I'm not dead. I'm just making my transition.
Issue #607 Keith’s SciFi Musings Sunday, May 19, 2024
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It was the strangest thing. Honestly.
I was driving down the freeway headed home from work and was about to take the exit that would take me home to the west side of Detroit. I had been taking this same exit to head to the same home for nearly 15 years, to the point where the car could probably drive itself if it wanted to. The education of repetition, or something like that.
Anyway, that’s where I made my mistake - where a lot of drivers make their mistake - thinking I knew the way home so well and had taken this trip so many times before that I didn’t need to pay that much attention anymore. Just listen to the music, hum along, and drive. Hell, I could probably even close my eyes and
That’s the last thing I remember. I’m hoping I was just amusing myself with the thought. But at this point, it doesn’t much matter whether I followed through on that idiotic thought as a one-off challenge to myself and to my overall boredom with the drive, the job, and life overall, or whether the thought just remained in park inside my bored little brain.
Because let’s just say I missed my exit. In a very major way.
Next thing I knew I was no longer in my car, nor was I on the freeway. From what I could tell I wasn’t even in Detroit anymore, and probably not in Michigan either. I was still wearing my rumpled gray suit and white shirt, and the awkwardly-tied knot in my gray and blue-striped tie was still hanging low beneath my unfastened top button. But that was the only thing familiar. I was standing in this long, long line of people that stretched forward as far as I could see into what I can only describe as endless, featureless whiteness. Like a big white room, but with no windows, no furniture, no walls and no angles. Just…whiteness.
Plus there were no smells, which is even harder to describe than all whiteness. Because when you’re smelling nothing, how the hell does that smell? And yet, that’s what it was. It was so quiet for those first few minutes that I was starting to think maybe the place was soundless too, even with all these people. But then the guy in front of me turned around, almost as if he’d heard what I was thinking, and smiled. He was short and stocky, wearing a black Alice Cooper T-shirt, blue shorts and sandals.
“So is this the line for the transition then? Do you know? I asked the lady in front of me a while ago, but she doesn’t seem to know either. I’m pretty sure it is, but I just wanted to know for sure.”
“Wait. Transition? Are you saying I’m…I’m dead?”
The guy chuckled, then shook his head.
“Naw, I’m pretty sure we’re not dead. I had a friend who died once for a short while, but the doctors managed to pull him back. No white room where he went. Whole different waiting room. I think he said it was blue. My name is Chuck by the way.”
“OK, now I’m confused, Chuck. Because I always thought being dead was the same thing as making that transition. Making that transition is just Black folks’ way of easing the pain, trying to convince ourselves there’s this really nice place that comes after. Just like how we say ‘joining the ancestors.”
Chuck laughed, then shook his head again.
“You’re not gonna believe this, but I think there’s a whole other waiting room for that too. Not sure what’s on the other side once you get checked in though. I guess you get to see your family members. I mean if that’s what you want. My family wasn’t that great, so that’s probably why I’m here to spare me having to deal with those idiots all over again for eternity. Shit, just send me to hell instead, man. I’m serious.”
“OK, sorry to hear that. But then if we’re in the transition waiting room…where are we transitioning to?”
Chuck’s smile looked sympathetic, like a parent trying to figure out how to explain that there’s no Santa Claus to a kid.
“I don’t think we’re exactly transitioning to a place, my friend.”
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