie, and said, "Come on, Woman, let's cut the rug!"

They danced through _Maggie May_ , which sounded a little strange played on two violins, and _Sylvia's Mother_ , which also sounded a little funny on the violins. After that, someone I didn't recognize said something to Gus and Khalid, and they started playing things like _Cottoneye Joe_ and other more traditional fiddle tunes. Lucy started clogging, and several others joined it.

The whole time people were eating cake and drinking, laughing, dancing, carrying on. Every now and then I saw Cory as he made his way through the crowd. He was smiling, shaking hands with people, hugging the old ladies and tussling the younger boys' hair. Men clapped him on the back, and over the course of the evening I spotted three separate teenaged girls kiss him on the cheek.

I mingled a little, spoke briefly with a few people, and made a little polite conversation. Mostly I just gawked at this great gathering of souls.

At one point I saw Silas across the sway of people. He was talking privately with Cory, and when they finished speaking they hugged one another warmly and slapped each other on the back.

Sallie and I were eating a piece of Cornelius' vanilla cream cake with strawberry icing and talking with Mrs McMillan when the music stopped abruptly. Everyone moved pretty quickly near and around the pond. I expected it was time for speeches. I was wrong.

Cory Larson was standing about twenty or thirty feet from the edge of the pond. All of a sudden I heard him scream at the top of his lungs, "Gang way!" The crowd instinctively parted, like a miniature Red Sea. Cory, running at full force, made a loud yawpish yell, waved his arms wildly, his face radiant with exhilaration. He belly flopped into the pond, and some of the ladies standing too near the pond got doused with the splashing water. Everyone fell silent and waited patiently, reverently, until the last ripple was stilled.

A thunderous, ear-splitting roar went up among the people, an exuberant applause, a mixture of loud hurrah's and hearty laughter.

On the way home a little while later I commented to Silas and Sallie about how happy everyone was at the pond jumping.

"I read once," Silas said, "that people always give joy to others. Some by their coming. Some by their going."

"So people were happy to see Cory leave?" I asked. "Seemed to me he was pretty well liked, despite his pranks."

"He was," Sallie said. "I think everyone liked him very much."

"Especially the gals," Silas laughed.

"Well," I teased him, "I saw you being mighty friendly with him tonight."

"I was not!" Silas growled, then he smiled at Sallie and they winked at one another.

"The thing is, Honey," Sallie explained. "Goings are just a part of comings, and when you care for someone who's chosen to go somewhere else, you don't hold 'em back. You share their joy."

"Even if you miss them?" I asked.

"Especially if you miss them, Newbie," Silas said. "You don't miss something you don't love, and you wouldn't want to hold back someone you love from doing what they want, would you?"

"I suppose not," I said.

"Well, then," Silas said. "Where's the confusion?"

"But people are sad when they lose folks they love," I said. "That's only logical."

"Oh," Sally said. "That's very true. But you can be sad and happy at the same time, you know."

"I don't understand."

"That's because you've still stuck in that either-or silliness like so many people who are alive," Silas said.

"Now, whenever Silas goes out and gets himself killed, or one of us jumps in the pond before the other," Sally said, "Yes, sir, I do feel a lot of sadness. But I feel a lot of happiness, too. Just like Silas says, you wouldn't want to keep someone you love from getting where they're going, would you?"

I shook my head no, then said to Silas, "You ever just die of natural causes, or do you always get murdered?"

"Never mind."

"I mean, except for the plague," I persisted.

"Drop it, Newbie."

"He frequently gets hisself murdered, Honey," Sallie told me. "Wise people with the backbone to speak what they believe do tend to get caught in the crosshairs sometimes."

"Still," Silas said, "I probably need to pipe down a little. One does weary of getting beat, shot, lynched, and sliced up. Maybe I oughta just tone it down a little in the future."

"Up to you, Dear," Sallie said.

Late that night, before I fell asleep, I wondered what a toned down Silas would look like but I didn't think I'd enjoy being around him nearly as much as I did. I also doubted if he would know how to be any less than who he was.

One thing I had learned in my short time in eternity was that it was nearly impossible to not be who you are. One's spirit, Silas had taught me, haunts you, propels you, sustains you. What it doesn't do, he said, is abandon you. Your spirit, with very little fluctuating, remains pretty much stable throughout all your lives and all your eternities.

#  CHAPTER TWENTY

Silas and I were walking the bluebonnets late one morning a few days after Cory jumped in the pond. I forget now what he was fussing at me about, but it had something to do with whether or not people could be innately good or bad, and the more we talked the more irritated he became with me.

But isn't there good and evil, I had challenged him. He sniffed indignantly and said dichotomies were for sissies. I never did figure that out entirely, but he seemed very self assured about his position.

He did clarify it a little.

"We're all goodness. It's just buried a little deeper in some folks than others," he explained.

"And evil?" I asked.

"No such thing as evil, really," he said. "Evil ain't nothing but not enough goodness. The goodness most likely is there, but if a person doesn't show the goodness it don't count for much."

"So evil is a passive thing?" That didn't make much sense to me.

