The White Garden, story by Nick Adigu Burke at Spillwords.com

The White Garden

written by: Nick Adigu Burke

From my armchair, by the window, I watched them enter. They’d tramped into my room, as though a troop of chimpanzees, their bouncy lunacy too much. I say Chimpanzees, perhaps clowns would be a more precise description, given the shiny, pointed hats they’d strapped to their heads; each of those accessories, as ghastly in colour as the last.

Some of the clowns carried big grins, and food piled on silver trays. They had come for a party (that much was clear), but whose, I didn’t know. Soon, I guessed, from all the unwanted attention (they were giving me), that it was my party. I couldn’t fathom why complete strangers would throw me such a bash, with my confusion, not eased, by their blasted homemade banners, which read “Happy 80th Birthday.” Nonsense. That wasn’t my age, not even close. I was only thirty-three. But nonetheless, they draped these things on my walls, like soiled laundry.

And if that wasn’t enough annoyance for one man, that lot, kept referring to me as John or Jackie, or bloody granddad. For what reason? Christ knows. I’d never met any of them in my life. Besides, my name was Muhammad, and before that Cassius. Never John, or Jackie, and certainly not granddad.

That was it. They were all mad, or confused. They’d clearly mistaken me for some other guy. I was scared. The mistrust pounded my chest, grew in me, like a shadow in the dying sun. I couldn’t even blink. I stared hard. Watched them like the hawk.

How could they not know me, when I’d just been crowned the undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World? I’d just beaten-up the “Gorilla,” Joe Frazier, in a fight that will last forever, “The Thrilla in Manila.” And I was pretty, ever so pretty.

One of the garishly attired interlopers, an adolescent boy, switched on the small silver wireless that he’d brought with him. It chewed out songs that I’d not heard before, and I was thankful for that… Such a hideous din. But strange. In that moment, I had an urge to rise. But not to mingle, or even cease the gargled confusion. No, I wanted to show-off my famous foot-shuffle, to make my shadow dance to the rhythm of my punch combinations, to show that lot who I really was, because it pissed me off that they didn’t know. I was Muhammad Ali, King of the World, not John, or Jackie, and I was certainly not a “Granddad.”

A lady, no more than thirty-years-of-age, entered the room. She smiled, wider than was natural. She called me another name. Mr Saunders. Again, I didn’t know why. This pissed me off too, but she had a pretty face and… and that smile of hers, I’d enjoyed in some place or another before, and this soothed me.

The pretty one, wore a white nurse’s tunic and navy-blue trousers, and had brown eyes, and I smiled at the red ringlets that tumbled about her shoulders like autumnal ivy. She picked-up my limp wrist and called me Mr Saunders, again, and I wondered why her voice seemed hurried, anxious – even; but more than that, I wondered why she repeated this incorrect name. I wanted to shake her by the shoulders, and give her what for, “Do you not see me. I am Muhammad Ali, King of the World, not lowly John Saunders!” But at that precise moment, as though I’d woken from a dream, I recognised the smile and that infinite beauty. But it confused me too, and I wanted to cry, or hide away, but I could do neither, except gaze into those kind brown eyes, and wonder how their warmth could conceal such wicked games. She was my wife, how could she be so cruel, and act as though she didn’t know me. Ten years of marriage. For what? A Devil’s trick? And why was she dressed in a nurse’s uniform? She was an accountant for Christ’s sake. And who were all the strangers in the room?

Those questions swarmed and buzzed, like irate hornets. That’s when the smile fell from her pretty face; and the anxiety deepened in her throat. She leaned forward and I fretted, as she frantically fingered an orange switch on the wall beside my head.

The youth, in charge of the wireless, switched it off. And my ears would have been thankful for the respite, if not for the alarm that now buzzed incessantly. But with the music gone, so were the smiles, and too, the foot tapping, and the Smalltalk that irritated me.

I watched with gnawed lip, as a middle-aged lady approached me. To my shock, tears streamed from her grey eyes, and she called me dad, but in a way that was more of a question, “Dad?” Strange. I didn’t know why she was crying, or even why she’d called me dad. Yes, I was a father, how could I forget, but my own daughter wasn’t there, besides, she was only nine years old, and this lady was in her fifties.

