text: Space Adventure To Paradise (And Back) What, where am I? My head feels so strange, like a clamp is pressing in on either side of my face. So this must be space.. Tim’s eyes darted around through his helmet to the great blackness beyond. After a minute, he could see little dots of light, but they seemed very far away. He felt compressed in his space suit, and wriggled in it as best as he could, seeking a sense of freedom, but the part encasing his feet was so heavy. Of course, to combat weightlessness. Suddenly, Tim felt a heightening of reality accompanied by fear. Would he be out here until his death? How could he get back into the rocket where he had been before, no one was there to pull him back into the cabin. He thought back, how unexpected and sad to have Bill die. Bill had a painful accident too, impaled by some sharp equipment. They had set up a sharp stake to hold important papers down, but no one thought of the potential hazard for the weightless astronauts bouncing around the cabin. Tim took pictures, even through his shock, to establish it was an accident, and not something more sinister. Then somehow his effort to check the rocket was able to go forward went really wrong. He was locked outside. Tim must have blacked out for a moment and become disoriented. Action. I need to busy myself with a plan. Tim moved gently towards the cabin holding the rope that was attached to him, the rope that was pressed into the locked door of the cabin. He was like a balloon on the end of a string, so it wasn’t easy to move in towards the cabin door. At last he reached it. He tried to pull the door open, but as he did, the rope tore. He began to float slightly away from the spaceship into the darkness beyond. He moved slower in space than he ever thought he would. I feel utterly alone. I’m going to die here alone. Just as Tim was thinking this, a golden flame began to bolt quickly towards him from a distance. He saw as it approached closer, that it was a wondrously strong-looking angel! This angel also resembled the medieval Italian artists’ depiction of angels except its hair was living and moving all the time, as if made of warm fireplace flames. The angel stood before him, fiery hair dancing, golden robes rippling, and gestured to Tim to remove his helmet. At first Tim’s eyes were incredulous, then stern, as he refused. The angel just looked at him, nodding patiently. Then he thought about his options. I’m bound to die soon. I might as well have company, and follow this apparition. Tim removed his helmet. He knew he should feel like he was being drowned, or being smothered, but he did not! He felt freedom and peace. He also felt like he was looking down on himself from somewhere higher. The angel put one golden hand on his arm, and they both flew up and away from his helmetless body and the spaceship. The angel reassured him that all who he had left behind would be just fine. Tim noticed his senses were so enhanced. He really felt like he was living for the first time, and the life he thought he had before was some form of pale, suffocated phony existence. He could see 360 degrees around him. If this was death, why had he ever been afraid? He could breathe, he saw colors he never knew existed. Reds deeper than scarlet, wilder than magenta, yellows brighter than can be described, greens that topped the most beautiful aurora borealis photographs. Tim had knowledge of all around him. He also had knowledge of his past life, and those he had known. It was like a woven tapestry in his mind of how his actions had affected others for good and for bad, all the connections to other people. He felt so very alive. He was ready for wherever the angel was leading him. They arrived at a beautiful place, all roses and lush gardens, and there in the middle of a distant garden stood a magnificently beautiful woman surrounded by many children. She shone like an angel, and yet, she seemed human. He wanted to meet her, but the angel led him away. There were waterfalls and many flower gardens, angelic creatures and happy people enjoying the perfect weather. Everything smelled better, looked brighter, felt more real than ever before. Tim spotted Bill, who waved to him joyfully as he joined some people who looked like they could be Bill’s relatives. Tim followed the angel, marveling at everything, and how his legs didn’t feel tired at all, though they had walked a long way, and leaving the suit was usually exhausting. Tim felt like he could walk forever if need be. The angel seemed to be enjoying guiding Tim around. Then Tim met with someone greater, someone he knew was The One. The One saw right through him, and told him he was going back, because his mission was incomplete. The One said, “We brought you here, so you would know you are never utterly alone. I’m always holding you. You have to know how your life affects others too. You have just a little more time to make it right.” Then The One showed him many things, like why there were mosquitoes plaguing humans, why the dinosaurs died out and when, why the human mind can help heal the body, and so many things He could read in Tim's mind the desire to know. Tim listened, then wept a cleansing kind of weeping, overwhelmed with the knowledge, and the beauty, and the mercy of it all. He would never doubt again. He then began to weep sadly, because he did not want to return to complete his mission on earth. He knew those who loved him would be just fine without him. The angel had told him so. So why couldn’t he stay? He tried to ask to stay, but the words wouldn’t come out. He knew it was no use. It was as if The One answered his request in Tim's head. As the angel led him back from Paradise the long distance to the rocket lingering in space below, Tim asked it how he could return to earth. The angel said, “You should know by now if The One sends you back, you will safely return.” Tim accepted what was happening, and watched the streaking comets and the meteor showers with a heightened sense of awareness and appreciation. As they approached his body, Tim suddenly felt a bit deflated. He was going back to the world, that was a miserable pale shadow of the one he had just left. He reentered his body, but learned it was different to unite soul and body now. As he buckled the floating helmet onto his head, he realized there was a warm, pleasant burning inside of him, a new peace. He still retained the vivid memory of where he had been, and all that had been said to him. He would never be the same, and if others on earth didn’t understand, that was okay. He knew. He knew what his mission was, and how to live each moment of his life. Above all, he knew he needed to return to The One to stay. The angel led him to the entrance, and opened the rocket door for Tim. Tim calmly entered, knowing his return to earth would be viewed as a miracle, then probably quickly forgotten by most. But he would never forget.