"No!" His voice was stern "Not passive. The absence of goodness is very volatile, very agitating. Like a washing machine. If you don't have enough goodness showing you're going to be spinning like a top most of the time, causing havoc to yourself and others. Hard to have fun in life or eternity if you're too busy spinning all the time. Better to just let your goodness rise to the top, kinda like cream. Hey, you hungry? I'm about ready for dinner." And he took long, quick strides toward the house.

Later that afternoon I helped Sallie with the laundry. We washed everything by hand. A few times each week we took a couple loads down by the creek way off behind the shed, scrubbed them till our hands were nearly raw, rinsed, wrung, then hung them on the line. The next morning, unless it rained or the dew was especially heavy overnight, we'd take them off the line, fold them, put them away.

I loved the scent of fresh eternal breeze on sun- soaked clothes.

As we were folding the last couple of towels, I thought about Silas' reference to a washing machine the day before. "Sallie," I asked. "You ever had a real washing machine?"

"What would I need one of those for?"

"Well, wouldn't it make life, or eternity, a little easier?"

"What do I want with easier?" she asked.

"Convenience?"

"For what?"

"Well, I guess to save time."

"Save time?" Sallie chuckled, and sat the basket down on the ground by one of the Adirondacks. "Let's take a break," she said. I sat down with her.

"Now, this business of saving time," she started.

"Uh huh," I nodded.

"Well, a couple of things."

"Uh huh."

"First," Sallie said. "Time don't need rescuing. Time is doing alright all on its own."

"I'm not sure you understand what I...."

"Second," she said. "When you've got eternity under your feet, you don't look for shortcuts. Shortcuts keep you from enjoying your way."

"Uh huh."

"And in the third place," Sallie said, "I like washing clothes by the creek. I like cooking with a stove instead of, what are those contraptions ya'll got down there these days, microwaves? I like walking instead of riding some kind of motorized conveyance about. I like visiting my friends instead of yacking on a phone. No sir," she concluded. "Your conveniences just might be a way of keeping me from doing things I like to do."

"But, I mean," I stammered, and I wasn't sure if my next question made any sense whatsoever. "What if you're too busy to do the things you enjoy?"

"Honey child," Sallie said, "If I'm too busy to do the things I enjoy, I am plain too busy, period." She looked up at the sky. "Looks like we might get a little thunderstorm this afternoon. We'd better pack these clothes into the house and get dinner on."

After the dishes were put away and we were sitting in the living room, Sallie laughed and told Silas I was pestering her for a new Maytag. I looked up at her, then him, shook my head no, and Sallie laughed. Silas giggled a little.

"Oh, most of our newbies wind up suggesting we install a few modern doodads before they leave," he said.

"But I didn't...."

"Never mind, Newbie," Silas laughed. "Doesn't matter if you did or you didn't."

I sulked for a little while, but very quietly. Silas had finished _Catcher in the Rye_ several weeks earlier and was over half way through with _Splendor in the Grass_. I told him I wondered it that wasn't a little racy for Paradise but Sallie shushed me, said let the man read what he wants to read, and they winked at one another.

Sallie was working on the afghan, and it seemed to look more like a small throw and less like a wad of yarn every day. I commented on how pretty it was, and she held up so I could see it better. "You like it, Honey?" I nodded and said, "Yes, very much." She smiled and kept crocheting.

The clouds clapped thunder all afternoon, and the skies poured down until nearly dark.

"So, there's no technology in eternity?" I asked.

"Why, sure there is!" Silas said. He turned a page, read very intensely, looked at Sallie, and said, "Dear, have you read this play?"

"Yes, Dear," she smiled and nodded.

"My goodness!" He kept reading.

"So, where is the technology?" I asked to anyone in the room who might care to answer.

"Why, we got plenty of technology!" Sallie exclaimed. "We've got running water, got an indoor toilet and tub, we've got lights, an icebox, and a furnace."

"Well, yes," I said. "But what about computers, TV's, and cars, that kind of thing? I don't mean just conveniences, like you and I were talking about earlier. I mean, like entertainment. Video games, for example. Doesn't eternity have anything like that?"

"Sure, we do!" Silas said. "I mean, not around here we don't, but it's only 'cause we don't want 'em. Some towns, they've got most of the latest gadgets. Some towns, don't. Just like among the living, really. Only around here, it's just a preference thing. It's not about what you can afford, it's about what you want."

"You mean, you could have electronics and you don't want them?" I asked.

"Right," Silas said, closing the book and setting it on the table next to him. "I think I'll look at this later on tonight," he whispered to Sallie, and she smiled and whispered back, "Yes, Dear."

"Well," I shook my head slowly. "I just don't get it."

Silas stood up and walked toward the kitchen to get himself a peach. As he passed by my chair he looked down at me and said, "Just because you don't get it don't mean it's not got."

#  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The storm finally passed, as storms so often do. After supper the three of us sat out by the walnut tree and talked until well after dark. A travel brochure had arrived a few days earlier, and Sallie and Silas were debating where to take their fall vacation. Sallie wanted to go snorkeling off the coast of Bohalia, but Silas said he'd like to see Minet.

Minet, he explained to me in some detail, was a community that had been founded during the late Middle Ages. There were three castles in the region, and pre-Renaissance villages scattered all around.

