Chapter Seventeen
Staring at the scene before him, Paul’s mouth partly opened. He just couldn’t
believe that Dr. Matthews and his staff and the few remaining students who had
watched the failed surgical procedure from above were leaving.
“This isn't right! Doesn't anyone care about the kid down there?” Paul shouted to the emptiness surrounding him. “I mean. The boy was someone my age and still had his whole life ahead of him. Don’t any of you medical people care?”
For several moments, nothing but a lingering deathly silence responded.
“I care. … I always have, and it saddens me that you had to die.”
Paul immediately glanced skyward. “Me?” A puzzled expression spread across his face. “Who are you? And why are you trying to tell me I’m the one who died? … That can’t be. I’m still very much alive. … Can’t you see and hear me?”
Paul's emotion-filled outburst, once again, was momentarily answered with silence.
“Paul. It's time for you to leave Duke Medical Center,” John Pontiac calmly stated. “I'll explain everything to you soon after you join me. Okay?”
Paul shook his head no. This can’t be. My dad, who's been dead for several months, is asking me to join him? That’s impossible.
He then turned back to gaze at the section of ceiling where his father's voice seemed to come from. And within a few milliseconds after his father's last word was spoken, what appeared to be a never-ending tunnel soon materialized at that exact locale.
“This can't be real. What is that thing? … Not to mention, the voice I just heard, it certainly can't be my father’s,” Paul said in an attempt to reassure himself as he stared at the ever-churning, lightning-bolt surrounded, spiritual wormhole now directly in front of him. “My father died months ago in a tragic auto accident, shortly after Thanksgiving. It happened just before we were about to become a “real” family again.”
“That's true. I did die in an auto accident,” John's voice echoed from the distant end of the vortex. “However, dying is not your soul's end. Now please, Paul, step into the passageway God has created for you. You’ll understand everything much better once you've arrived.”
Though completely dark, the inner-sides of the tunnel, which had miraculously appeared before him, were similar to what one would expect if looking down the center of a deep-space wormhole. However, unlike a wormhole's, its center wasn't entirely black. A pure bright white light emanated through its middle, as if its far end contained a super-powered translucent spotlight.
An inexplicable force then began to draw him in.
At first, Paul tried to resist the invisible tractor beam tugging at him by flinging his extended arms and legs outward in a frantic swimming-type motion. However, his actions quickly proved to be shamefully futile. The ever-increasing power which had seized him was overwhelming and Paul found himself unwillingly being sucked inside – despite his best efforts.
“S-t-o-p,” Paul wailed as the speed his body was traveling continually increased at a rate well beyond a starship’s warp ten. However, before he could finish screaming, he had already arrived at his designation.
“Interesting way to travel, isn’t it?” the voice now remarked from behind him, in a tone that would indicate the person speaking was smiling.
Paul expeditiously turned around, and his pupils flashed wide open. My eyes have to be lying to me! … This is totally impossible.
“Dad?” he squeaked at the personage beside him.
John Pontiac smiled a broad smile, and he nodded affectionately. “Yes. It's really me, son.”
He then opened his arms so he could give his son a large hug. However, Paul seemed to have froze to the spot he had landed - and clouds of doubt quickly filled his eyes.
“No. This isn’t real,” Paul said, trying to convince himself. “You can’t be my Dad. I know for a fact that my father’s dead! Mom and I buried him months ago. And I can even remember how it started to snow during the time Cathy tried to comfort me – shortly after the service had ended.”
“Yes. You’re right,” John replied with a nod as he continued to gaze at him. “All of those things did occur. But, at the time they did, couldn’t you sense my presence?”
Paul shook his head no and took a step backwards so he could carefully eyeball the personage who was claiming to be his father. … In a way, the man beside him looked like his dad, but appeared to be much younger than Paul remembered. It was almost as if his father was only in his late 20s or early 30s instead of his 40s.
“It's a shame because I was there,” John continued. “And I even heard your thoughts about how you felt that, with the exception of your mother, everyone else who spoke at the funeral was acting like a hypocrite.”
Paul briefly grinned at the memory as he began to take in the beyond-lifelike vivid colors of the mountainous countryside enveloping them. It was almost as if the two of them were standing in a luscious green pasture near the Blue Ridge Parkway, but only better.
“O-K-A-Y,” Paul slowly replied. “So you know the thoughts I had at the time. However, it still doesn’t mean anything. After all, I’m sure a demonic spirit could have known the same thing.”
John chuckled as his son defiantly folded his arms across his chest. Hmm. Some things never change, do they? Paul continues to question the obvious.
“No,” John calmly replied. “If you had been more like your mother and carefully studied your scriptures, you would have known that while satanic beings are able to do a few things people could consider to be miraculous feats, reading a person’s mind isn’t one of them.”
Paul’s eyes narrowed, and he grasped his chin. “I guess you’re right,” he acknowledged. “I had forgotten that. … So. Let me ask you this, just so I can be sure once and for all you're really you. And this is going to be something only you, me, Nathan or Mom would know.”
“I see,” John interrupted. “Whatever it is you’re about to ask … don’t you think God would know it, too – after all, he’s both omnipresent and omniscient?”
Paul immediately choked at the mention of his Higher Power's name, and John could see the frustration within his son's eyes.
“Of course he would know,” Paul stated, spitting his reply. “But I’m about to ask about something we humans would know and an ordinary spiritual being probably wouldn't take notice.”
“Oh really,” John chuckled. “But there’s only one problem. I’m not human anymore and neither are you, at least not at the moment.”
That statement immediately caused Paul to glance down the front of himself.
“I’m not?” he said, after seeing he was wearing one of his “Intel Rules” T-shirts, Wrangler jeans, and a pair of Nike tennis shoes. “Than what am I - if not human?”
“You're a living spirit, just like me,” John said, answering his son's question. “… and we’re currently in the afterlife.”
“Yeah. Right.” As Paul studied the personage in front of him, a couple of angelic beings unexpectedly appeared on each of his father's sides … and they started to confer with him.
Uh, Oh. … Apparently, my Dad's been telling the truth.
“Father? It really is you!” Paul exclaimed, no longer questioning the reality before him. And almost at once, large tears formed within his dark-brown eyes, and he fell into his father's beckoning grasp.
Since his father’s death, an impregnable concrete dam had resided inside of Paul's teenage heartbroken soul. Now the river of pain and mournful sorrow he had quietly held could finally be released.