remarkably detailed place that even you recognise it as your home-town?’ asked the elements.
‘Well,’ said Permission, looking at Shylock. 'do you remember what happened when we first thought-travelled?'
Shylock nodded his understanding. ‘Apparently when thought-travelling, some people can read other’s thoughts.'
What!' gasped the Elements, horrified at the thought of exposure.
'And I suspect Bb is one of those people?’
‘Read other’s minds?’ asked the Elements. ‘You mean right inside, to our innermost thoughts?’
Shylock nodded, watching Bb intently.
‘And you can do this thing too?’ the Elements stated. ‘That’s why you’re able to suggest this, isn’t it?’
Shylock nodded again, watching Bb shuffle uncomfortably.
‘So that was why he volunteered to come through the gate first?’ added the Elements. ‘So he could create this from the images he’d gathered from your mind?’
‘Right,’ agreed Shylock, next addressing Bb directly. ‘So we know how Bb, but why? Why did you recreate my home town?’
‘Profits!’ explained the Elements. He’s been applying 101 marketing to Get-Lucky.’
‘One-oh-one?’ asked Shylock, confused.
‘Oh, basic marketing for a retailer. There are two key issues facing any shop keeper. First you must attract customers into your store. Second, you have to keep them there as long as possible.’
‘I don’t understand what this has to do with him creating this place?’ asked Shylock, puzzled.
‘He knew the door wouldn’t work, because Get Lucky was never designed to allow people to get out?
‘What!’ Shylock said, angrily. ‘You mean he wanted to attract them into Get Lucky and never let them out?’
The green dragon remained silent, turning instead to face Bb.
‘Tell me this isn’t true, Bb?’ Shylock demanded, a sharp tone in his voice.
‘Mmmm, how can I put this,’ Bb stuttered. ‘It’s not as bad as you think. You wouldn’t have been stuck in Get Lucky. There are all other sorts of places I could have taken you.’
‘Yes, I’ve seen some of them. And very profitable places too!’ Shylock shouted. ‘For YOU! Never mind that your customers would be separated from their homes forever. Never seeing their families and friends again. Wandering aimlessly from one profit-centre to another, for ever.’
‘The ultimate sell,’ said the dragon, admiringly. ‘Get them in the door and continue to provide them with everything they need for the rest of eternity! Very clever.’
‘Bb, is this all true?’ asked Shylock, already knowing the answer.
Bb hung his head. ‘I didn’t mean to harm anyone. I would have made sure you had everything you ever wanted,’ he whispered.
‘Like, coming home?’ asked Shylock.
‘But you couldn’t create people? Could you?’ asked Permission. ‘That’s something none of us can do,’ she said, with meaning.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Bb. ‘I didn’t mean to harm anyone.’
‘Right!’ muttered Shylock. ‘You didn’t mean to harm anyone. Well, that makes it a whole lot better.’
‘So,’ asked Permission. ‘If you remove your home-town image, what’s really here?’
‘Good question,’ Shylock agreed. ‘Show us Bb. Show us where we really are.’
'I'm not sure we really ought to do this,' muttered Bb, under pressure.
The white light
The moment Bb released them from his image, they were falling, tumbling head over heels downwards into a bottom-less spiralling whirlpool of light, drawn downwards by some mysterious force. Shylock was aware of Permission to one side and the dragon to the other, even the pink gate was with them, but apparently not Bb.
Down, down, faster and faster they fell. The Elements roared and trailed smoke behind him. Shylock thought Permission was screaming, only to realise it was actually the pink gate, while Permission fell silently beside him. Faster and faster until the light around them slowly suffused into one continuous light and as suddenly as their fall had started, it…simply stopped.
‘What’s happened,’ asked Permission, suddenly unable to see anyone around her in the bright surrounding light. ‘Are you there, Shylock?’
‘I’m not sure,’ replied Shylock.
‘We’re in the white light,’ whispered the Elements, almost reverentially. ‘The white light.’
‘Shylock looked for Permission to see if she understood the dragon’s mutterings, but she was nowhere to be seen. Nor was the dragon. But, he could still hear them. ‘White light?’ he asked the dragon, swallowing his fear. ‘What do you mean, white light?’
‘I don’t know,’ the dragon’s disembodied voice replied. ‘I’ve always just thought it an old wife’s tale. I never really thought it existed.’
‘What existed?’ asked Shylock, frustrated by the dragon’s meaningless ramblings.
‘The First-Creator’s sack,’ explained the dragon.
