Thursdays With Death

TWD - Chapter 9 - You Too Can Be Death

Not sure what had just happened, I shook my head back and forth trying to refocus. I realized that I was in my office and had had a couple of flashbacks, but I wasn’t sure why. I looked at Death, trying to get those questions to reform in my mind. I saw the darkness of Death. It was as if I was looking at another reality. Other realities! Death spoke of other realities. That’s where we were. In my reality, Death is darkness, but in another reality, Death is light? So there are other realities?

“Of course there are,” Death stated, hearing my thoughts. “When you dream, you are experiencing one kind of reality. When you are awake, you experience another.”

“Hmmm. Okay,” I said. “Those are different realities. However, you said that maybe I see light in you because I am actually seeing into another reality. So how did I do that? I didn’t mean to. I didn’t try to.”

Death got up out of the chair and began to pace. “Your awareness is expanding as your consciousness expands,” Death told me. “Your consciousness is expanding because you’ve begun that long journey to enlightenment – a journey to become enlightened. Notice that the word is enlightened. Let’s break it down. ‘En’, as a prefix means, "being put into". Then we have the word light, followed by an ‘en’ as a suffix, which means, “to cause to be”. Finally, we have an ‘ed’, a suffix that means past tense – giving us the word enlightened or, being put into light. The more light that you are put into, the more “conscious” you become. And the more light that is in you, the more light you can see.”

I thought about all of this for a second. “So,” I said. “In essence, since there is now more light within me, I am shining more light, which illuminates other realities?”

Death whipped around and “looked” directly at me, both “arms” outstretched and “forefingers” pointing my way. “Precisely!” Death said ecstatically. “By George, I think he’s got it!”

I smiled at Death. Hmmm. I do have it, I thought. But what is “it” that I have? Let’s see. Well, there is light. In addition, that light is in each of us. But what does that mean?

As I stood staring and thinking, Death walked over toward me, and put an “arm” around my shoulders. It was very warm, and I felt very relaxed and content. I also noticed that the glimmer of light was still glowing brightly, but now it was pulsing as well.

“Here is the important thing to understand,” Death said to me. I could smell Boston crème on Death’s “breath.” “There is light in each and every living thing, because there is God in each and every living thing. In addition, everyone and everything has the same amount of light in it, if you will. In people, however, some are more aware of the light that they have than others are. When you become aware of your light, it shines a little brighter and, as you said, illuminates more. With more illumination, you are able to “see” more and understand more about the mysteries.”

Mysteries, I thought. What mysteries? I was just going to ask when Death pushed me away a bit, head cocking to the left.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Death said. “It’s just that you look a little different now.”

“I do?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because your consciousness has expanded a bit,” Death said. “It eventually happens to everyone.”

“It has?” I said. “Cool! This means that now I’m starting to understand more. This also means that I’m starting to become more like you. This is so cool!”

Death reached around and slapped me across the back of the head.

“Ouch,” I said. “What did you do that for?”

“Because I said your consciousness has expanded, not your head. Now, go get me another Krispy Kreme.”

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I came back with three more doughnuts for Death; a jelly-filled and two chocolate covered. I knew Death would eat the chocolate covered, being a fellow chocoholic, but I wasn’t too sure about the jelly-filled one.

“Here are some more doughnuts,” I said. “And I have another question for you. When I was at your office that first time, you mentioned something about my past lives. Tell me about that, if you would.”

Grabbing the jelly-filled one first, Death inhaled it. I saw no chewing with that one.

“I guess you like jelly-filled too, huh?” I asked.

“Not really,” Death said. “I’m just after the sugar, and the jelly has lots of sugar.”

I watched as Death took one of the chocolate-covered doughnuts and began to lick, ever so slowly, the frosting off the doughnut. I had never noticed that Death had a tongue.

“What?” Death asked as I watched a master chocolate-covered doughnut licker in action.

“Nothing. I’ve just never seen your tongue before.”

Death thought for a minute. “Hmmm. I guess that’s, true huh? I must not have needed to use it in front of you before.”

The elegant licking continued. As Death finished off the last little bit of chocolate found in a crease on the edge of the doughnut, I could have sworn that Death’s tongue disappeared. Not back into what I guess one would call a mouth, but literally disappeared.

Death saw me staring again. “Now what?”

“Well, I thought I just saw your tongue disappear.”

“I was done with it.”

“Yeah, but I mean really disappear. Like, poof, it vanished.”

“Like I said, I was done with it.”

“But Death, it vanished. Most of us, when we are done with our tongues, we just put them back in our mouths. Yours disappeared.”

“Yours can disappear too.”

“No, it can’t.”

“Yes, it can.”

“No, I’ve known my tongue for quite a while now, and though it is talented, getting me both into and out of jams, I’m pretty sure it can’t disappear.”

Death sighed. “Okay, remember we spoke of different realities?”

I thought back to an earlier conversation. “Yes, I remember that.”

“Well, not only are there different realities, but you can manipulate the reality you are in.”

I let this bit of new information sink in. “I can manipulate reality?”

“Well, not yet you can’t,” Death said. “But soon enough you will be able to.”

Wow, I thought. Soon I will be able to manipulate reality. I didn’t have a clue what that meant, but it sounded cool.

“It is pretty cool,” Death responded. “Especially the first time you do it. To spend your life thinking that you can’t walk through walls because of its impossibility, to then do that impossible thing is, well, overwhelming. You’ll never forget your first time.”

I watched as Death stared off into the distance. Hmmm, I thought. Death must be remembering that first time. But hold on. Death having a first time implied that Death was at some point, a regular person like me.

“Death, before we talk about past lives, another more important question has come up,” I stated.

Death’s head shook a bit, as you do when you are daydreaming. “Shoot.”

“How is it that you had a first time?” I asked. “I mean, you’re Death. You’ve always been Death, haven’t you?”

Death turned and looked toward me. The glowing had started to pulse again. “No, I haven’t always been Death. I ascended to this position when my awareness had expanded enough. I was once just a confused traveler like you. We all were.”

“You all were? You mean there are more than just you?”

“Well, of course! Do you know how many souls transition every day? Thousands of them. One of us could never keep up.”

“How many, uh, Deaths are there?”

“Well, there’s only one Death. However, there are many aspects to it. And those aspects vary. It just depends on where a journeyer is on his or her path, and if he or she has chosen this path to learn.”

I thought about this for a minute. “So, I could be Death one day, if I wanted to?”

I had never heard Death laugh so hard or so loud in the few months we had known each other.

“I’m sorry,” Death said in between chuckles. “I thought you asked me if you could be Death.”

“I did.”

Death stopped chuckling and looked directly at me. “You’re serious?” Death said.

“Well, yeah. I want to know if I can be Death some day.”

Death took a deep breath. “Well, I guess you could. But most who have done it before have never asked to do it again.”