This post, Part Two, from the likely most important chapter (Chapter Eleven) in the entire Prodigal Band Trilogy, opens up the likelihood that the band will collectively accept not only their "God-given" missions (given by God's angels), but God Himself.
But first, let me state why, having said I would post the week after posting Part One, which was last week, I could not post: I could not post because I was too busy being with family and barely even used the internet. I wasn't even at the location I am now.
Now then, on to Part Two of this series, and a very long post at hand, broken into sections to help in the explanation of this post.
In a timeless white void, no longer on earth, the six dressed in white
"What the—"
In less time than it took to blink, the six went from mentally preparing to exit the plane and physically getting ready to move out without hearing or witnessing any explosion at all, to a vision of emptiness. A blank space that went on forever. No air moved. No color. No ambient sound. No outlines or forms or shadows. They didn't even have time to realize how disoriented they were.
"Where's the plane?" Finally, (drummer) Tom, who was standing behind everyone else, looked around. Not even thinking about how they were dressed in white robes and were barefoot, he then looked up. "Where's the sky?"
"Huh?" Mick (guitarist-producer) said, and others expressed similar thoughts, looking high and low. "What happened to our clothes?"
"Barefoot?" Bry (keyboard-synthist) cocked his head.
But (singer) Erik, who was in front of everyone else, just stared ahead not even aware the other five were behind him. This looks like— He remembered back to the void his spirit inhabited during his heart attack in 1996. I haven't thought about this since— He stared ahead, not hearing the stunned muttering of the others.
This 'remembrance' by the singer refers back to a void he and bassist Keith were in while in a coma after heart attacks in a local hospital, after getting drunk, then snorting a cocaine-derived drug. In that void, both had suddenly encountered others they had known who had died earlier, including Erik's dad and Keith's wife's abusive father, Gus.
"Where are we?" Jack (guitarist-band leader) threw out his arms, turning to and fro but still believing he was on earth and in earth time. Okay, okay, it's a dream. Just a dream. But I thought we were landing? Or was that the dream instead?
All the others could do was look at each other, mouths open with "what the—" etched into their minds.
Unnoticed, however, Erik walked into the whiteness. I've definitely been here before. And on he walked. No one else heard him say, "Same place. Exact same place. How'd this happen?"
Keith, in the middle of the group, broke the stillness. "You know I think I know where we are—" But that's impossible. "This is where—" It can't be!
"Where what?" Jack whined and faced the bassist down.
"Where— um—" I don't believe this! He faced Jack. "Where I was when I was— You remember we told you about this white void we were in when we had our heart attacks in Walltown in the hospital there and it was like the white tunnel people say they see when they're right on the edge of—"
Jack went up to him, panicked. "You mean we're dead?"
Mick exploded in grief. "No! No way! No bloody way! We ain't dead!" Body flailed as he backed away in horror. "We can't be dead!"
Matter-of-factly, Keith smirked at Mick. "How do you know?"
"We're not dead, bloody hell." Jack went ahead of the rest, sure of what he was saying.
But Keith called after him, "How the hell do you know?"
Lubin turned around. "Because, Keith, as you're always reminding us, we're on a mission of God. Remember? You think God's gonna see us dead before we complete it?" Rolled his eyes. "Oh ye of little faith!"
"Right!" Mullock smirked, "But I got news for you, man, that this is the same place Erik and I—"
"Speaking of Erik," Tom cut in, "where is he?"
"And what's that dot over there?" Bry asked, pointing to a dark spot almost straight ahead that seemed to be getting smaller and smaller.
"Well," Mick joked, "it's not the dark at the end of the tunnel." Laugh.
"Not funny," Tom uttered.
Mick rolled his eyes and said in Tom's ear, "It's a play on words, man." Snort.
"Was Erik even with us?" Jack asked. "I didn't see him with us."
"He was with us," Bry answered. "He was right in front of me a minute ago. Well, maybe five minutes ago."
"He probably went to see what that dot is," Keith said to the others. He probably is that dot, eh?
"What dot?" Bry muttered.
"That—" Keith pointed ahead. But the dot was now imperceptible.