Maybe they'd just take separate vacations, Sallie suggested. Silas frowned at her suggestion and said maybe Minet could wait another year or two. Besides, he reasoned, it had stood there for hundreds of years, he was sure it wasn't going anywhere.

"Well," Sallie said, "We'll see when it gets closer."

"So, you're really going on a vacation, huh?" I asked

"Oh, yes, indeed," Sallie answered. "We vacate for a month every year. Just after Silas finishes up with the season's bluebonnets."

"Won't you have your new newbies by then?" I asked. "The ones from China?"

"Oh, they can come along if they like," Sallie said.

"But if you're only gone a month," I asked "what will you do with the rest of the winter?"

"Why, it takes at least two months just to get to Bohalia, and of course two more to get home," Sallie said.

"A month and half in the opposite direction to get to Minet," said Silas. "Each way."

"That's a lot of walking," I said.

"Well, the journey's just as much fun as the destination," Sallie said.

"If you know how to walk right," Silas added.

The stars had just started sprinkling the sky, little by little.

"Oh, look, Sy!" Sallie pointed up and toward her left. "Isn't that the constellation of Isis?"

I followed her finger to a cluster of twinkling stars. It looked like a little glob of stars to me. I had never heard of the constellation of Isis, and if I had, chances are I wouldn't recognize it anyway.

"Uh huh," Silas said. "Oh, and there, what's the name of that one? I can't remember."

"Me, neither," Sallie said.

The only constellation I had ever been able to pick out was the Big Dipper. Mom had shown it to me when I was a young girl. During the years I lived away from Kentucky, I would look up at the sky at night and wonder if Mom and I were looking at the Big Dipper together. And later, after Mom died, I still looked up at it at night and wondered if she was looking at it, too.

Apparently not, I smiled thinly. And then, remembering that she had already reincarnated, my thin smile fattened up.

I wondered if Mom was looking at the Big Dipper tonight.

"I don't see the Big Dipper," I said. "It's not there."

"Oh, it's there alright," Silas said. "Just 'cause you can't see it don't mean it ain't up there. Lot's of things are plain as day when you're one place, absolutely invisible when you're somewhere else. But they're nearly always there. Besides, you might think you're looking at one thing when you're really looking at something different altogether."

"Well, that's true enough," Sallie agreed. "It's all about perception, I reckon."

"Just like your armadillo, Newbie."

"How'd you know about the armadillo?" I asked.

"It's in your packet," Silas said. "Well, not the whole story. Just a little handwritten note. It says, Perception - things are always, usually, frequently, sometimes, occasionally, every now and then actually something else. Ask her to tell you about the armadillo."

"You know," I countered, "my packet isn't that thick. No more than maybe fifteen, twenty pages at most. You'd think if someone was going to condense my life into less than twenty pages they'd include more important things than a silly little story about an armadillo."

"That armadillo might have been one of the most important things that ever happened to you," Sallie said with a smile.

"Tell us the story," Silas leaned in his chair. "I believe I'd like to hear it."

Sallie leaned toward me, too. "Oh, me, too!" she squealed. "I want to hear this!"

I hesitated a minute. I looked at my little audience, their eagerness dripping onto the grass.

"It's really not that great of a story," I hedged.

"Tell us anyway," Silas said, and Sallie nodded.

"Well, it was when I lived in Texas. I was in my early twenties at the time."

The first time I told this story was to my friend

Jennifer. She had lived in Texas all her life, but I had only been there two and a half years. I lived in Lubbock for exactly one year, to the day, then moved to Keller, just north of Ft Worth.

I hadn't been in Keller but a few months when I saw the armadillo.

I usually took a long walk after work. Keller was a small town back then, not like it is today. Back then I could leave my front door in the middle of town and three minutes later be walking on a long, lonely back road.

From my house up to the first stop sign on that quiet little road was exactly one mile. You walk it a time or two every evening, you get cobwebs and all sorts of other irritations out of your head, and you sleep better at night.

I got so frustrated with my job sometimes it would take five or six trips to the stop sign and back to clear my mind.

One evening I was taking my walk after work. Just before I reached the stop sign I heard a slight rustle in the grass to my left. I stopped and looked, and there it was. An armadillo. It looked at me, and I looked at it, and we neither one moved.

In Kentucky we have rabbits and deer, squirrels, racoons, 'possums. These are the kinds of animals you're more likely see when you're taking a long walk after work in Kentucky.

We don't have armadillos in Kentucky. Everything I knew about armadillos I had learned from a radio station in Lubbock the year before.

It seems they had what they called armadillo races in Lubbock, a promotional event for one of the local bars. I didn't go to bars in Lubbock, and I never saw an armadillo. And yet, here I was in Keller, facing one. I knew it was an armadillo because I had seen a picture of one in an encyclopedia. I hadn't read the accompanying article.

The armadillo and I were less than ten feet apart.

Without a doubt, it was the ugliest animal I had ever seen in my life. I prefer my animals to be soft and furry. I don't think this animal owned a follicle.

The armadillo's face was thick and long, its ears puny and leather-like, and its body sheathed in layers of what looked like a steel-plated armor. A little slither of tail was hanging out the back. I couldn't see its feet or legs.

