The Story Begins (2 page)

She smiled as she took his hand. “Stubborn till the end. If, when we get to wherever it is that we’re going and find that God has gone back to His Old Testament ways of minimal or almost complete lack of tolerance, you will be in a world of hurt,” she said teasingly as together they levitated higher before being engulfed and vanishing into the same flame from which they had come forth.

None of what occurred was witnessed by any in the room.

I

1

The First Encounter

“So, what would
you like to be when you grow up?” Jaden’s mother asked as she did her best to work around the adorable six-year-old playing on the bed while his mommy folded clothes.

“I want to be Jesus!” he declared.

That was an answer she wasn’t expecting. She was expecting an answer more commonplace such as a policeman, fireman, doctor, teacher and the like; the typical answers children tend to respond with. His entirely unanticipated answer surprised her.

“Jesus! Sweetie, do you know who Jesus is?”

“Not really,” answered Jaden nonchalantly.

“Where did you hear about him, sweetie?” she asked.

“From the doggyman. He says that Jesus is like some really super-magical cool guy who can fly and tells people who like to sleep in caves to wake up and go home.”

She speculated as to whom the doggyman was and wondered if Jaden’s description of Jesus’ miracles were quoted verbatim; she suspected not. Though they weren’t atheists, religion wasn’t a subject of conversation that was ever engaged in at home so it could only have come from whoever the doggyman is, she thought.

“Oh honey, I’m sorry but you can’t be Jesus. That would be like me saying that I want to be you. Tell me, do you think that I can be you?”

“No, silly!” said the sweet child, looking upon his mother askance while adorably tapping his right index finger on his temple as though to indicate to his mother that she was being nutty. “You can’t be me, Mommy.”

“And why can I not be you?” she asked, smiling at his gesture.

“Because I am already me,” he explained. “Duh!” he said sweetly.

“You’re right! And it’s the same with Jesus, sweetie. He’s already himself so no one else can be him. A lot of us would like to be but he got to being himself first. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“You can do the next best thing, though,” she reassured him.

“What’s that, Mommy?”

“You can be
like
him,” she said. “You just have to always be good and you’ll be just like Jesus. Does that sound good to you?”

“Yeah, I can settle for that,” he told her, looking rather disappointed.

Settle! He’s just six years old. Seems like kids these days are growing up faster and faster, she thought.

“Did Jesus wear a doggy thing around his neck, Mommy?”

“Doggy thing?” she repeated, trying to figure out what he meant. Then she understood. “Honey, it’s called a collar. And no, Jesus did not wear one. It’s part of the clothing of a priest. Priests also want to be like Jesus. Just like you, sweetie.”

“How do I become a priest?”

She thought perhaps it was time she changed the subject of conversation. “Honey, why don’t we talk about what toys you’ve seen on TV that you’d like to have? There’s plenty of time to do other things when you grow up. And being like Jesus is one of them, okay? For now Jesus would like you to have fun and not think of such things just yet, all right.”

“Where is he?” he asked, looking around, somewhat baffled. “I don’t see him and didn’t hear him say anything.”

She laughed. “He’s kind of like the wind. You can feel it but you can’t see it, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus is kind of like that. He’s there but you don’t see him.”

“I’m going outside,” he said. “I’ll be at my swing set, okay?”

“Okay, honey, be careful.”

“Yup, yup,” he said then ran off.

His mother watched him and wondered where this very sudden interest in Jesus was coming from. It certainly wasn’t anything that he’d heard from them or seen on television. Then she remembered. One of their neighbors, who lived a couple of blocks away, was, in fact, a priest. Jaden never spoke to strangers so she was surprised that he had conversations with the priest.

Outside Jaden sat on the ground, staring up into the heavens and musing over how utterly incredible it must be to walk the world unseen. He had seen super heroes with amazing abilities on television but understood quite well that such was no more than make-believe. Jesus, however, even though unseen, was real, he’d been told. He wondered if it were possible to meet him. Maybe he’d like to play on my swing set, or maybe the monkey bars, he thought. The priest was in the habit of walking by daily and Jaden, with the naiveté entitled to every child, was under the impression that the priest knew Jesus personally and could arrange an audience between himself and his new hero.

