Hide Me in Sheol by Matthew Erman (top 20 books to read txt) 📕

“For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;
Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.
But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:
So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more,
they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.
O that thou wouldest hide me in Sheol,
that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past,
that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!”
-Job: 14, 7-13-

I

t had been nearly twenty-six years since I had first felt the grip of death and walking then - through the long lunged canals of Chicago's wrung city streets after leaving the airport; that I felt an overwhelming and biting cold that wrapped around my face like a plastic bag. The salt on the ground put there to stop a frost from forming had turned the asphalt into a splotched marble white. I checked into my hotel and was given my room key, I made note of the golden hue that bled onto the floor and walls, perfectly built warmth that had left the outside. I entered my room, hearing only the chipping birds that had forgotten to leave or never did with the promise of food, they sang outside. It was on the window, near a crack that a roost of red-eyed Vireos had nested, I never disturbed them. More were out further, looking past I could see several blocks away into a small cemetery, it was there were most of the birds had nested, in trees that had grown next to family burial plots.
I had heard on the television, a privately funded company had a new, expensive and economically responsible way to put a human body in the ground. In a way that would make it possible for the human body to be condensed and packed into a seed, and from that seed (mixed with the proper things of course) grow into a tree. I remember sitting on the end of my bed, watching a late night infomercial about this wonderful new exploration into science and the possible afterlife. On my television, a woman in dark clothes in a dark room sat alone in a chair. She spoke with a solemn, serious tone and addressed me (the audience) as if I were in the room with her. She looked a lot like a person I felt I should have known, she looked a lot like we met during déjà vu. She said,
"New scientific advances have led us to understand many things, including the creation of the universe. Yet, we still don't know what's beyond. If anything at all. The afterlife has always been a mystery to mankind, since the earliest cave drawings, to ancient Pharaoh Kings; they would preserve their bodies with a process of mummification so they could return as gods." She prayed on the fear and loneliness of death. I also made note that her statements thus far, had been fairly inaccurate and vague. "Here at the Environmental Science Institute, we have helped create a new process for burial that's safe for the ecosystem, cost effective and goes even further to answer the question 'Does a soul exist?" I sat up in interest, turned the volume higher when she began. "The process is simple and unlike modern burial does not require embalming or any unnatural acts of corpse preservation. Essentially, on the time of burial you are a complete body, the same when you died, nothing is removed and nothing is put in. The process is a familiar one that you perhaps had in junior high school, the body is taken and frozen using liquid nitrogen. After the freeze, they place your body in a biodegradable coffin, which can be painted or decorated by you, prior to death of course, or your family using a similar biodegradable paint. The box after funeral services is then placed into a machine that uses very powerful vibrations to break the box, and yourself into a small powder, roughly the same consistency of dirt. Your body, along with the coffin is then placed into a capsule, along side the proper mixtures for a specific type of tree." An example is shown of the process; it is animated and shows exactly what is done, including the burial and subsequent growth into a cherry tree. "With this process, you are guaranteed an environmentally safe way to enter the possible next stage of life, and if a soul does exist, the scientists here at the E.S.I. have hoped it will go peacefully and quietly into a forever aging tree. A tree, which in its lifetime will experience the beauty rebirth and death thousands upon thousands of times." The woman said this and it quickly went into a short recap of the last thirty minutes. I sat wondering what life would be like, stationary as a tree, dying and living every year. I imagined living as a tree that a family of red-eyed vireos nested in, bringing shelter and safety to the nest. I imagined being a tree is very peaceful, going from the warmth and vibrancy of spring and summer into the slow death of autumn until finally being robed in a cold and skeletal winter. I thought it would be something agonizing. Watching each leaf fall, every bird leave, away from the bits of plumage and remnants of a nest like photographs of a past romance. For the rest of the day at the hotel, I'd occasionally look outside to a tree, one that housed so many birds, where its giant arms hugged outwards over the cemetery. I fell asleep shortly after one o'clock thinking how it feels to die. It was to the buzz of white noise on the television that I thought, yet it was odd because in the back of my mind I already knew.

