There was once a particular childhood experience that I have already narrated in my autobiography “A Prophet’s Life” which I intend now to present once more, in a different light perhaps, or in a more elaborate manner. In the past nights, I have been somewhat grasping for topics to jot into this online diary, but inspiration had become farthest to me and I was at a lost on what to inscribe into paper or to be particular, into my computer screen. This must be known to many as a writer’s block, a kind of informal malady of the mind where nothing seems to come out from the writer’s thought mechanism.
I have not believed before in any of the crap they say about a writer’s mind being blocked. But now, I have felt its cruel hands on me. Grasping and feeling like I was in the dark, like into a room without a door and nothing seem to appear except walls and walls of emptiness. Finally now, I have found the door and an idea comes to me blinking like a light bulb.
Death is darkness all over as one falls asleep into the deepest of slumber and what a slumber it was then. Sleep came slowly and had descended on me like a holy dove from the sky. It was a beautiful feeling altogether although I know very well that to many amongst you, death is most terrifying idea of all. It also terrifies me, let me be clear on that but this was how I died and lived again when I was a toddler.
How could I remember such happenstance so far into my past? You might ask this question of course and I am sure whatever explanation I offer, I might come as entirely doubtful. I could anticipate that clearly but this is what really happened.
I was living then with my grandfather Unih when my parents felt so unable to take care of many broods when my other two siblings were finally born that they had to let me stay with grandpa. This was always the reason given to me for being away from my father and mother most of my childhood days but I sense now that the ultimate reason would be the great fondness my grandpa had then on me.
One afternoon, when the weather was dark and cloudy and everything seemed heavy and silent, I was caught by a very high fever and I struggled with it as my head felt the enormous heat that troubled me so much. I could remember fully well how that heat was so unusual for it burnt me like no other and my skin was throbbing and my body was covered with too much perspiration all over. I laid there in bed as my eyes were stuck to viewing the ceiling, so astonished at the peculiar sensation that I was experiencing. My eyes were wide open and I could see quite clearly how my grandfather was so distraught then looking after me, coming in and out of the room, and walking back and forth, washing my head with a wet cloth and then saying prayers above me over and over again, as he held a candle. As the hours went by, other members of the household appeared within my view, trying perhaps to assist my grandpa in battling the high fever that troubled me then. My uncle kept on saying something to my grandpa but I could not remember what were those things. All throughout, I could see the very worried face of my grandpa and to tell you quite clearly, after that incident, I have not seen him as worried as that day, not even for once.
Soon, more and more faces appeared in the scene as neighbors from just next-door started to surface. Somebody suggested that I was to be brought to the main living room of the apartment, in order that I get more ventilation. As my grandpa carried me, I suddenly lost consciousness although it was peculiar that in the darkness of my consciousness, I felt how it was so pleasant and refreshing to be carried in a man’s arm, like I was floating above ground. The next images I had was like in a dream, although it could not have been a dream for the occurrence was so lifelike and real that I could not be mistaken.
I found myself in darkness like in a cavern without daylight coming in. Then I heard some rumbling sounds around me like thunder when suddenly my body was lunged upward and the velocity was so high that I soared like a rocket. This feeling of being lunge into the heights always comes back as a sort of déjà vu whenever I ride carnival contraptions like a Ferris wheel or the caterpillar. It felt like I was a human bullet fired from very huge cannon. As I soared steadily through the tunnel, a light from above came nearer and nearer until I exploded into the clouds and my body floated like a balloon in the great wide-open sky. I was so surprised to see myself among the clouds and I felt so alone as I could see nothing except columns and columns of clouds. Yet despite this aloneness, a certain joy had enveloped me that I could not explain it quite so descriptively except that it was a feeling of an enormous high and happiness that tears flowed from my eyes. I felt like I was doused by a pail of icy water. In my ears was a beautiful sound, music that was so sublime. It came probably from a string instrument—-a guitar or a banjo—-but I could not point out from where it came, like it was above me and below me all at the same time.
I floated and floated until I was already flying through the clouds, the giant clouds seemingly like giant cliffs of the Grand Canyon, and the lower clouds looked like spreading hills and valleys.
As I was flying, I could see the ground below me and the trees and houses were too small to my eyes. Then I made an abrupt turn to the right side of the sky and found myself inside the clouds. The clouds were so white and often thin as smoke. From afar, these clouds look firm and solid, but when you are close by, they are fleeting just like the air we breathe.
One by one, the angels appeared and reappeared from somewhere from the clouds. One angel just popped out in front of me, smiling and gleeful like he was an old friend. And then he just disappeared, only to reappear somewhere farther. They seem to be playing around with me, like that in a hide and seek. That one angel that came so near me, I could remember so well. He had dark blond hair, not to yellow but a little darker and his skin were a little pale, like a shade of white. His wings fluttered like that of a giant bird and overall, he reminds me of David, the biblical king. You might ask if I had seen David before that I could say he reminded me of that angel. I do not know but every time King David comes into my mind, whenever for example I am reading passages from the bible, I always had a concept of how David probably looked like, blond, tall and body built with well-formed muscles that he might have had the perfect human body, the epitome of manhood.
When the angels refrained from appearing, my body floated towards a wide area where the clouds became more rare and harder to come by and then from afar, I saw some red images that caught my attention in a snap. I slowly approached the area where the image was. As the image came closer and closer, I could see that it was a white castle with red flags flowing from its pointed turrets. At that age, I have not yet learned how to read and haven’t yet seen any figure of castles from most fairy tale books that I eventually had when I was an older child. That was my first view of a castle.
Before I reached the place where the castle was, I suddenly woke up and realized that my body was laid on the table in the middle of the living room and my grandpa was staring at me while he was right above me. I could see the faces of my uncle and my aunt, as well as that of a mustachioed neighbor who had said to my grandpa “See, he is going to wake up as I told you”. I could see that my grandpa was perspiring and he was crying with tears flowing from his eyes. That was the only moment that I have seen him cry and not ever.
Until now, that particular memory is etched in my mind like it just happened yesterday. I could not forget it and I could not be mistaken. That was how I had a glimpse of the afterlife when I was a child of about three or four years old.
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