D A Novel (George Right) - By George Right Page 0,98

any case, what do you lose?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Kept silent. Then suddenly he resolved to speak.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" he asked, looking somewhere aside.

Certainly not. I am not a superstitious idiot. But aloud I, of course, said differently:

"Well... as there is a lot of unknown in the world, I don't exclude the possibility of their existence. And you? Do you believe in them?"

"No," he dumbfounded me. And then added: "It is possible to believe only in what you do not know. And I saw them and communicated with them. Moreover–I was one of them."

Yes, yes. My diagnosis is proving to be true.

"You, in general, got everything right," he continued. "Everything really did begin with that accident. And I was indeed brought back from the next world. Only not by doctors."

"By whom then? Angels?" I probably managed to dispel any sign of irony from my intonation."Or maybe demons?"

"No, not at all. By people. Dead people."

"Zombies, you mean?"

He looked at me as at a fool, and then sighed and asked:

"What do you know about ghosts?"

"Well... it is considered that ghosts are souls of people who died a cruel death. And as a result, they got stuck between the two worlds, ours and... next one. Thirst for revenge, the need to fulfill an unfinished duty and so on can hold them here..."

"Well, well. And in your opinion, are ghosts unhappy?"

"It seems, yes. They are troubled by this unfinished business. Therefore they wander and groan at nights..." I couldn't restrain myself and said the last phrase with a theatrical howl. Jackson frowned in annoyance and asked the next question:

"And what is, as it is considered, the main desire of any ghost?"

"To go to eternal rest," I answered immediately.

"Indeed, I heard that since my childhood, too," he nodded. "And haven't you ever reflected, why?"

"Why what?"

"Why should ghosts so aspire to this rest? What's so bad in having an active afterlife? Why are all people so sure that ghosts want to replace it with... with what? With the final death, the non-existence–which the same people fear so much during their lifetime?"

"Probably, not after all," I assumed; it never came to my mind before to think about such things. "As far as I understand, the rest is a transition to a better world..."

"Who told you that it is better?"

"Well," I shrugged my shoulders, "it's just an expression..."

"And you didn't reflect where it came from?"

"Probably from people's hope for a better life at least after death. Though from the Christian point of view... and not only Christian... in the afterlife there can be either paradise or hell. But, probably, existence in a ghost form is some kind of purgatory... that is, when a soul stuck between worlds gets the opportunity to move on, it means that its sins are forgiven, and it is awaited in paradise..."

"Yes, paradise. Eternal pleasure, huh? Well, in some sense it really is... but it depends on for whom. In your opinion, what does the soul do in paradise?"

"Well, I don't know," I shrugged. "All these descriptions from the Middle Ages... such as walking in a garden and playing harps... always seemed to me too naive and primitive. In my opinion, such 'pleasure' will make you howl from boredom in just a week–let alone all eternity... Modern theologians, as far as I know, put it more vaguely, like paradise is the place where the soul reunites with its Creator... In any case, I am not an expert in this matter. I am, in fact, an agnostic."

"Agnostic", nodded Jackson. "A very apt word. It means–one who does not know. And those whom you call 'experts' should be called the same. Though they imagine that they know something, naive idiots..."

"And you?" I asked directly. "Do you know?"

"I know. I was there."

"In paradise? Ah, yes, the clinical death... Well, not only you..."

"Yes, certainly. Even books are written about it. Flight through a tunnel and so on... But don't forget, I was there for eleven minutes. I moved further down the tunnel than others, further than those who could return, certainly. And I saw what is there."

"And what is that?" I became interested.

I saw, how Jackson's face–which, according to the press, remained passionless when he told the court about his brutal murders and listened to his own death sentence–suddenly was distorted and turned pale, even gray, in just an instant. I have read about such things in fiction books and I always thought it was just a literary cliche, but now I