‘I’ve heard of that,’ added Permission. ‘It’s said to be a place where everything is moving at such speed, all things merge together, becoming one.’
‘Hang on,’ said Shylock. ‘What do you mean everything becomes one?’
‘Just that,’ Permission repeated. ‘The old wife’s tale the Elements was referring to, told that the First-Creator had a large sack at his side, and in this sack was condensed infinite mass. In order to create something, he would reach into his sack and picture whatever he wanted to create in his mind, then he would remove it from his sack and place it where he wanted.’
‘Now that’s a twist on the big bang?’ muttered Shylock.
‘Big bang?’ asked the Elements.
‘Never mind,’ said Shylock. ‘So you think we’re all in the First -Creator’s sack?’
‘It was the speed we fell at,’ explained the dragon. ‘We accelerated so fast that we -and everything else around us - compressed into one. That’s how the First-Creator got everything in his sack in the first place.’
‘You mean he whipped-up everything so fast, it condensed into white light which he then stored in his sack?’ Shylock said, already thinking ahead. ‘So, there must have been life before the First-Creator?’
‘That’s the conundrum?’ said Permission. ‘He was called the First-Creator, yet he started by taking everything that ever was and reducing it to a white-light mass.’
‘And started over again?’ said Shylock. ‘Trying to improve on the previous model, it sounds like.
‘Some simply believe that he started life for the first time with the contents of his sack, some refuse to acknowledge the First -Creator calling him simply a disciple of the Original-One. Yet others believe the white light and the First-Creator are one, and that we are all part of the First-Creator.’
‘So, if you’re both right, and we’re in the Creator’s sack - we’re mixed through and through with everything that ever was?’ Is that right?’ asked Shylock.
‘Yes,’ but it's the First Creator's sack, not the Creator's' replied the dragon. 'He's someone else entirely.'
'Yes,' said Permission. 'We've already met him.'
‘So, that means that everything in Wilderment is here?’ asked Shylock.
‘No,’ said the dragon. ‘Things which already exist are not in the white light. They have already been removed and placed where the First-Creator wishes them to be.’
‘Ah! So, Wilderment is not here?’
‘Correct,’ agreed the dragon. ‘If we are truly in the White Light.’
‘And Earth is not here?’
‘Correct again,’ replied the dragon.
‘Hmm,’ murmured Shylock, going quiet.
‘Shylock, are you still there?’ asked Permission, worried by his sudden silence.
‘Mmm, hmmm,’ replied Shylock, deep in thought. Which was where he was when they heard the cherub for the first time.
Heavenly bureaucracy
‘Welcome tae Limbo,’ sa
id a distinctly gruff Scottish voice.
‘Who’s that? Where are you?’ asked Shylock, still disoriented, and not, of course, being able to see the new arrival.
‘We’re awe yin in Limbo,’ replied the Scottish brogue. ‘A’m what ye wid caw a cherub, but a’m much mair’n that too. A’m you, n’you’re me, and we’re awe taegither. But enough o’this, A must get on wi’ ma task. I’ve millions mair pur souls waitin’.’
‘Are we finally dead?’ asked Permission, struggling to understand the cherubs strange dialect?’
‘Och aye. This is aboot as deed as ye can git,’ replied the rough brogue.
‘Then who is this talking?’ asked Shylock, confused.
‘Hrrrmmph. I dinnae really hae time for awe this the noo, ye ken,’ replied the brogue, considering the question. ‘Ach, awe richt. It’s yir own soul A’m talking tae. Yir persona, yir identity, thon which differentiated ye from awe thay others when ye wiz alive,’ explained the Scottish cherub. ‘And noo it’s cleansing time.’
‘Cleansing time?’ asked the Elements, nervously.
‘Oh, nowt too traumatic in yir cases. Ye’ll stay mostly the gither,’ the cherub said, reassuringly.
‘Mostly?’ queried Shylock. ‘You wouldn’t care to say a little more about that bit, would you?
‘If ah must,’ offered the Scottish voice, grumbling churlishly as he explained. ‘In yir physical lifetimes, ye all had some gid and bad in ye. Well, ah simply sort these oot and pass the gid tae Paradise an’ the bad tae Purgatory. The gid bits git sorted oot further intae that which gangs-on tae join the Heavenly Host and that which disnae....well, ye'll ken where that goes.’
‘Where?’ asked the Elements, suddenly recalling some of his more shady activities.
‘Och, it gets