IT
was almost sundown when his mom called out to him. “Sweetie, it’s time to come in now. Be sure to bring in all the toys you have out there, okay.”

“Okay,” he shouted back while dunking a basketball in the hoop.

“Daddy will be home soon and we want you all cleaned up for the dinner table, okay.”

“Okay, I’m coming, Mommy.”

The priest ought to have passed by already but hadn’t as yet. Jaden thought he must have had a very busy day. He looked at all his toys scattered all over the yard. He disliked cleaning up after himself. As often as his mother and father had said to him that if he didn’t care to bring his toys back inside then he ought not to take them out at all, he still did; the routine was unchanging. And because he was always impatient when he had to clean up, he’d inevitably miss a toy or two, which his father would then bring in on his way into the house once home from work. And whenever queried as to whether all of his toys were accounted for, he’d answer yes, so sure of himself, until his father would teasingly prove his son otherwise; Jaden’s predetermined response would then simply be to place blame on the toy, accusing it of not being somewhere a little more obvious.

AFTER
a long day of hard work for both Mom and Dad but all too short a day of mostly play for Jaden, the family sat down to dinner.

After dinner, and after brushing his teeth, his parents tucked him in, read him a story, and then kissed him goodnight. Having been hard at play most of the day, he fell asleep almost immediately after the light was turned off; this, despite his protestations while being tucked in, that he wasn’t tired at all, let alone sleepy.

“HEELLOOO! Heeeeeeellooooooo!” said a voice.

Jaden sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes. He was sure that he had heard something. “Who’s there?” he asked sleepily. Like many children, Jaden was afraid of the dark; however, he was a bit too tired tonight to remember that.

“Heeeeeeellooooooo!” said the voice again.

He was about to pull the cover off him and reach for his night lamp when he realized that he wasn’t in his room. The realization, however, did not bring with it a sense of panic or fear. He simply wondered where his parents had taken him during his sleep, and where they had gone off to. Did they have another fight and take him over to his aunt’s apartment, he wondered. But after waking up a little bit more, it was quite clear that he was not at his aunt’s place.

His surroundings, or the lack thereof, distracted him. He was almost certain that he was outside but then it felt as though he might be inside somewhere. Observing his surroundings more intently, he realized that as far as he could tell there actually seemed to be neither an inside nor an outside. It was simply somewhere. There was light all around him but the likes of which he’d never seen before; it was a glowing twilight of sorts. He looked down to his feet and saw that he appeared to be standing on nothing at all. Seeing nothing but believing that he had to be standing on something, he decided to feel beneath him with his hands. He felt absolutely nothing, not even right beneath his feet. Yet there he was, somehow standing. Another aspect of this decidedly very different place that struck him was that as much as he believed that he was, in fact, somewhere, he really seemed to be nowhere at all; stranger still was that he felt as though he was actually everywhere. What an odd feeling, he thought. The only thing he was very certain of was the voice, which repeated its greeting. It was close. Not at all apprehensive, and fascinated by seeming to simply be floating, he mused, “Whoa! I’m like super-kid or something.”

Greeting him again, the voice interrupted his musing. “Heeeeeeellooooooo!”

“Mommy and Daddy always tell me to never talk to strangers,” he said.

There was no response. Then he remembered his parents. “Where are my mom and dad?”

There was still no answer. Just as he was about to call out for them, the voice in the dark chuckled and then spoke. “Silly boy! I am not a stranger,” it said. “But my daddy says that your mommy and daddy are right. You should not talk to strangers.”

Then, out of nowhere, stepped forth the voice in the form of a little girl in a flowing silvery gown, who looked like she might have been five or six years old. Jaden thought the pinkish glowing light that emanated from her rosy complexion was very pretty. Like most children, full of naiveté and seeing the world as simplistically as only the innocence of a child would allow, he thought that she must be God. He remembered the priest telling him that some people believe that God is a being of light, so he simply concluded that the little girl must be God. But then he also remembered the priest had also told him that God is the Father of everyone. He decided that he must have either misunderstood the priest or the priest was wrong in what he had said because this little-girl-God just mentioned her own father and, being a girl, she obviously could not be a father. But he still believed her to be God.

