Chapter 9
1623 Words
In the Time Between Time
In the Time Between TimeBillie scans the staging area. The auditorium is filled to capacity with people milling about in their seats with anticipation. Only they are not human entities, they are spirits of various levels of experience denoted by their auric colors, ranging from shades of white to yellow to blue.
The orchestra pit is vibrant with violet energies, demonstrating through music the highest form of spiritual evolution. Every instrument is represented, from ancient celestas, lyres and lutes to zithers, keyboards and horns of every type.
Billie is astonished. “What is this place? Some sort of performing hall? I never imagined that heaven - or wherever I am - would look like this.”
“This was your life experience, Billie. The concert hall, the musicians, the crowds. Your spirit experience will mirror your earthly experience, until you are ready to let go of it.”
“Why are there so many different colors of people?”
“That"s where they are in their soul evolution, each one having achieved a higher state of development through their music experience.”
“But why do I have no color at all? I think I"m pretty highly developed musically.”
“Because you"ve just begun. You are white, Blanche, a shining light but a very young soul.”
“That"s odd. I"ve always felt like an old soul.”
“A popular New Age expression.”
Billie appreciates her guide"s humor, and a feeling of familiarity comes through. “I know you, don"t I? I"ve seen you before. Why, you"re that fortune teller from the tent. Not Dorinda, but the other one. I never knew your name.”
“Names are not important here. I was on a mission that required me to have no identity.”
“A mission? For me?”
“You didn"t think you were just there in that tent having a Tarot card reading, did you?”
“Obviously not. But you, and Dorinda - you never really existed. You were just a figment. No one ever saw you but me, never even saw that tent or the sign inviting people in for readings.”
“As it was meant to be.”
Billie moves freely through this first experience, then on through various portals. People that she recognizes from her Earth life are formless, ethereal energies: an aunt from her father"s side of the family who passed on just before Billie moved to Port Avalon; a cousin who was killed in a plane crash during his first solo flight; a friend from high school who succumbed to leukemia; a teacher who committed suicide when his wife left and took their children with her. Their faceless forms nod in recognition as they move along on their own personal missions.
Then, emerging through a diaphanous curtain, two figures appear to Billie. They are old now, their auras grayed by their harsh life experiences. Billie had seen them rarely in her last years on Earth, living miles apart as they did, then finally parted by tragedy and death. But now, as they stand face to face, all the hurt, the anger, the conflicts they engaged in, the feelings of lonely isolation they instilled in her, the insecurities and unworthiness they passed on to her…all those feelings come to the fore and she feels on edge, a tenseness even in this sweet afterlife dimension.
If I hadn"t left them, if I had stayed near them, they would still be alive. Maybe I could have saved them from that burning building, from an arsonist"s senseless evil.
If I hadn"t left them, if I had stayed near them, they would still be alive. Maybe I could have saved them from that burning building, from an arsonist"s senseless evil.But then they embrace, and in their need for her, in their longing, Billie senses their sad regret, the apologies they can"t express, the forgiveness they offer her. She melts into their agony and it transforms into her love for them. Dissolving into a violet light, they are at last free souls.
“This is more than I can bear!” Billie cries. “I thought there was no pain or heartache here. Why do I remember them, my mother and father, and all the turmoil we went through?”
“Your eternal identity never leaves you,” Nameless tells her. “In time you will experience a cloud of amnesia, feel less emotion, where you choose to remember nothing of the past.”
“Choose? You mean I have choices here?”
“We are coming to the choice arena now,” Nameless informs her. “The newly dead - I don"t like to use that word because I don"t consider you dead. You are very much alive here, but mortals have chosen to use such a label. Moving on - this is where you realize that everything in your life - every experience and encounter - was something you chose to do before you were even consciously aware.”
“You mean before I was born?”
“Sometimes it"s a pre-life choice, sometimes it is an unconscious realization immediately after birth.”
“God, I made so many bad choices…”
“And so many good ones, Billie.”
“Like dying in a car crash?”
“That, too.”
“My son hates me for that choice. How do I fix that?”
“You"re not here to fix the past, but to decide where you will go in the future.”
“You mean Reincarnation?”
“That"s one option.”
“There are others?”
“I don"t usually let my students know that they have choices, unless I think they need to know.”
“But we do! We do. What if I choose to go back to my family?”
“You know that"s not possible.”
“But sometimes spirits do connect with their loved ones. I"ve seen Mediums help them do that.”
“What I"m saying is that you cannot physically return as the same person in the same point in time. You cannot communicate with your family unless they summon you.”
Billie is crestfallen. Her son hates her, wants nothing to do with her. He wouldn"t summon her in a million years.
“I have to find a way. I have to make them understand.”
“If it"s meant to be you will make your spirit felt by them. But you have a lot of lessons to learn first. It will take a long time.”
“I don"t have time!”
“Billie, dear, you have nothing but time. You have an eternity.”
butBillie wants to grab Nameless by the shoulders and shake her, but there is nothing to grab, nothing to hold on to. “Help me, please. You have to help me reach them somehow, some way. My children don"t have an eternity. My son is deaf…”
“His choice to hear the music you have imbued in his soul.”
“My daughter may never walk again…”
“She has chosen to have her brother care for her and she has someone to worship now that you are gone.”
“And Isaac - he is lost, so lost. He might never recover.”
“He will find his way back, in time”
“My husband is not like me or you. He doesn"t believe in the supernatural. I don"t think he believes in anything at this point.”
Against the rules and against her better judgment, Billie"s guide confides, “There is another place where you can reside and work things through. Come.”
Billie follows closely as they move across a threshold of soft light and mist where she is awed by a vision that is stunning in its realism.
“What is this?”
“Here, you will see through a window of sorts all that is happening with your family. Everything they do or think or experience you will witness. It will frustrate you not to be able to connect with them or let them know you are with them.”
“So, it"s my punishment, for the things I"ve done or contemplated doing for selfish reasons.”
“We don"t punish here. And certainly not just for thoughts. If we did, we"d never have time for anything else. You are here to learn, to understand what on Earth are called mistakes, and to move on to higher love.”
“But what is the point of just watching and wanting?”
“You won"t just be watching. Concurrently, you will have to move on to other times and places. You may have to repeat things over and over. You will be close enough to touch your boy, but will not be able to physically do it. One day, if your son desires to communicate with you, you will be there in spirit.”
“But how will he know? How will I know I"ve broken through?”
“He will feel you. It might be a light brush stroke on his arm or a breath of air on his face, but he will know you are there.”
“And my other choice?”
“You can go to the Other Side, the blissful hereafter where you completely let go of your memories of human life and move on to your eternal paradise.”
This latter choice, Billie decides, is no choice at all. Somehow, someway she will break through that wall that separates their realities, penetrate that window of time, and return to her family before it"s too late.
- Writer
