Harry´s Blog

Herbert Kuhner
The news was a death blow. The death blow! The end was in sight. Soon it would be over and I would embark on life’s greatest adventure. I would cross the border between the world of light and the world of darkness. I would transcend existence. The greatest secret would finally be revealed to me. I was going to know what lay on the other side. That is, I’d know if there was anything to know. Was the world of darkness just that, or was it a true world of light?

According to what they told me, it wasn’t going to be a long drawn-out procedure. In a short time it would be curtains. I’d probably be brought over in an instant. They could help me along the way with medication and they’d see to it that the end wasn’t too painful. In the meantime I could settle my affairs and prepare for my journey. It was the ideal way of bowing out.

What the hell, I thought, why not? It has to happen sometime. And in my case it would be sooner rather than later.

There were many things that I still had to do. But as I went along taking care of them, they diminished in importance. What was finished would be left behind, as well as what was unfinished. I had always been skeptical about an epilogue to the show. Okay, I thought, so the curtain comes down and that’s it. But who can be sure? Even a cynic like me has his doubts.

When I was a boy, I’d been told that if you said the magic word, or rather magic words, before the boom came down, you’d ascend instead of descend, if that was the direction you were slated to head in. If you said them, you’d shoot right up and there wouldn’t even be any waiting in the antechamber. But I knew that those words were, more often than not, uttered as a curse. I had wanted to ask about that. What if you said the words as a curse, just before the boom came down? Did that count? Did you still go upwards? But I had kept my mouth shut. I hadn’t wanted the boom to be lowered right then and there by the nuns, so I never got an answer to my question.

But wasn’t it like me to always look for an escape clause? Even if the clause meant not going to Paradise! But why was I quibbling? They had told me about the magic words with no ifs or buts. And a deal is a deal. They’d have to work like “open sesame!”

Anyway, I made up my mind to say them before the death rattle. And just as an extra precautionary measure, I’d say them as reverently as possible, although I really expected nothing but pitch-black darkness.

Let’s say there was indeed an epilogue, but the words didn’t happen to work. What did I have to lose? I’d head downward in spite of having uttered them and have a merry reunion with my ilk. Indeed, what did I have to lose? I had nothing to lose but my skin.

Goodbye sweet world!

Finally the jokes were over and the big joke was almost over. You can joke about the curtains until you can see or feel them coming down. My last gesture would not be an act of defiance but a compromise. I wouldn’t be foolhardy at the border. I’d have my passport ready. I managed to get the words out. I did not say them hurriedly but lingered over each one.

I felt myself sinking. I saw through a filter and heard through a filter. I heard the words echoing and echoing. I was being enveloped by darkness. It wound itself around me like a shroud, smothering me, but not touching me. It was like a tunnel. And I was going through it, penetrating it, going deeper and deeper, but there was no light. So this is the journey, I thought. Goodbye sweet world and welcome oblivion! It was strange, however, that oblivion could be perceived. Perhaps this is the end of the road and this is what it’s like. This tunnel is the road as well as being the end of the road.

Then I saw a blue light at its mouth. Or was it its mouth? Stop that, I reprimanded myself, and I entered the soft but yet bright blue light. God, I thought, I am saved!

I was in Paradise!

And Paradise was Paradise. I had shed my worldly cares and was elated. I had found peace and was at peace,

But I wanted to share peace. Of course those who surrounded me were also at peace. Peaceful souls at peace! But what about the place I had come from? There hadn’t been much peace there.
But now, although I had come from there a short time span ago, I found it hard to imagine how things had been there and what they were like now. But I couldn’t help wondering. It was as if time had stopped, or rather as if it did not exist.

But I kept wondering and wondering. My wondering was the only crack in my bliss, but it was a substantial one. I knew that I could satisfy my curiosity if I chose to. And I chose to. My curiosity got the better of me,

What kind of bliss was this? You could experience it if you kept your eyes and ears shut. You could be happy if you saw and heard nothing. Did that sound familiar?

A miraculous computer was at my disposal, an infinite and infallible computer. On its monitor I could make time speed forward or backward like newspaper film on a library machine. And everything could be tuned in at once.

Now just imagine witnessing a massacre or a natural catastrophe! Imagine witnessing all the massacres and catastrophes that were taking place at the instant. Imagine witnessing all the massacres and catastrophes that had taken place and would take place. As I said, the computer was miraculous. However, there was a limitation to its powers: Everything could be tuned in, but nothing could be changed. The future would come to be exactly as augured on the monitor. The only alternative there was to watching was to switch it off.

My bliss cracked. I became aware of all the suffering and misery in the world. How could there be Heaven if there were Earth?