The armadillo didn't take its little black eyes off me. Despite its deplorable appearance, it seemed harmless enough, and I wanted to get a better look at it. I stepped forward. It didn't flinch. I took another step. It didn't move. One more step. Its left ear perked up at me, and I'm pretty sure if it had had eyebrows one of them would have raised at that moment.

With lightening speed, the armadillo lunged at me.

Now, I'm not a sprinter. I don't run fast, never have.

I was back in my house a mile away in less than three minutes.

I bolted from that animal, and I did not even consider glancing back. I could feel its nasty little breath at my feet, and I ran faster, harder. Little mercury wings sprouted off the back of each my ankles.

I flew home.

Once inside, I locked the door and the dead bolt, and barricaded the door with my couch, two end tables, and a cedar trunk full of blankets. Huffing, puffing, panting, I peered anxiously onto the front porch through the window.

I didn't see the armadillo, but I was sure I could still hear it breathing.

That night I slept on the couch, still smacked up against the door, clutching a baseball bat.

I told Jennifer this story a year or so after it happened. I had always been a little proud of surviving my attack by the armadillo, and I guess I was trying to impress my new friend.

Jennifer was not impressed. Instead, Jennifer laughed. She laughed so hard she made those gasping, gagging little sounds people make sometimes when they can't catch their breath. She held her sides to keep them from splitting, and then she laughed some more.

I grew impatient after a few minutes of watching her hysterics. My story was heroic, not comical.

"What's so funny?" I demanded, when her laughter was finally starting to subside. Jennifer looked at me, and she burst out laughing again. She was crying now. She kept laughing.

Laughter, even over the very funniest of things, has a life span. Thankfully, Jennifer's laughter finally died.

Her face was contoured up and she could barely squeeze the words out. Tears were trickling down both cheeks.

"Armadillos can't run," she said. "Armadillos jump. They're too heavy to run. When they get scared they jump one time, maybe twice. Armadillos don't run."

#  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Silas told me once that we already know all there is to know. Our entire existence is simply remembering.

A few afternoons after the thunderstorm, I had my first clear memory of my first life. Sallie had gone to town with Silas. They took the Radio Flyer, and were planning on getting a few groceries. Sallie wanted to visit with Khalid's wife, and Silas was planning on helping mow the softball field. They'd be gone most of the afternoon.

"Don't worry about supper," Sallie called behind her as they left the porch. "We'll bring home some carry out."

I walked out to the locust trees and sat on Silas' rocker. I closed my eyes, opened them again, closed them. I wasn't asleep, I knew I wasn't asleep. What cascaded onto my mind was as real as any memory I've ever had.

The sky was blue, with very thin hints of white clouds far overhead. The air was a little thinner than I was accustomed to. The landscape was rugged, sand and rust colored cliffs jutting up from of a wide, open plain. The tall grass was thick and more brown than green.

I remembered a young boy, maybe seventeen years old, and I was only a year or so younger. I could not remember his name yet, but I knew I liked him very much. We were best friends, had been since we were toddlers. But sitting in Silas' rocking chair that afternoon I did not remember details of my first childhood, only the end of that childhood.

It was a custom, as it was among many of the native nations in that land, that when a young man wanted to court a young woman he made a flute, then stood outside her home at night and played it for her. If the girl liked the boy she would acknowledge his song, they would fall in love, and live happily ever after. If she didn't like his playing, she ignored the music, and that was the end of the courtship.

At least, that's how I remembered it.

My best friend was a brave young boy with a wonderful, gentle heart. He was also the shyest guy in the village.

I knew he cared for me as deeply as I loved him. A lady knows these things, sometimes before the gentleman does. All he needed, I thought, was a little push.

I decided that if he wouldn't play for me, I'd play for him.

In my village girls didn't learn how to make flutes, and they didn't learn how to play them. They only knew how to listen to the music, which I'm told is in and of itself a great gift. But I was impatient and stubborn.

For weeks, after supper, I slipped away quietly from my village and disappeared into the thickets. There was a small cedar grove not far from the village. I had found an old discarded knife of sorts, an arrowhead-like stone wrapped around a thick stick with a strip of rawhide. I carved a little totem of an animal, but now, thinking about it in the rocking chair, I couldn't quite remember what animal it was supposed to be. And I still couldn't remember the boy's name.

I collected a little pile of thin cedar branches and, after many weeks of trial and error, mostly error, I had what looked a little bit like a flute. It was ugly, but yes, it did resemble a flute.

The evening after I had whittled out the last hole in the wood, I looked around to make sure no one could see me. I covered the five holes on top with my fingers, and barely whispered into one of the ends. The sound was gentle and sweet, and as beautiful as any flute I had ever heard. I hid it under some cedar branches and returned home to wait for my opportunity.

A few days later the boy went up to the top of one of the cliffs. There was a grassy mesa up there, and sometimes people, mostly the boys and men, would climb up there just to get away from everyone else for awhile.

I sneaked into the cedar grove, grabbed my flute, and followed the boy from a distance. I watched him climb the side of the cliff, surefooted as a goat. And it wasn't that high of a cliff. From where I stood, maybe fifty feet.

Love takes you to new heights.