The other interlopers edged closer to my chair, but each carried an uncertainty or an unease about them, as though a single inch of progression, represented a yard leapt into the fires of Hell. I noticed that tears streamed from their eyes too. All too strange. One minute as ebullient as a troop of Chimpanzees, the next as sorry as a wet weekend in Rhyl.

The ones, still in clownish hats, removed them, and I waited, in dreadful curiosity, the next events. Right on cue, another lady, dressed in a nurse’s uniform, barged into the room, followed by a second lady. The second lady, despite her heavy make-up, appeared older. She wore a long white coat and demanded the gathered give her space. She was definitely the boss.

My head felt light, flighty, and tingly as the lady, in the white coat, gently picked-up my wrist. She then held up the fore and middle fingers of her right hand and placed them below my jaw. I couldn’t feel her touch, cold? Warm? Lord knows. She removed her fingers from my jawline, waited a moment, then placed them back. This time, however, she shook her head, and the lines of her face banded into a pensive expression. This is when things took on a stranger significance.

I moved without will. Against my will. A puppet, manipulated by the invisible strings of an equally invisible puppeteer. But within this involuntary movement, a euphoria erupted within me. Although my movements were not of my own volition, I realised it was the first time I’d been able to move since the Joe Frazier fight. What a monumental relief! To finally be unshackled from the chains of myself.

The break from my bondage was ever so strange, ever so surreal though. I began to float up, towards the ceiling. What in God’s name? Was all I could think. Pure insanity, but I was not scared. When I looked down from my lofty position, I saw an old man, slumped in the chair, where I had been. A shroud of silence muffled the interlopers: not a single breath was audible.

The weird occurrences didn’t end there. The bloody walls! The ones draped in the homemade birthday banners, rolled outwards, though on casters. As they rolled, a pale yellow light shone through the blanched brickwork. Beautiful, as though the most angelic dawns of spring and summer had confluenced into a single stream of sunlight.

Remarkably the interlopers, seemed oblivious to the glorious phenomenon: their tearful eyes, remained fixed to the old boy slumped in the chair. The lady in the white coat spoke up, but I couldn’t hear what she said, because a fanfare, of I think trumpets, echoed their charm around the room. It was loud and beautiful, and as hypnotic as the sunlight that shone from the walls.

How can you not see this? I thought. The interlopers well and truly oblivious to the sheer magnificence. Instead they were more intent on their sombre perusal of the old man, slumped in the chair. The light from the walls grew broader, brighter and engulfed the entire room. But strangely it did not sting my eyes, even when it blotted the interlopers from my vision.

Without definite knowledge, just a strong hunch, I knew why the walls had elongated, and rolled out. It was to accommodate the ethereal creatures that now ambled from the light. These creatures were unlike anything I had ever seen before. They were human-like, I suppose, but taller, much taller, their height and slender physicality, accentuated by their flowing white robes. About their heads, they carried a brilliant silver aura, which somehow defined them against the bright cascade. This contrast did ache my eyes however, but, all the same, I couldn’t help but gaze: Their elegant beauty otherworldly, surpassed only by their moonlike faces, and the maternal tenderness pooled in their large dark eyes. And in those eyes, I would have drowned a million times, and been happy to do so. For they instilled, within me, a tranquillity, the like of which I had never previously known; a calm, delivered on the adoring glances they shone my way. I felt warm – alive in fact.

With my soul permeated by their warmth, I noticed, numerous tiny lights, which floated or hovered all about the ethereal creatures, not unlike the fireflies of bygone summers. Strangely, by instinct or acute inclination, I’m not sure, but I knew nonetheless. I knew that the floating lights were responsible for the beautiful, trumpeted music. How they made that sound though? That, I do not know.

