Purgatory: Relife Chapter 1 by Aurum Copyright © 2016 Aurum All Rights Reserved.

I would like to give a shout-out to Gwen Brown and CHERYLB for taking the time to review this chapter. Their feedback allowed me to edit this chapter for formatting and quality. Much thanks!

“Where am I?” I asked, my panic showing. My fear came not from my confusion, the drugs in college made me used to ‘coming to’ in random places. No it was how strange this place was, in particular how bright the light was, and no matter where I looked it was blinding. That is, except for right in front of me where a short man sat. Surrounding him was a bright halo, which caused him to appear as little more than a silhouette.

He only sat there, studying me as I shifted in my seat while I waited for my vision to clear. “Why’s it so bright?” I asked, trying to convince him to speak with me. Instead of answering me he was flipping through some pages and taking notes. “Who are you?” I was beginning to worry about this silent person. I asked, “am I in a hospital, where’s the doctor?” Like he’d done thrice before, he ignored me completely.

I gave up on speaking with him until he was ready since he obviously wouldn’t answer any of my questions. Instead I decided to try wandering around to escape the overwhelming brightness that wasn’t clearing up. “Why can’t I move!?” I screamed at him, it didn’t feel like I was bound. No, it felt like I had no body at all, I couldn’t remember even the most exotic of drugs causing this. “Am I…” my voice trailed off as I thought about living as a quadriplegic. My distress was overwhelming, but instead of my heartrate rising or my blood pressure increasing, I felt nothing. This further fueled my fear as I continued to not feel the physical responses I expected, which resulted in a vicious cycle that got so bad I’m sure I’d be gasping for air in a panic attack if my body would react.

“Soon, I need to review your file. Do not worry you’re not paralyzed.” I thought about protesting for answers, but decided that I didn’t need to anger this mysterious man. As I waited I tried to remember how I ended up here, but I was unable to recount anything before this room. ‘It’s a shitty nightmare!’ I thought to myself, realizing that the setting was ridiculous and instead of having weird hands I had none at all. Furthermore, the lack of a physical response to my extreme panic could only be explained by a dream.

I tried taking control of the dream by closing my eyes and imagining a new setting. I thought about being on a creek in the woods, although not perfect I figured it’d be darker and serene. When I reopened my eyes I was still in the blinding room, which agitated me. “Give me clarity!” I demanded, startling the man.

“Are you that disrespectful and impatient?” he replied calmly.

“What… no, I just… why can’t I control this dream.” I paused before continuing. “I’m tired of being blinded in this shitty room.”

“Really?” was all he said before quickly scribbling a few more notes. “First, let me assure you that this is not a dream. Second, you are not paralyzed. Third, this ‘shitty room’ is not a sketchy hospital, but the gates of heaven.”

I could only laugh silently, “Then where’s the pearly gates and all that.”

“There are no pearly gates, that’s just a mistranslation, but I am St. Peter.”

This was absurd, I didn’t believe in any of that, I mean it was so illogical. How were Jesus’ miracles less documented than even the obscure emperors of Rome. Why would a perfect God be so incapable of forgiveness or controlling his anger? Unfortunately, when I heard the man claim himself to be St. Peter all these thoughts and more rushed through my mind in a split-second. I realized this was a mistake when he took a few more notes and sighed.

“Well that’s unfortunate, some people can’t believe it even when it’s right in front of them. You weren’t even close to making it into Heaven, but”

“I’m going to Hell? You’re going to torture me forever because I didn’t believe a stupid set of dogmas. I was a good person, I treated everyone with respect. Sure I wasn’t perfect, but I don’t deserve to be tortured.” I said interrupting him.

“No, but please do not interrupt me again, it’s very annoying.” He said staring me in the eyes until I looked away. It was rare I broke eye contact during power plays, but his gaze was so forceful. It was like he could see everything by looking me in the eyes. Satisfied, he continued, “Do you know what the possible outcomes of me judging you are?”

“Heaven, Hell, and I guess purgatory.”

“Exactly, but did you know there’s actually three forms of purgatory?” I shook my head without saying anything so he continued, “You can think of purgatory as similar to the Buddhist reincarnation, which means that you can be reborn into a better life or a worse life.”

“You said there were three?” I asked when he didn’t continue.

“The third is to relive your own life.”

“But that’s stupid, wouldn’t I remake all the same mistakes and just end up here with the same evaluation.”

“If life were deterministic, then you’d be right. However, your life is guided by four basic forces: your thoughts, your emotions, your intuition, and finally chance.”

“So what’ll be different, will I have better luck or something.” I said sarcastically.

“Tell me where you think each force stems from.”

“You’re probably going to tell me that God affects chance, but the other three are based on my experiences. If I’m reborn in the same life then I’ll have the same experiences, so unless God is going to change my luck it’ll be the exact same.”

“You’re close, chance is determined by God and the other three are determined by your experiences. However, in this life God will change the outcome of chance and you’ll change the outcome of your intuition. Have you never felt that little voice in the back of your mind telling you to do something, did you not notice how it is almost right?”