Loud enough to want to shake the empty realm, Keith yelled, "Bro! Is that you over there?"
"What was that?" the singer whispered to himself. I thought I was by myself. And where's it coming from?
Erik proceeded ahead ignoring Mullock's call.
"Bro! Where are you?"
But the silence was unbroken.
Keith snickered. "You sure Erik was with us, Bry? 'Cos I don't think he'd just walk off."
"Yeh, he was with us, eh, and I think Erik can take care of himself."
"Yeh, man, but we don't know where we are! You think Erik knows?" Exasperation.
"You said yourself, Keith, that Erik as well as you was in this void. So maybe he does know." I know we've settled our differences, Keith, but I still think when it came to brains, you're one brew short of a dozen.
Jack overheard it all. "Look. That void was your 'light shining in the tunnel,' comatose state. This void is real." He went to the others, one by one. To Keith he said, "We ain't dead." To Bry he said, "Even if it is the same void, we don't know where this void is." To Mick he said, "We ain't dead." To Tom he said, "I ain't joking. Maybe Erik isn't with us, or maybe he is that dot." After which, the guitarist followed the path of the dot. "Are you blokes gonna just stand there? Let's go, eh?"
The dot was ten minutes ahead of them, but time was meaningless.
Erik had been walking normally, but then he strolled casually. I know this is the place! I met my dad here and some friends, I know that. There were black holes here. Not now. Good. I don't want black holes. I know there was evil in that black tunnel I was in. I wish I could remember more. He looked around, but all he saw was whiteness and when he turned around behind him, he couldn't see anyone there. He said to himself, "That's okay, eh? But I thought the others were with me."
Yet when he thought he heard sounds behind him he stopped to listen. "What's that?"
Silence, then imperceptible sounds.
Still not moving, he faced forward where a thin line appeared several yards away. That's weird. Like, one-dimensional. Length, but no width.
Now, he was disoriented, nervous.
"The dot's getting bigger," Jack said, just to say something.
"Yeh," Tom replied, "but that's just because we're getting closer to it. Obviously. But what's crazy is that no matter how much we get closer it still looks like a dot out in space. You know, a point. It should be getting as big as a circle by now, don't you think?"
Keith answered, "If this is the same place me and Erik were, then none of that surprises me. Like when Gus Melby appeared and I chased him into this black hole. It was all of a sudden. It wasn't as if Gus was off in the distance and as he got closer he got bigger. So, if it's getting bigger but it's still a dot, then that just confirms that this is the place."
Bry snorted. "Very interesting explanation, Keith. Which means that back then when you said you were here, you were actually here. I always thought you were lying in a hospital bed with a heart attack."
You still think I'm some kind of lower class idiot, don't you? "Well, then," Mullock spoke combatively, "you explain it! What I say is the truth," then turning to Bry, "or are you calling me a liar?"
"I'm not calling you a liar, but your explanation makes no sense! How could you be here and remember this place when we all saw you lying in a hospital bed?"
"Screw that," Mick again whined. "This place is bloody crazy. So what Keith said makes a lot of sense to me. His physical being was in the bed but his consciousness was here. Maybe that's what happens when you're in a coma." He too looked at Bry. "You ever been in a coma?"
"No."
"Then get off it since you have no idea what you're talking about."
With that, they suddenly found themselves six again.
It is now that when they reunite that things get interesting…and a bit Biblical.
"Fancy meeting you here," Erik smiled.
Keith went up to him. "This is the place, eh bro?"
"Yeh. Same place, but no black holes and no other people. But how'd we get here?" Then the singer dropped his jaw. "Are we—?"
The bassist anticipated the question. "No. We not dead."
"You sure, bro?"
"We're on a mission of God, eh? Not a mission to God."
A glowing light turned on in Manning's brain. "Well, that explains it, then!" He waved his arms with such joy he wanted to jump on the others with the news. "We're on a mission of God but now we're on a mission to God! That way, God can tell us what He wants us to do!"
