The Next Journey

Short story by Yael-Louise Dekel

Many people are scared of death, however, really it is fear that prevents life. When I died a fraction of thought fluttered across my mind. It was a vague image of pure blankness before it faded away.

I forced open my eyes. Why am I here? Why am I still alive? I felt as if I had been encased in stone. I felt restrained being anchored to something heavy. I looked down and almost screamed. I was hovering in between my body. That shouldn’t have been possible but it was the strange truth. I lifted up my hand and instead of my usual solid body follow the instruction a pale ghostly hand rose up instead. Pale isn’t the right word for it. It was indeed transparent but somehow it shone with a thousand colours and hummed with energy. I felt as if I was made of pure energy too. I felt light, much lighter than the body of bones and meat pulling me down. A sudden urge of wanting to be free arose in me. I wanted to free. Free in the sky and the air. Free to merge into the energy as one.

No sooner had I thought that, that I started to rise, lifting off the skin. I got the feeling that if I had done this before, I died, it would’ve been painful but now I needed to be somewhere else and so I went up painlessly. The soul ripped apart from the body and then I was free. I floated through the air, feeling a joyful sensation of weightlessness. I rotated onto my back and then back onto my front and then, simply because I felt like it, I threw in a flip. Throughout my playful behaviour I kept floating higher and higher.

‘Orbs of Seventh Dream 2’ – by Gil Dekel.

I paused mid-cartwheel confused and then suddenly I hit a wall. It was actually a thin glowing gel-consistency thin layer but the impact of hitting against it felt like a wall. This was the barrier between our world and the next one. Even though I was dead it was still very hard for me to get through. I slammed against the barrier once more, wincing at the impact. I tried to pull back, tried to just pause, but I couldn’t. I had lost con

I slammed once more and this time I went through, the gel-like consistency sticking to me as I went through it and springing back in place after I had finished. I looked around and found it hard to distinguish dreams from reality any more. It was a galaxy. The marbled sky brimming with a thousand stars. I knew that humans were made from stardust but that didn’t prepare me for what I saw then. From every star a ray of light shot out and zoomed by so fast I couldn’t comprehend. A beam of light shot out from planet earth and zoomed past it, going into the star that the first beam had left. For every life that had left Earth a new one had entered. Dozens of these were happening everywhere. A grin formed on my face as I too started to shoot to a star. I was flying free, so fast that everything was just a burst of colours and my senses were overwhelmed. Suddenly I slowed down enough for everything to sharpen, and I noticed another beam of light zooming past me. As we slowed down together, almost touching, I saw another soul in that beam of light. It formed a vague silhouette of a human and it winked at me before zooming down. I picked up the speed going faster and faster until I had reached the star. The star brightened until emitting a flash of light that blinded me.

I was gone after that. No more.

16 March 2018. Update 15 Dec 2018.
© Yael and Gil Dekel. Written by Yael; edited by Gil.
Art: ‘Orbs of the seventh dream 2’ © Gil Dekel.