The Dunce
Young Alan Parsonage was a small wimp of a lad.
He suffered from a number of health problems, including severe asthma, and epilepsy.
The tough approach of his father never helped matters, and in fact, being of a fragile nature, and very sensitive of feeling too, Alan often became ill on Monday’s, after having spent a weekend home with his father home in the house with them.
One such Monday morning, Alan was particularly ill.
His mother kept him home from kindergarten. He was four years old, at this time.
Alan’s mother was a kindly person, and she put Alan into their own double bed, because the sun used to come into the window there in the mornings.
She left Alan under the covers, and she went out into the kitchen, to do some cooking.
She was going to bake Alan’s favourite cookies for him, and she knew that he would be able to smell the smell, wafting into the bedroom, where he was resting.
After twenty minutes or so, she came in again, to check on Alan.
She looked at his vacant stare, staring up at the ceiling.
Something was wrong, she immediately thought.
She shook him a little, no reaction.
She went quickly into the bathroom close-by, and got some water.
She splashed it onto Alan’s face.
Whenever Alan had had an epileptic fit before, his father used to pick him up holus-bolus, and dunk his head under running water. The cold water treatment always seemed to bring him around.
Alan’s mother would never do this, but maybe, cold water might help her son, to come out of his coma.
Meanwhile, Alan had died.
He had had a severe asthma attack, and could not breathe, and had lost consciousness. This was not an epilepsy attack at all.
He had seen a long tunnel appear centered around his chest area. He moved up it a bit somehow, but then a huge turbine-like fan started to blow him further up the tunnel, blowing him from behind, near the tunnel’s entrance.
Alan eventually reached the end of the tunnel. He shot out of it, and he landed feet first on some grassy knoll there.
There was a bright sunlight shining, or at least it appeared to be, as the place was so well lit.
Then a tall thin man walked up the path towards Alan.
He said,
“Hello Alan, how are you today, my young lad?”
Alan replied,
“Well, I wasn’t feeling so well, but I am feeling a lot better now, in this nice sun.”
The man said,
“Well, you are in a sunny place now. But this place is not ready for you to stay in yet. Your mum is there at home, trying to wake you up. She is frantic with worry. You need to go back to her now.”
The next moment, Alan opened his little eyes, and he looked into the sunny face of his mother.
Alan had had a near-death experience.
Jumping forwards now in Alan’s boyhood life, and he is now 9 years old.
It is Saturday, and his father has worked overtime that Saturday morning at his work in an office building in the city.
Alan’s mother knew what time he was finishing, at 1 pm that afternoon.
She made her way into the city with Alan, and his brother in tow on the train. She planned to meet her husband at his work, just as he finished his shift there.
They had then planned to have lunch together in a city cafeteria, and then to catch a family movie after that.
Sure enough, all went to plan, and they met up at the office building.
Alan’s father was in a good mood, unusual for him, having finished his work, and he said to them, before, we go to lunch, I will take you all up to the roof of this building, and you can have a bird’s eye view over the whole of the city from there.
They went up by lift, but had to walk the final from the final floor to the roof by stairs.
On the roof, there was a waist-high safety ledge made of bricks and concrete cladding winding its way all around the edges of the building.
Alan moved gingerly to the edge, and he peered out and over it.
Something, some bright light shining off of a nearby office window blinded him as it shone directly into his eye for a moment.
It set him off, He had an epileptic fit, and it was so violent, as it threw his body around, that it threw him right off of the ledge of the building.
Alan was now falling to his death to the ground below.
It was then that he also left his body once more again.
This time he was dropping, sinking fast into a deep well.
He reached the bottom, and instead of water there, there was a black oily liquid there instead.
Alan could not swim, but this liquid was thick, and buoyant, and so it held him upwards a bit.
Alan was still sinking slowly like in quicksand, when he felt something, someone, holding his feet and pushing him upwards from below.
Whatever this was it was very powerful; it pushed him up and up, even to out of the well.
Then all of a sudden, he woke up in his body again.