*

I was living in Tokyo when I first died. It's been so many lifetimes since I've remembered back to that day when I was first given this monstrous choice. I died and when one dies it's not like in any of those books, books I've grown to love and appreciate for their beauty, The Old Testament, the new one, it has nothing to do with Allah or Mohammed. Nothing about Jesus or Moses. It's much simpler and it in that simplicity is the pain of choice, something our entire lives we take for granted the fact that we can choose how to be and live and act. I guess everyone was thinking far too hard. I felt no pain afterwards and even before I was probably going into shock. I remember everything afterwards actually, yet much like a passing dream my life before is now only relegated to odd visuals and a sad, beautiful face that I must pause for several minutes to finally realise fully. I didn't rise out of my body; it simply felt like going under hypnosis and waking up. It felt like a dream that I couldn't commit to.
It was here when I met the choice and the 'something' that was there to present it to me. It welcomed me and told me exactly the choice I had to make. Either to go on, through what we as humans have deemed 'heaven, perfect blissful eternity' I must live a life with no regrets. As in, when I die I have to be completely and honestly okay with how my life unfolded, and even on a subconscious level (this is something that 'something' could tell.) I had to be okay with everyone I ever met. If I wasn't I would be presented with the choice that I was presented that evening. The choice was exactly this; to live a new life where your time of death is non-negotiable. I would be tasked to make the choices I wanted to, to live life how I would have wanted, to fix my regrets from my previous life. I asked it, "How does this work? Are there billions of people on earth who know of this? Are they aware?"
"No." It said simply. "Your new life will take place inside an area so small it would be like as if an ant to the entirety of the universe. It will take place within your own frame of mine."
"So, I'll relive my life in my head?"
"Essentially."
"So what's the other choice?"
"You spend an eternity in a void of nothingness."
"Sounds bored." I said.
"It is. There have been many, many complaints."
"How long do I have to make this decision?"
"As long as you like." To describe the situation would be hard; it was like standing in a well lit black room with no walls or ceiling. There was no one around and I was speaking with some invisible thing. The voice was direct and monotone. We continued to speak.
“Can I ask you some questions; I mean how many times do I get to talk to the creator of the universe?”
“Yes, although it did not create the universe. The universe was, and when it found the universe it decided to take care of it.”
“Wait, you found the universe?”
“It isn’t creative enough to make something as wonderful as the universe. Although it did make life as you know it. So it can take credit for that.”
“Well, what’s the meaning of life?”
“To live without regrets.”
“Sounds kind of simple.”
“It didn’t anticipate humanity to overcomplicate things so much.”
“Are there others like you?”
“No, it is the only one. Although it does wish to know how the universe was created. Such knowledge has not been given to it at this current time.”
“So wait, you don’t know how the universe started.”
“Yes, it does, the ‘big bang’ but before that it does not remember much.”
“Sounds like you have as many questions as I do.”
“No, no just one.”
“Well, if you were presented with this choice what would you choose?”
“It can not answer that, its role is not to influence only to allow.”
“What happens if I die again and I still regret?”
“You are presented the choice again. It is a never ending cycle until you have lived a life of complete self-satisfaction and no regret.”
“What happens after that?”
“You’re presented with the next choice.”
“Hmm, sounds interesting. How many people have made it the second choice?”
“Four.”
“Just four?”
“Just four.”
“Who were they?”
“No one you would know.”
“No one famous then?”
“No one.”
“Man, that’s a really big bummer.”
“Like it said, it didn’t anticipate humanity being like this.”
“Well, okay, I think I’ve chosen anyway.”
“It knows.”
“So, what happens now?”
“Just say when, everything that has occurred here will be as if a dream."
"I won't remember anything."
"At first you will, but after that you will forget as if a dream."
"Okay." I shut my eyes and in my mind I saw the last few images I would remember for many hundreds of lives later. My wife Allison, kissing my forehead and telling me how much she loved me. I remembered back to before I met her and the girls I loved before, each of their faces hardly defined, mostly forgettable. I pushed