“Wow!” he said amazed, while conjecturing as to the possible whereabouts of Jesus. “You must be God!” he said. “I thought you were big and huge and lived in the sky but you’re a little girl and… dude, I’m bigger than you.” He couldn’t comprehend how it was at all possible that he was bigger than she whom he perceived to be God. But even more puzzling now that he looked upon her closely was that the little girl seemed to look like Liz, or was it Amber… actually, she seemed to look like all the girls he knew at school. In her face he saw the face of every girl that he knew, perhaps every girl that he had ever seen.

“You silly boy!” said the sweet little girl. “I’m not God. What’s your name?” she asked as she set about creating a shiny spherical object by simply gesturing with her hands, then she gently blew it away and it was buoyant, just as are bubbles when created by the breath of a child.

Jaden, however, was much too distracted by his preoccupation and didn’t hear her question. She glowed so how could she not be God, he pondered. “If you’re not God, how can you have a glowing light around you? Even when I put a flashlight beneath my chin that does not happen to me so how can you not be God?”

“I like you. You’re nice.” She smiled. “What’s your name?” she asked again.

“Jaden,” he answered then wanted to ask hers. However, before he had a chance to ask, again she spoke.

“I’ll ask Daddy to make you look just like me.”

“Okay,” he agreed. He looked around in an attempt to ascertain the whereabouts of her father. He was nowhere to be seen. What’s with all these invisible people, he thought. He hadn’t noticed that no sooner had she said that she would ask her father, Jaden had begun to glow as well.

“Look! You’re just like me now.” She brought the fact to his attention.

He looked at himself. “This is sooo cool,” he said. This, unquestionably, was the most marvelous event that had ever happened to him. He couldn’t wait to get back home to show his mom and dad the amazing occurrence.

She floated over to him, took him by the hand, and then said, “We’re going to have a lot of fun.”

He looked around and wondered what she meant. “How? I don’t see anything around us. It’s just you, me and plenty of nothing.”

“Yaaah, and that’s all we need,” she said cheerfully.

“Don’t you have any toys?” he asked, befuddled as to how one could possibly have fun without anything fun around.

“No. And we are very far away from your home,” she said.

No toys sounded absolutely boring to Jaden; he thought of all his toys and all his stomping grounds. He loved playgrounds. He also thought of all the toys he was yet to get and the many more playgrounds yet to be discovered. “I have some really cool toys we could play with,” he tried to convince her, “but we’ve got to go back to my room to get them.”

“No. No toys. Just me and you forever and ever!” she declared.

That sounded kind of like a rather lengthy amount of time to him. “How long is that?” he asked.

“I dunno,” she said melodiously.

Again he remembered his parents. He looked around. “Do you know where my mom and dad are?”

“At home,” she said. Her voice was unmistakably farther away.

He stopped surveying his surroundings and returned his focus to where she had been. She was no longer there.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Right here,” she said. He followed her voice. She was above him.

“How did you get up there?”

“Just like you,” she answered.

That’s when he noticed that he, too, had ascended. “Totally awesome, dude! Can we-” He didn’t need to finish the question; he found himself flying alongside his new companion. As much as he loved his toys, this most certainly paled everything he had ever thought of as fun. All the toys and playgrounds in the world could never measure up to this. First he glowed, now he flew. He felt as though he were a star set in the heavens.

She knew his thoughts for she said, “We are the brightest stars in the sky.”

Though they flew quite a while and boredom in this activity was almost an impossibility, nonetheless it did begin to dawn upon Jaden that it mattered not how far or fast they flew, there was never anything in sight. He found this a little curious and just as he was about to ask where anything was, they both vanished in a flash of light.

Jaden found himself in the midst of seemingly endless, glowing, globe-like objects, some cloudy, some shadowy, while some burned brightly. He reached for one then peered into it. Within it he saw swirling clouds, brightly burning spots, empty dark spaces and colorful formations. Letting that one go, he reached for another. “This almost looks like a very big marble,” he said as the little girl suddenly appeared and gazed upon the object he was holding in his hands.