Chapter X: Choices

I want to explore more of this In Between place, but know that I cannot yet.  The trains aren’t really trains, merely a manifestation of the choices that lie before me.  I can see them now, beneath their iridescent glow, they are different colors.  The faint bronze of my past lives leaves the platform and disappears across an ocean reflecting the lights from the depot, the cliffs of the acropolis and all that’s hidden beyond it.  The endless star clusters forming galaxies in a universe my imagination insisted on incorporating into this space for some reason.

New lives beckon from various cars of sparkling Opal, and then there are the elite cars.  Yellow gold, white gold, platinum and sterling silver.  They’re hand crafted with scrolling, ornamental designs; flamboyant metal engines of regal quality.  These trains go to places I can’t even imagine.  Heavens, Summerlands, into the realms beyond the In Between and perhaps, even into Paradise, itself.  I have no clue.  They would each carry me to further answers, to further discovery, if I was even permitted entrance to such places.  Had I lived enough?  Was my spirit advanced enough to earn a ticket on one of these trains?

“Everyone has free access to everywhere,” My companion answers the unspoken concern.

I know, somehow, he speaks true.  I can feel the welcoming pull no matter which direction I face, which train my gaze follows.  Like arms open and waiting to draw in the curious to these immaculate conclaves.  To happily reveal the answers, as if telling a grand tale with much enthusiasm and treats, perhaps.  Sweet treats to accompany the massive divulging of divine secrets.  Why not?  I can feel the allure of it deep within the hollows of my materialized chest.  All of these things I’ve already discovered, that I’ve longed to know and that I have known before… these are the afterlife’s currency.

Yes.  That is what happened before, I understand.  My beloved answers were used as payment for the “New Life” train.  In order to gain more experience through living, in order to strengthen my soul, I will have to hand over all that I have already come to learn, all that I may come to reacquaint myself with along the way.  It’s both a payment and a deposit box, entered into these vaults for safekeeping until my return.

“No matter how many trains I hop, answers I receive, in the end, there are really only two choices,” I say aloud, seeking some kind of reassurance.

Facing me, my companion says nothing for a long while.  Finally, he nods quite soberly.

“Correct.  You either stay, or you go.  Born again, you forfeit all of the answers you may find beforehand.  You need to know, there is no right or wrong decision.  It is, as always, your choice.  But you should get all of the answers you truly desire, first.”