Jack was nonplused, but turned annoyed. "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute!" He stood there, hands on hips in disbelief. "God isn't some guy you meet on the street! Like you really, really think the Almighty God, Jehovah, Yahweh, whatever, is going to deign to face pipsqueaks like us and put us in a circle around Him and tell us big-time unrepentant sinners what He wants us to do?" He then marched up to the singer. "Are you freaking out of your freaking mind? Who do you think we are? Ezekiel, Daniel, Elijah, Jeremiah, Moses and David?"
"Who?"
Jack slumped, exasperated. "I thought you said you were reading the— Never mind!"
Tom said, "They're Biblical prophets, right?"
"Not all of 'em," Jack answered. "Moses was the guy who took the Jews out of Egypt. David was the guy who slew Goliath with a sling shot. The other guys are big time prophets."
"Why?" Erik wanted to know.
"Why were they prophets?" Jack had to think fast. "Because according to the Bible, God told them to say things to the Jews like repent from your sins and stuff like that, 'cos if they didn't, God would destroy them. And basically, that's what happened. Most of the Jews— they had twelve tribes, but ten of them were wiped out. They were conquered, then scattered. The other two tribes were taken by the Babylonians, but later they returned. Anyway, God punished 'em 'cos they wouldn't stop sinning. Something like that."
"Okay, I get the picture!" But the singer got going. "But that brings us back to what we were saying months ago when we were given this mission. Why would God choose us unrepentant sinners to do this mission? Which leads us to why would God bring us here to tell us what—"
Jack flew off the handle. "I didn't say that, you did! You're the one who's saying we got raptured up here!"
Keith's eyes popped out. "You mean, this is THE rapture?"
"What rapture?" Bry asked.
"You know, THE rapture in those 'end-times' novels. That's when all the Christians get taken up into Heaven—"
Jack shouted for effect. "It's NOT the rapture! Bloody shit!"
Tom shot back, "No cussing in Heaven."
While some smirked, Jack let his shoulders drop. "I give up."
Not all believers in Christ accept the notion of 'rapture,' but 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 clearly says that 'the dead in Christ will rise first' (meaning believers who are dead in the grave), and then 'we who are alive and remain' (in Christ, that is) will be 'caught up' to meet Christ in the air. While the word 'rapture' is not in the Bible, the word 'rapture' comes from the Latin Vulgate word 'raptura' (or 'rapturo'), which is the Latin version of the Greek word for 'caught up,' harpazo. In Strong's Concordance—I thank God I own this book!—the Greek word 'harpazo' means 'seized.' That is, Christ, coming with a 'shout,' and then 'seizes' those who have truly—and I mean truly!—accepted Christ as Lord, Savior, and Redeemer.
"I think we're assuming a lot," Bry cut in. "First of all, if this is the same place Erik and Keith think they were when they were comatose, then it isn't heaven, but a construct."
"A what?" Erik asked.
Bry faced the singer, flustered. "I don't know what else to call it. A construct is something we make up in our own heads to make sense of the unknown. In other words, since there is nothing like this on earth, but we have no idea what Heaven is like, and all that 'mission' stuff, we pretend that this is it." He turned to Jack and the others around him. "What else would you call this place?"
"How about flat land?" Tom asked rhetorically. "Everything here seems to be two dimensional, and even looks one-dimensional. Like that diagonal line over there." He brought the others' attention back to the line suspended in space. "It barely has any width. It came from nowhere." He began walking toward it. "It must have been put here for a reason," he said farther away as he turned around to face them. "You can still see that it's me, right?"
"Yeh," Jack answered. "Why you ask?"
"I didn't want to turn into a point if I walked too far away. Anyway, I bet this line leads somewhere."
They caught up to him.
"Did anyone notice how the line changed as we moved toward it?" Bry asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "That's because it looked like it was going up, but now it looks like it's going upward. The line changes with your perspective."
Tom caught on. "So this is a walkway going upward?"
"Let's find out," Erik said as he followed the line a little bit. Then he faced the others. "Huh. I'm looking down on you. It must go upward."
So they joined him.
Hopefully, the next post will be next week, but I really cannot predict when I will post next, since I may be gone next week as well.
Use the menu above to read snippet posts of the novels, download the FREE PDF The Prodigal Band as well as the FREE PDF The Murder Rule, and more. Cheers!
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