Of course, sometimes you have to climb up a steep, rocky wall to get there.

I didn't have pockets, so I clenched the flute between my teeth and started up the rock. Most of the climb wasn't that bad, just awkward and rough. As long as I used my hands and feet for balance, I did fine. I slipped once, but quickly regained my equilibrium. Just before I crested the top, I heard music.

I pulled myself up to the edge of the cliff carefully and peered through the brush. I could barely see him.

He was standing away from me, and he was playing a flute. He hit a few rough notes, but that didn't matter at all. His playing warmed my heart better than any fire. I knew he was practicing his song for me. A lady knows these things. I pulled myself up a little higher to get a better view.

My left foot slipped under some loose rocks.

I didn't scream on my way down the side of the cliff. I was clamping down as hard as I could on my flute.

And then things went dark.

#  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

"What I don't understand," I told Silas a few days later, "is why dying has to be so unpleasant. Why does it have to hurt so much?"

"Doesn't always hurt," Silas said.

"But it usually does, doesn't it?" I asked.

"Yeah," he conceded. "I guess it does. Getting born is pretty rough on the body, too. Especially for the mama. Transitions are like that, though. Hard to go through changes without some groaning."

"Why is that?"

"I'm not sure," Silas answered. "I haven't lived long enough to know."

"And it seems like we're always in the middle of something when we die, always loose ends. Do any of us ever die when we're ready?"

"Who's to say what being ready means?" Silas asked. "Life's not tidy. It's got ragged edges. The only people I've ever known who weren't doing something when they died were in a coma. Sometimes the coma's physical. Sometimes it's just spiritual. Sometimes people quit living a long time before they quit breathing."

"And the other thing I don't like about dying," I said, "is that a lot of times you don't get to say goodbye. I mean, to the person who dies."

"Yeah," Silas agreed. "That's real frustrating. 'Course there are many ways of saying goodbye. And when it's real, real important, life has a way of slipping in and helping out. Like in visions or some seemingly peculiar event. We do tend to minimize these things, though. We call them dreams sometimes, or maybe coincidences. Sometimes, when you're alive, it's hard to see the truth."

"For example?"

"Well," Silas said with a tiny clip of impatience in his voice. "The world is full of examples."

"Just give me one," I smiled, and he smiled back.

"Fine." He cleared his throat. "This one woman I met a few years ago, I'll tell you about her. She had a little boy named Sam who died when he was eight years old. Some kind of cancer, I don't remember exactly. Well, naturally, she was devastated."

"Naturally," I said.

Silas continued. "One night, about two weeks after Sam's funeral, she has to go to the store for some milk. Just before she walks into the building, she sees this old man. As she passes by him he says to her, "I've been waiting for you.' Naturally, she was startled," Silas said.

"Naturally."

"She looks at the old man, but doesn't know what to say, so he continues. 'I just wanted you to know that Sam's okay.' Well, the woman starts to cry, covers her face with her hands, and runs into the store. She stops all of a sudden, rushes back outside, looks all around the parking lot, but the old man's gone."

"Was the old man really there?" I asked. "Did he really speak to her?"

"What do you think?"

"Sounds pretty fantastic," I said.

"Well, you have to decide for yourself. I've got to go pick up the mail." And he headed out across the bluebonnet field.

I walked in the opposite direction, and as I walked I remembered.

Michael died in June 1976. I was in college in Tennessee that summer, and he was living in Texas. He was killed on a motorcycle on his way back to work after lunch.

I didn't have a phone at that time, and it wasn't until the next morning that I learned he had died. I drove the five hour drive back to Elizabethtown in two and a half hours. The next week was a blur.

I was very close to Michael's parents and stayed at their house until I returned to school the Sunday after his death. That Saturday night I had the first sound sleep I had had since Michael died.

Suddenly, I shot up in the bed. Without thinking, without deliberating, I walked across the room, down the stairs, through the living room, around the corner by the kitchen, and opened the basement door. I walked down the steps and stopped.

His casket, the one that he had been buried in three days earlier, was in the middle of the room. The top half of the lid was open, and he was lying very, very still. His eyes were closed.

And then Michael opened his eyes, sat up rather casually, and looked over at me. "Well, hey, Kitten," he smiled. Michael was the only person who ever called me Kitten, and he never called me that in front of anyone else.

Michael climbed out of his casket, walked to me, and we sat down on the stairs. We talked for a long, long time. I don't remember the conversation, but I remember we laughed, and I remember he held my hand.

After a few hours a gray fog of morning sun began easing through the dusty basement windows. Michael looked over at me, smiled, and said, "Well. Gotta go."

"Do you love me still?" I asked.

"Better than any other way!" he smiled, and we both giggled at the old joke we had shared with one another since high school.

Michael stood up, hugged me, walked back to the casket, climbed in, and closed his eyes. His face dissolved into a mask.

When I opened my own eyes again I was lying back in bed.

A dream? I always wondered.

What muddied the whole story up even more, though, was when Michael's dad Ted got sick twenty- two years later. When I learned he was in the hospital, I left my home in Massachusetts and came back to Kentucky. I visited Ted every day, though he was only semiconscious, and I doubted he even knew I was there.

