ReCycled by Michael Giltner (fun books to read for adults TXT) 📖

It came as a great shock when I realized I was dead!

It wasn’t in a blinding flash, or previewed by pain; it was quiet and peaceful. One minute I was sitting in my favorite chair, a Slumberboy lounger, and then, I kind of fell asleep. It was one of those dreamless sleeps where you wake and realize you have been asleep, but didn’t know it at the time. Unfortunately, I woke up dead.

How did I know? The light! You know how people always talk about moving through a long, dark tunnel and then seeing the great, white searchlight in their eyes; that blindingly white light at the end? Like staring into the headlight of a diesel locomotive! Well, I saw the tunnel and I could see a light, and yes, it was so bright that it did hurt my eyes. It hurt so much I tried to squint, but finally had to close them as the pain was too intense. I could see that the tunnel was long and as I peeked, I couldn’t see that the light was increasing; it was just there, like a parked locomotive at night with its massive headlight staring straight into my face. I did seem to be moving through the tunnel, but never gaining on it. The light was always in the distance; never brightening, never receding, just there.

People also talk about their “out of body experience” at death; looking down on themselves and their families, doctors, or others as the reality of your death intercedes into their lives. Seeing the amazement of the moment of death; observing those last minutes before they move on. Recording the minutest detail, every nuance, every color before the end, but that’s just for those that return to their body; to their life as it is. Not me. I was gone, never to return – or so I thought.


My name is, or was, James Wantmore. I was born, the first time, on February 12, 1937. I had a pleasant life, went to the state college, returned to my hometown to marry my high school sweetheart, and raised 2 lovely, wonderful daughters. Both are now married and have moved away. They have blessed my wife, Elizabeth, and me with 3 grandkids; two boys and one granddaughter. We get a lot of kicks out of them when they visit. I retired about 4 years ago from a small accounting firm that I personally started. My plans were to spend more time with Elizabeth and the grandkids. Our life together was never hard, challenging at times, but manageable. My wife and I had what some would call, a typical marriage. I started work immediately once I left college and we married the next summer. She worked for several years once the girls were in high school then decided to help out various service organizations when they were in college. She officially retired when I did, but still serves in various organizations associated with the charities. And even though I describe it generally as typical, we were happy with our lives. It was a solid, uneventful life. Obviously being dead changed all that.

Financially the family will be OK, but it’s never the same. I know it won’t be for me. My story has to do with how I’m able to relay this to you, since I’m dead and why should you listen to a dead man.

As I said, I was dead, but didn’t know it, traveling through the tunnel toward the light. Yes, “THE” proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. For those who do return, they recount how there are always people at the end wanting them to enter into the light. Relatives, lost friends, angels maybe; someone beckoning for them to enter, sometimes even demanding they enter. But something tells them not to, that last premonition that to do so would prove totally fatal to their existence. Because if they do; they will not be able to return to their present state of being. Once they enter, their present life is gone, forever. Upon entering the light, they move into the next stage of being or not being, depending upon your beliefs. The light offers warmth and comfort, peace and happiness.

BULL!

Pure and simple bull! Moving into the light does move you into the next stage of being, but not the one that most of us think of or the one we might want to achieve. While some see the light as heaven, people who have entered the light and could send a message back might say it is actually Hell!


OK, let me back up for a minute and give you my understanding of being. We are nothing, but our memories! That’s it pure and simple. Take identical twins. If they are separated at birth (and forget about the co-joined brains of multiple siblings and their cosmic mental oneness) they obviously develop differently. They live separate lives and experience separate events and build separate memories. If they are ever reunited, they may have had some similar experiences, but each twin is a unique person. The same is equally true even if the twins grow up doing everything together! While their physical bodies may look the same, even to the point that only close inspection can tell them apart, each is different. Totally unique; one unto themselves. They were never really the same, but we associate them as the same even though they have different names, wear different clothes, adopt different hair styles. We see them as identical. But they’re not. Each is unique in its own being. Their experiences may make them similar in many ways, but they are still separate and discrete. Their memories are different. One stumbles and falls, the other doesn’t. One meets someone and the other doesn’t. They go to the zoo and one looks at the large monkeys while the other at the smaller ones. Even if they experience life together, everything is not totally equal. In all cases, they are different.

So, every person is different, plain and simple. Not just by what we look like, but what we are. Our conscious and unconscious beings are unique to the Nth power. And that is what we are, and what we miss about people. How can you like one twin and not the other? Yes, we may be familiar seeing the same face, but it is the uniqueness of the underlying being that makes a person what they are and what we miss. Now that you have my point of view in this matter, you will eventually understand why it is important.

Being dead was not, I repeat, was not what I wanted out of life. And, as we also all know, I did not get a choice in the matter. I did eventually move on, and I say eventually because I’m not sure how long I was in the tunnel or how long I stared, peeked actually, at the light. All I know is that eventually, I saw the light getting brighter and I entered not knowing whether I actually had a choice or not. Boy was I surprised! No angels, no singing choir, no relatives; at least not any that I knew at the time. And while it was initially frightening, it became comfortable and quiet and warm after the screaming stopped. Actually, it became quiet once I stopped screaming! All babies cry when they are born, but I came out screaming!

Why? Because here I am, a 70 year old man, being forced through a birth canal into the body of a new born infant! You would scream too if your head was compressed and squeezed and violent forces are forcing you through a tube much too small for you to enter much less pass. I now know how it feels to be made into sausage links! You get compressed until you feel you are about to implode, and then you do, actually you explode – into the outside world. The skin of the sausage breaks and the meat escapes. It may not be a beautiful description, but essentially, that is how you are born.

As they say, I came out kicking, gasping for air, screaming as loud as a 1 second old infant can. Well, at least he did. I was just along for the ride, but experiencing it all the same. Scared out of my bejessus because I didn’t know what is happening, why I’m experiencing all this pressure on my body like I’m at the bottom of a grade school pile-on and now it’s gone and I don’t know where it came from or why it’s gone or if it will come again. I do not know where I am or why I’m here. I can’t focus my eyes, don’t have my glasses and the last thing I remember was sitting down in my favorite chair, then the tunnel of light. What the hell has just happened?

I do hope that what happened to me was just a fluke. Otherwise it would explain why we are all somewhat crazy. If we all had to experience what I did on a repeat basis, I’m not sure we would all be as sane as we are, if we actually do feel we are sane. Birth has to be one of the greatest traumas of our life. I would add death, but we generally don’t live through it!


Different religions have different explanations regarding life and death. Who we are, how we got here, or where we go when we die. Some say we go to heaven; some to a holding place and then to heaven; some do not believe in an afterlife. Some religions even believe we are recycled into a new entity. Some extend reincarnation to mean any life form, but I know that’s also a lot of bull. I don’t believe we come back as bugs or other creatures. These religions believe that when we die, our soul is stored somewhere until needed and then re-used. They believe we continue being recycled this way until we finally reach a state of grace that allows us to move forward into another state of existence, maybe heaven, maybe not. We become the quintessence of being. Believe me when I say that being recycled like I was can certainly give you a heart attack and stop the process before it really starts.

Science says we only use 10% of our brain. What is going on in the other 90% no one knows? Shirley McClain says she knows because she remembers her past lives via connections to that other 90 percent of her brain, or to at least to more than everyone else’s 10%. Maybe our other lives are stored in our brains somewhere. Maybe we “pass on” when our brains are full and can’t store any more. They say we, like the elephant, never forget, but misremember events, have “senior” moments, but never forget. It is all catalogued in some manner in our