A good man was walking down the street, admiring the gift of color that presented itself each day. The dawn had come, and it had not arrived packaged, bottled, or prepared. Everyday it was painted in shades of orange, hues of red, and highlighted with golden threads. Snowy peaks and oceans attempted to imitate the sky with the colors they took on during the rising of the sun each day. They were, of course, just reflections of a more glorious power the man thought. Day by day, clouds were sculpted from the softest cotton and placed in the sky, bearing uncanny resemblance to the things we dream about. He smiled as he looked at this beautiful sunrise.
Interrupting the man's daydream, a car slammed into him as he stepped into the northbound lane of the crosswalk. His crumpled body landed motionless near the curb.
He felt pain flash hot throughout his arms and legs; then suddenly an extreme cold froze his limbs. The icy feeling transitioned to numbness. Creeping slowly, hand over hand, darkness inched toward his body, while at the same time his mind and soul exploded with fantastic, impossible lights. His mortal remains took in the last smell of concrete and tar, before finally, the man's body let go of the breath it clutched at so futilely.
His vision became unbounded by mortal limits and he began racing down channels and through voids. Moving at speeds unfathomable by human cerebration, the man was carried toward something extraordinarily bright. The twists and turns were surrounded by color more vivid than any dawn. Cerulean rays assaulted his being while motes of viridian luminescence played about his core. A sudden twist to the left; roses and violets pricked him and kissed him as he passed them by. The taste of apples and the smell of cider flowed through him, filling him. Memories of his son playing with a yellow truck swelled like a crescendo and receded like a low tide. His daughter leisurely colored a picture with a crayon of deepest crimson. Recollections of a familiar hand, his wife's hand, reached out beyond the frame of a door to stroke his cheek, and welcome him home. Sounds collided with his rushing essence, exploding in musical orchestratration and tinkling as if shards of crystal had fallen on a marble walkway. Then calm and a blinding white light greeted the man.
A voice rang out from somewhere, “You have been a good man throughout your life.”
“Where am I and who are you?” The man cried out. “What is happening to me? Am I dead?” The sound of his voice echoed and reverberated. The echo stopped.
Silence. Dreadful silence. A door appeared.
The voice rang out again. “I am El Elyon, Jehova, and Yeshua. I am Odin, Brahma, and Allah. I am you.”
My conciousness suddenly expanded and my thoughts took on a new form of awareness. I looked down below the door and noticed that there lay no inscription in chiseled form or markings of any kind bearing "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate." Rather, there was a woven mat of silk that whispered, “Welcome home.”
I stepped through the door, and saw my son playing with a yellow truck. My daughter sat in a pink dress coloring a picture using a crayon of deep red. My wife greeted me at the door and stroked my cheek. She smiled and looked at me as if for the first time.
“Welcome home,” she said. “Children, your father has returned. Hurry up and come hug the man before he feels lonely!”
As the children got up and came running toward me, I thought to myself, “I guess I am just a man. Just a man living in paradise like any other God.”