About two weeks after I returned to Kentucky, Ted developed a low-grade infection that went unchecked by the hospital staff and his doctor. His gall bladder ruptured, and they prepared him for emergency surgery. I took his wife to the hospital to visit him less than an hour before the operation was to begin. When we walked into the room, Ted was sitting up. He turned and looked at me with clear eyes, and said, "Well, hello, Kitten!"

Ted never regained consciousness after his surgery and he died of peritonitis two weeks later.

Sounds pretty fantastic?

Well, you have to decide for yourself.

#  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The next night I stayed outside long after Silas and Sallie had gone into the house. When I finally went inside the living room was quiet, and only one lamp, on the table between the two green overstuffed chairs, was on. I turned the light off and tip toed quietly to my bedroom.

I didn't bother turning the bedroom light on. I had the room memorized by now. I sat on the edge of the featherbed, cast the covers back, and crawled in.

I felt an unusual heaviness on my toes, like an extra blanket. I sat back up in the bed and switched on the lamp.

A brand new, beautiful teal colored afghan was carefully draped across the foot of the bed. A short note was pinned to it: "May all your nights be warmed with love. Sallie and Silas."

#  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

April showers and May flowers had both come and gone. The dandelions and bluebonnets had long since faded. I wondered where they went until the next spring, but I kept forgetting to ask.

Silas still walked through the meadow every morning. He said just because a thing died didn't mean it needed to be adored any less. Sometimes even more so, he said. I almost asked what he meant by that, then checked myself. That was the very kind of question that would raise his blood pressure, and I decided it wasn't that important anyway.

It was as if Silas anticipated my question, though, and he answered it on his own. Sallie was walking with us that morning, something she rarely did.

"'Course," Silas said under his breath, "Some things just go away altogether."

"Silas!" Sallie scolded him playfully. "You know that ain't true."

Silas argued, "Well, some things do change, and some things do remain."

Sallie countered, "But there are always remnants, traces, of the things changed. Hundreds of years later there's still at least a little tiny whiff of fragrance of a flower long since wilted."

"Just takes a powerful set of nostrils to smell it," Silas added.

Over dinner that day I wondered out loud what would happen to my jump box and my afghan after I reincarnated.

"Why, they get held up here till you're ready for them again," Sallie said.

"And how do I choose what to put in my jump box from my last life?" I asked.

They both looked at one another, then back at me.

"You planning a trip anytime soon?" Silas asked.

"Not really," I said. "Not sure. Don't know."

"Dear, that's private," Sallie scolded him again with a playful whisper, "Hand me the ketchup there, Honey. Thanks."

"Well, I was just curious," I said. "About how to tell, well, whoever one is supposed to tell what I want to be put in my jump box."

"You write it down and put it in an envelope, Sweetie," Sallie said. "We'll see it gets in the mail."

"What are you going to put in your jump box?" Silas asked.

"Silas!" Sallie scolded him. "That's private!"

"Well," Silas pouted a little." I was just wondering."

Silas and I were building a picnic table for Sallie later that afternoon. She had been asking for one the last three years and he just hadn't gotten to it. So that afternoon, we started getting to it.

"It's a toss up between Michael's class ring and Mom and Pop's peanut," I said.

"What is?" Silas asked. "Damnation!" He screamed, hopped around the yard awhile, clutched his thumb, kissed his thumb, and said some more words. When the throbbing finally eased and he felt safe to hammer another nail, I continued.

"There are so many things from my last life I hold dear," I said. "And most of them are small enough to fit into my jump box. Letters, pictures, my books, Richard Bach's books, Thomas Moore's books,...."

"I get it," Silas interrupted me. "You like books. Go on."

"And I noticed, when I got to thinking about it, that most of the things I owned, the things that were most precious to me, were gifts from others. Even the books. I mean, sometimes when I read Illusions it's like Richard was writing me a love letter, telling a story just for me."

"That's the mark of a good writer," Silas said. "Writing to 'an audience of one,' I've heard it called. What else, though. What else besides the books?"

"Well, the ring and the peanut, like I said." I laughed at Silas and said, "What's the matter, Newbie? Ain't you got your ears on?"

He chuckled with me, and when we were done chuckling, I said, "I wore Michael's class ring for two years. After we broke up, of course, I gave it back to him. But he never wore it again. His mother kept it after he died. And just before she died she gave it to me, and I had it until, well, until I died."

"And the peanut?"

I laughed. "Now, that's a pretty funny story."

"Well, let's hear it, then," Silas said. "Let's take a break, though. This sun is really coming down."

We sat under the walnut tree.

I left Kentucky to go to college the week after I turned eighteen. From then until 1998 I always lived away, but I visited Mom and Pop at least once a year for the next twenty-four years. I usually came home either Christmas or Thanksgiving.

When I moved to Massachusetts in the early nineties, though, I didn't get to come home in the winter. Hard to plan a long drive, or a flight, when you never know when it's fixing to start snowing. So I usually came home in the late spring or early summer, sometimes the early fall. Christmas time was long phone calls and gifts in the mail.

One year, the week before Christmas, I received a small package in the mail from Mom and Pop. I waited until Christmas to open it.