“Yea, so what?”

“That voice, your intuition, is the experiences of your soul. In your purgatory, your soul will be wiser from this. So even if you were reborn into the same life, you would have different experiences, and not just through a change in chance.”

We talked for some time about the nuances of these forces. He told me that although initially I would have the same thoughts and emotions, my change in intuition and chance would cause me to have different experiences. These different experiences would change my thoughts and emotions, how much depended on me. He explained this cycle at length, but it felt like no time had passed. Rather it was his sharp wisdom or his ability to seemingly read thoughts, our conversation continued with the ease of talking to an old friend. At least until he brought it up, something I wouldn’t be prepared to talk about with people I trusted, at least not honestly, and he expected me to share with him.

“You have 37,521 regrets, of which, four are class A and 12 are class B.” He said in an impartial tone.

“No, I don’t have that many.” I said, really wanting to be done with this.

“You may not realize it since these can be as small as what color toothbrush you bought to oversleeping on the weekend.”

“Well how do you expect me to remember those?”

“I don’t, since they’re not the kind of regrets you bring here with you. But class B’s are the ones you carry through life. Although not debilitating whenever you think about them you wish you’d done something different.”

“And class A’s?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. I was trying to keep from thinking about them since I knew he’d know. Actually, he probably already did, but I couldn’t give him confirmation. I’d had a lifetime of keeping them bottled up so that’d I’d have plausible deniability.

“They’re the ones that are too painful to think about. The ones that always gave you a brief suicidal thought whenever you reflected on them.” He sounded very sympathetic now, like I’d always wished my friends and family had been. Actually, he seemed more concerned for me than even my therapists were. “You need to share them, I won’t reject you.”

“Well I’ve always regretted what major I picked in college. I couldn’t find a job for years, and with it being a business degree I never expected that.” I knew that wasn’t the regrets he was wanting to talk about, but that did always bother me. I felt like a leech on my parents as they supported me, which made me even more depressed, so I spent even less time looking for jobs. It was a vicious cycle that didn’t end until a childhood friend gave me an offer.

St. Peter gave me advice on how to deal with this regret, and how I should have accepted my perceived failure. Although, it wasn’t anything you couldn’t read in a self-help book, it was nice hearing it from such a credible source.

I named off many of my other regrets, from not learning an instrument or foreign language to other regrets I had from my college days. We even discussed the ex I regretted breaking up with. Each time he would support me with good advice on what I could have done differently prior and after the mistake. After we’d discussed 10 of my 12 class B’s, and I was unable to think of the other two, he attempted to bring the conversation to the main topic.

“So don’t you think it’s time we discussed what you really hate. The mistakes that destroyed your happiness.”

“I don’t get why it’s so important to talk about. I’ve already reflected on these more than you can imagine.”

“But I can.” He paused before continuing, “Do you really want to know why it’s imperative we address these?” I nodded my head as he asked. “Because you can’t get into Heaven if you have even one class A regret. Those are like demons that make it impossible for you to enter. They’re the reason you are still blinded before me.”

I sighed, staring off into the bright void to his left. I’d always counted on death bringing me respite from this pain. Rather it was reincarnation, Hell, or even just turning into dust, they were all preferable to the suffering they had caused me.

“Because I let my dad talk me out of becoming a girl when I was four.” I felt defeated at having admitted it. I felt like I was acknowledging that not only was I a failure as a son, but I didn’t even have the courage to be a daughter. My breaths became shallow as my thoughts raced, I was on edge, wired by the remorse and the fear my admission caused. I was ready for even St. Peter to be repulsed and ship me to Hell.

“That wasn’t your fault, your respect for you dad was beyond compare.” He tried consoling me.

“You think I don’t know that. Like I haven’t thought that nearly every time I think about this shit!” I was growing hysterical. He tried backtracking, discussing what sort of standard I placed on a four year old. That disobeying ones parents, especially when they felt so loved was an impossible demand.

Surprisingly his way of looking at it helped. It’s not like the regret went away, but the rage subsided. After I calmed down, he spent a lot of time telling me what I could have done differently to not carry that burden with me. Yet, he offered little in the way of solutions to not repeat the mistake.

“For not taking drastic action when I was 12 to make my parents realize.” This one was easier to share after the last one. This time he walked me through the strategies to avoid the mistake, but didn’t give me much advice to cope if I didn’t

The next two only took a few moments to cover, since really all four of these regrets were the same. “For not having the courage to be myself when I was 19 and for not going to a college that would support the real me.” Like the first two he gave more feedback, focusing on my lack of motivation when applying to colleges. Really, that complacent attitude stemmed from my despondence formed during my teen years as puberty conspired to make my body betray me.

“With that we’re done. As you can probably guess you just barely scored below what is allowed for an easier life. Therefore, you will have to relive your life. All of your memories will be erased and the only thing you will carry with you is a keen intuition from this experience.”

Before I could ask for more information or protest his decision the room went from blinding light to complete darkness.