Alan was on the balcony of the floor below the roof.
The strong wind currents there, around that tall building, had brought him here instead of him falling to the ground.
His parents had seen what had happened, and they rushed to where he was, calling for an ambulance as they run down the stairs, and towards him.
Alan suffered a broken leg, a broken arm, a dislocated shoulder, and a fractured pelvis, but he lived to recover fully from all of these frightful injuries too.
Alan had died twice now in his life, and Alan was to grow into a powerful man later on in his life, and he was to become a motivational speaker, and writer of many self-help books, and he lived until 96, when he died then, for the third time, of natural causes.
Alan in his sixties, in his prime, sought after all over the World, for his books, and motivational talks, and seminars.
Photo Credit: The photos used in this article all belong to me, its author.
I wish I knew what lies in our futures when we pass on.
Even, if someone else told us, we might still not fully accept it too.
I guess we have to find out when it is time for us to find out.
There is no substitute for first-hand experience of things.
Yes I understand but I would give anything to know if I will be with my son when I die.
Yes, and I would really like to know for certain, if there is really something there to go to, too.
It keeps me holding on in this life. And nobody can answer these important questions.
If God really exists, he could answer them, but when he does answer me, I even doubt him sometimes too, as time fades fast past the experiences.
I still remember some, though, and I treasure those few times, when I believe that he did speak to me.
when we close our eyes one last time what lies beyond?
Perhaps a new way to open our eyes, with new eyes, or maybe it’s with the old eyes of our soul, now renewed, from living still another life.
it is a question that has been chased since the beginning of our initial human thoughts. What lies beyond the life we have now.
can I hold in my hand the beginning and the end at the same time?
Only if your hand is big enough, and I suspect that only God, could have such large hands, nobody else could have so too.
The hand that holds the start does not hold the end too, as the end is the start, only when the start has not started.
There is no end to anything that starts then, especially if the starter is God.
floating on a snowflake as Dr. Suess said. The universe with its beginning and end on a single snowflake.
the scale of measure is the critical thing then. Not that you couldn’t because you could, if the scale is small then the beginning and end will fit in your hands.
the beginning and end often fits in our hearts as well.
What comes first, though, the beginning, or the end?
When we come to the end of the end, then we can start at the beginning that never ends again then, or does it?
So, the beginning and the end might be mere points on the cycle which is a circle, perhaps one worn around God’s neck, as a necklace, or as a bracelet, on his wrist
what if the theory of time existing in waves is right? in that case, they both exist in the same space, the same time, the essential.
both beginning and end, within the same universe.
No, we just need to realise perhaps either that God is the penultimate scientist, or if God doesn’t exist, science is our best bet to understand it all over time.
We can go forwards holding the hand of science, while also, wondering if anything, perhaps God, is holding/guiding the hand of science somehow too.
Science might be the key to the lock, but one day, we might find the lock-maker too, and find that he/she is more real than the key.
In terms of God, rather than science, it might work more like this.
Time is the distance between us, and God.
When there is no time, there is no gap, because time is of the mind, and instant connection is via the heart, always outside of time.
what of the mix then where both god and science are present? does the world change or does the gap disappear?
Great story. I have enjoyed it a lot. I like to read fiction in Virily, this improves the site.
Yes, some of the photos submitted are great ones, but I also like to read short stories and poetry too.
An amazing story and I could only say that Alan had guardian angels with him his whole life through. At least he knew that there was another life waiting for him when he left this one and had nothing more to fear ever.
Yes, if only we all could realise that there really is nothing more to fear, ever, what a difference that would make to our lives!
This is an amazing story. Sad but also happy with a happy ending. I could tell Alan was very lucky.
Thanks, I am pleased that you liked my story.
That’s an amazing story. Some people just have a life to live.
Yes, I believe that we all have such a life to live, and one way or another, we can all find it in the end.
That’s a beautiful thought! We should cherish each moment of it.
Yes, it is hard to do, but each moment of life is always a precious one, if we can cherish it for what it really is.