They had sent me gorgeous gold necklace. Eighteen carat, very nice, very dainty. It was lovely, but I was a little confused. I didn't wear jewelry. I had never worn much jewelry.

Well, I smiled to myself, it's the thought that counts. I called them.

"It's beautiful," I told Mom with more enthusiasm than I felt. "I love it. Thank you so much! Did you and Pop get my package?"

Several months later Mom asked me how I was enjoying my peanut.

"What peanut?" I asked, confused.

"Why, the one we sent you for Christmas last year!" she said.

"I didn't get a peanut for Christmas last year," I said. "You sent me a very nice chain. Remember?"

"Oops," she giggled, and that was the last I heard of it.

I went home to Kentucky that summer. Mom and Pop hugged me at the door with the kind of encircling embraces that only they knew how to give. We sat down on the couch, and before I could even start to complain about the long drive and the crazy traffic, or tell her how wonderful her house smelt, she was thrusting a little box into my hand. It was wrapped in red paper with little snowmen, and a tiny red bow was on top.

Inside was the exact replica of a peanut, only it was made of eighteen carat gold and had a tiny clasp on top.

I cried, and Mom cried, and Pop just smiled real big.

#  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

"Silas," I asked. "When do I get to meet God?" I had been putting off asking for some time, but felt the time was finally right.

The three of us had just returned from a softball game. It was my last game pitching, and we had walked two days to a town whose name I couldn't pronounce. Chang was coming home in a week. We hadn't won a single game all season, but no one complained. We just had a lot of fun playing.

Sallie was washing out all her canning supplies and Silas suggest we might want to stay outside that afternoon. We were sitting on the front porch.

"God?" he repeated.

"Right," I said. "When I first met you, I thought you were God at first. Do you remember that?"

Silas chuckled a little. "I remember you confusin' me with Simon Peter. You confuse me with God, too? No, I don't remember."

"Maybe you just didn't hear me," I said.

"Maybe."

"So anyway, what about God?" I asked again. "I'd like to say hey to Him. Or Her."

Silas laughed a little at me. "Here," he offered me a peach. "Want one?"

"No, thanks."

"Suit yourself. I'm going to have one."

The juice dripped down the side of his beard as he bit into it, and he hummed a little delight. "Oh, that's tender," he purred. "Nice an' soft, just the way I like my peaches and my women!"

"You're pathetic," I teased him.

Silas wiped his hands on the sides of his overalls, sucked in a deep breath of summer, and said, "Well, little Newbie, I'm still not sure you've been hearing so good."

"I don't know what you're saying," I protested. "I haven't mentioned God one time since the day I met you."

"But God's all we've been talking about since you got here," Silas said. He didn't sound at all impatient with me, like I might have expected. His voice was gentle, kind.

I hated to risk his wrath, but I really didn't recall a single mention of God in any of our conversations. I told him so.

Silas raised his thick, white eyebrows and started rocking a little more quickly. But when he spoke, his voice was even, stable.

"God is everywhere," he finally said. "In the chirp of a baby bird, the beating of the waves at sea, every blade of grass dancing in every breeze. When you shake a man's hand, you're shaking the hand of God. When you hug a sick child, you're hugging God. When you're eating a piece of Sallie's apple pie, you're eating God's love, for that's what she puts in all her pies, you know." He winked at me.

"Even the religions on earth, for their occasional confusion, they get this part right. God is light. God is the beginning and the end. God is love. Everything that exists is God. Joy and sadness, pain and suffering, hope and faith and love, laughter and tears. There is no speck in all of creation that is not fashioned of God.

"God is not a dogma or a denomination, and God is certainly not anything to do with damnation. These things are divisive, and God is unity, not division.

"Folks speak of God as being omnipresent, and they are blind to God's presence. They talk of the omnipotence of God, and they deny the power of God. They'll tell you of God's omniscience, and they live like God is ignorant.

"God ain't no pronoun. God is all. God is one, and we are all one, every bit of us is God. Not a morsel of God, but God." Silas shot a tiny frown at me, daring me to be confused, but I just listened, and he continued. "You get this piece, little Newbie, and everything else is gravy. Whatever you see, hear, taste, smell, feel is God. You look at someone else, anyone else, you're looking at God. You look in a mirror, you see God's reflection."

I looked deep, deep into Silas' eyes, and he looked deep, deep into mine.

Then he added, "You sure you won't have a peach?"

I said thank you, no.

"Well," Silas said, reaching for the bowl. "I believe I'll help myself to another one!"

#  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

"Honey, can you take this letter to the post office?"

Sallie handed me an envelope.

"You mean the mail box?" I asked.

"No, I want it sent special. Give it to Sandhu at the post office, she'll know what to do with it."

"Okay," I said. "Need me to go now?"

"Oh," she said, "I expect it'll hold until after dinner. I fixed your favorite. Fried chicken. Here," she took the letter back from me. "We'll just put this on the mantle for now."

After we had cleared the table and put the dishes away, I went into my room for a few minutes. I seldom went in there during the day except to get something. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked around.

I picked up my flute and blew a few minutes, and smiled at the tenderness and the memories. I played with the ivory amulet between my fingers, and piddled with some of the other treasures in my jump box. I was remembering more and more from my earlier lives, and my earlier eternities.

