My mother hesitated a moment or two before replying.
“Son,” she said, “that man was right. I had a stillborn child before you were born. It was a male child.”
“Then he’s probably here too,” I exclaimed.
“Yes and no,” said my mother. “He could have returned to earth already.”
A man suddenly approached me and grasped my arm. “You are Henry Miller, aren’t you?” he said with a warm smile.
I looked at him but failed to recognize him.
“You wouldn’t remember me,” he said. “It was long long ago when we met. You were still quite a young man. You gave me a job as a messenger. I had been paroled after ten years in prison for shooting my wife. You listened to my story, put me on the messenger force and advanced me ten dollars out of your own pocket. Do you remember me now?”
I shook my head. That had happened so often I couldn’t possibly remember them all. Of a sudden it occurred to me that most of the 100,000 men, women and boys I had interviewed while personnel manager of the telegraph company must be here now. I had probably outlived them all. And with that I began thinking of some of the odd characters I had known during that period.
At this point my mother broke in to tell me she had followed my career as a writer to the very end. “I was so happy for you,” she exclaimed. “You wanted so much to be a great writer and after much struggle you succeeded.”
“Maybe the medium was right,” I remarked. “Maybe my brother did help me along without my ever knowing it.”
“Many people here were doing their best to help you,” said my mother. “You created a stir even in this world!”
“Mother,” I said abruptly, “there’s one person I would like very very much to meet if she is still here. Do you remember that first girl I was madly in love with?”
My mother shook her head. “I don’t think we’ve ever met. Probably she didn’t want to meet me.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Because I was never very sympathetic to any of the women you fell in love with. The truth is, I never thought any of them were good enough for you.”
“Mother, how good of you to say that! If only you had told me that when we were below.”
“As I told you, son, I was a very stupid woman. And then your father gave me such a hard time.”
“Do you still love him?”
“Here we don’t love in the fashion of earthlings. We make no distinction between one person and another.”
“Doesn’t that prove rather dull?”
“Not really. Besides, it helps avoid a lot of anguish.”
“Strange,” I said, “but I feel quite to home here, yet I’ve only been here a few minutes. Funny, it ain’t Heaven and it ain’t Hell. And I don’t see no angels flying around or playing the harp.”
“There isn’t any Heaven or Hell, son. That’s all poppycock. And there’s no such thing as sin either. That’s an invention of the Jews which the Christians adopted and have been poisoning the world with ever since. As for Hell, the real Hell is on Earth.”
“Mother, you said the real Hell. That’s something I wanted to ask you about ‑ everything here seems like a dream.”
“You’re dead right, son. This is the dream world, the true reality. Down below all is illusion. Only the imagination is real.”
She paused a minute to point out two men who were passing.
“See those two,” she said. “See those cigarettes dangling from their lips. Well, those are dream cigarettes ‑ they taste like tobacco and smell like tobacco but it’s only dream tobacco. They can smoke as many as they like, they’ll never get cancer.”
So there’s no sin and no cancer here, I mused. Wonderful place.
“Don’t people get punished here for their misbehavior?” I asked.
“No, there is no such thing as punishment here. Unless you call it punishment to have nothing to do but think about the mistakes you made while on earth.”
“Yes mother, I call that severe punishment.”
“But it’s self‑inflicted punishment. There’s a difference. You see, son, the universe is run by laws; if You break the law you have to pay the penalty. That’s only fair, isn’t it? Besides, how are you ever going to learn except through experience? You may have noticed, we have no schools here. Here one acquires wisdom, not learning. We live according to our instincts and our intuitions. Like that we remain part animal, part human. On earth the function of the brain is greatly exaggerated. Think of those foolish scientists who talk about light years and billions of stars. That is sheer nonsense. Here everything is simple and easy to understand. Whoever created the Universe didn’t intend life to be a series of cross‑word puzzles. He made it to be enjoyed. And that’s what Jews and Christians find so hard to believe. They wallow in guilt. Even that doesn’t make them happy.”
“Have you met any Jews since you’re here?”
“No, son, I prefer the Negroes, the Pygmies, the Zulus. They are such wonderful, joyous people. And where they lived on earth they had almost nothing.”
“You know,” she continued, “when I get born again, I hope I am going to be male and black. I get along with those people famously.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Mother had come a long way from the woman I knew on earth.
“How long do you think you still have to stay here?” I asked.
“It’s up to me when to leave. When I’ve picked the family I want to be born in and the environment. When I’m ready for another go around.”
“I hope that won’t be soon, mother. I’d feel lost without you.”
“No you wouldn’t,” she said quickly. “That’s one of the first things you learn on arriving here. Self‑reliance. No more loneliness. Wherever you go you’re at home. Whomever you meet is your friend.”