I wrapped my teal afghan around my shoulders, closed my eyes, and felt the warmth of Silas and Sallie's love. I folded it carefully and draped it back across the foot of the bed.

Sallie kept a small stack of floral stationary and envelopes in the drawer of the bed stand. I took out a sheet of paper, wrote a note, sealed it in an envelope, and stuffed it in my pocket.

Silas was reading a book, but I couldn't see the title. Sallie had started a new afghan, bright red. She had just finished two other ones, much smaller, and also red.

"This the letter?" I asked reaching toward the mantle.

Sallie glanced up and said, "Let's see." I held the envelope up, and she said, "Yep, that's the one. Just give it to Sandhu, she'll take care of it." She returned her attention to the afghan, and I slipped the envelope from my pocket on the mantle where Sallie's letter had been.

I started out the front door, but before it slammed behind me I caught it, stuck my head back in, and called out, "Silas? Sallie?"

They both looked up at me.

"Just wanted to say thanks," I said.

"For what?" Sallie asked.

"Well, for dinner and, well, for everything. I really appreciate it."

"Well, Honey, we're glad to do it," said Sallie. She smiled and returned to her red afghan.

Silas peered at me over his bifocals for a few seconds longer, then said, "You be careful on your way, little Newbie. Mind you don't get lost."

"Well," I laughed. "I expect if I get lost I'll eventually find my way home. That's how it works around here, ain't it?"

Silas winked a twinkled smile at me, and returned to his book.

It was another gorgeous day in Paradise. I met a couple of boys headed down the road away from town. They were tossing a large ball back and forth. One of the boys missed and the ball landed in the gorganians. They stayed in bloom, Silas had told me, until late September. The shorter boy ran in among the rainbow flowers, grabbed his ball, and threw to me. I played with the ball and the boys for a few minutes, then waved goodbye.

Sandhu took the letter from me and put it in a cubicle high above the shelf behind her. "Tell Sallie we'll get this right out," she said.

I walked along the main street of Wilsonville. The general store still had Cory Larson's sign over it, but the librarian had insisted they install a new sign at the library a couple weeks after he had jumped in the pond. I stopped and played a quick game of checkers with Tom, and then I walked a little further.

I found myself standing on the pitcher's mound at the softball field. I could nearly hear the thunderous roar of the fans from both phantom teams mingled among the bleachers together.

"Hey, Batter, Batter, hey, Batter, Batter, hey, Batter, Batter - SWING!!" I smiled, and stepped off the mound.

I walked to the pond. Sitting on the park bench near the pond's edge, I realized there were many questions left unasked, and some already asked whose answers I did not yet understand. I wondered where animals went after they died, and would King, my childhood German Shepherd, ever take long walks with me around the neighborhood again and sleep protectively at my feet? Would I ever ride my Arabian mare Desiree again?

I had not asked Silas about ghosts, grim reapers, or poltergeist, and I wished I had. I knew, in my deepest heart, that the first house I had owned, in Reading PA, was occupied by the three deceased sisters who had lived in the house for sixty years before I bought it. I had many questions about spirits tooling around their former residences, but I had never gotten around to asking, and now the questions would have to wait.

And what about the Bermuda Triangle? Had there ever been life on Mars? Did Atlantis exist, and if so, where was it now? What became of the people from the Lost Colony? What's the real story about crop circles? Was the earth originally populated by people from another planet? Did Anastasia Romanoff survive her family's slaughter? Did Jesus have a little girl named Sarah? Were there hedges on the edges of the Universe, or did space just keep on going?

Did the Australopithecus, Cro-Magnon, and Neandertal have souls?

Is it true the Santa Claus prefers tequila over milk and cookies? Was Elvis still alive and doing well? Why do fools really fall in love? And which came first, the chicken or the egg?

And what was the relationship between Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare? Surely Silas would know that!

The answers to many mysteries, I smiled to myself, would have to hold until a later time, a later life, a later eternity. Not all my questions had to be resolved right now. Everything catches up with you eventually, or maybe you catch up with everything. Sometimes you just have to have a little patience.

I looked out across the pond, idle in the summer afternoon. I walked to it slowly and looked around me. I didn't see anyone. I slipped off my shoes and placed them neatly by the bench. Dipping my big toe barely into the water, I watched the little baby ripples swim lazily across the pond. The water felt cool, refreshing, inviting. I smiled, and stepped backwards about fifteen paces.

I looked around one more time. No one. I sucked in two lungs' worth of eternity, ran like I had an armadillo snapping at my feet, and lunged myself into the pond with all my might.

I made myself a big humdinger of a splash.

#  About the Author

Kit Duncan is a licensed clinical social worker with over thirty years of experience in working with families, children, couples, groups, and individuals. She holds the Master of Science in Social Work degree from the University of Texas at Arlington, and has done postgraduate work at the University of South Carolina at Columbia.

Kit taught college for fifteen years and has been a presenter at numerous national and regional conferences and workshops. She has been the Clinical Director of Human Services Consultation since 1987. She is the author of several novels.

Kit lives in central Kentucky. She plays the Kiowa love flute and other instruments.