One of the elegant creatures, the one with the brightest aura, glided towards me. Even though I felt little but joy, it held out its hands anyway, and told me not to be scared. So perfect was this action, it almost seemed rehearsed, or at least an undertaking, performed a million times before. Perhaps, it was a salutation, ordered by a being of higher rank, a rule etched on the gold-leafed page of a Divine and ancient doctrine.

The creature, with imperial resonance, introduced itself as a seraph. I wasn’t shocked, not in the slightest: inexplicably it was as though I’d known that moment from birth. This initial connection, with the seraph, prompted the others. They all glided to gather about me. These Seraphim seemed younger, more mischievous than that first one. They whispered, by way of cupped hands, into each other’s ears, and shyly glanced at me all a giggle, but in a way that was curious and infantile, not malicious.

The elder seraph, leaned closer, and told me I had entered the White Garden. It then lifted its large hands, to cup my head – just as a man would clasp an apple. A euphoria exploded within me, a dormant glory, rushed to the fore of every pinnacle of my nerves. My mind felt light, fresh, as though I was a child of five again, but with all my adult knowhow retained. I say, “all my adult knowhow”, the Seraph had magically fished out all the bad from my knowledge pool, all the calamities I’d endured in life, or at least the negative thoughts and feelings I’d had, towards them. But I had little time to savour this newfound, freedom of mind. Memories I didn’t even know I had, flooded into the empty spaces, all of which, were happy and positive.

It was then, I came to know, I wasn’t Muhammad Ali, and I hadn’t fought Joe Frazier in Manila. I realised that all those, from my room, I had previously called interlopers, were, indeed family and friends, and the old man, slumped in the chair, was me, lowly John Saunders, and that I had died. I realised too that this didn’t matter. John, Jackie, whoever, was a mere husk, a container for my soul. A vessel to carry my conscience through my earth life, to my new and higher life in the White Garden.

My eyes drew to one of the numerous lights, floating about the gathered Seraphim. In my gaze this light grew, brightened. No longer a pinprick in size, but as large as a tennis ball. From its spherical shape it elongated, into a tube of light, from which, appeared a lady – young and ever so beautiful. Without time to even blink I had rediscovered the love that I had for her, a love far beyond all that I’d previously known – love that shone and glistened with unfathomable lustre… I knew it could only be Divine. Those beautiful, brown eyes and the rogue red ringlets that tumbled about her shoulders like autumnal ivy, broadened my already wide smile.

This lady? My lovely, Earth wife, Edith, who had passed thirty-five years prior. She came to me perfect, just as I’d always known, armed with a sunshine smile, and a look of unadulterated, Seraphim-like adoration, but in a way that was more powerful. It was strange. I could feel the love, leap free of her being, and now, it reached inside of me, in a way that felt physical. I could feel the tenderness of its caress, enwrap the coldest segments of my soul. She moved forward, and embraced me. And in that clinch, the love she had previously placed into me, somehow magnified, as though gasoline had been dashed on the fires of all my loving passions.

In that tender moment, the other tiny lights were no longer pinpricks; they’d grown and brightened into tubes, too. From which, different friends, and family members emerged. All those I had loved, and lost to Death. I stared hard, aghast: men, women, and children, and animals too, pets that I’d loved so much in life, made their appearance in the White Garden. I was brim-full of love, became love, and I wept waves on the back of that emotion. And even though my Earth body was little more than a skin-sack of bones and wasted muscle, bedevilled by a Demented mind, I felt strong, powerful; magnificent even, and young, and virile, and all the youthful superlatives I could gladly muster.

Even people that were enemies, from my Earth life, appeared, and gathered about me; there, to bask in the ocean of unconditional love. No hatred or malice was prevalent: all the vulgar and worthless emotion, left at Death’s door. Nothing but Divine love thrived between us.

This is when I knew the pointlessness of our Earthly hang-ups. This is when I knew, life on Earth to be a mere learning curve, to highlight the importance of love. This is when I realised, physical life to be the precursor of what would later come: a bright and beautiful, spiritual future, where nothing is loathsome, or irritable, or a chore; where the only emotion that exists, is that of love. My journey was complete. I’d arrived home, in a place that lives and breathes in-and-around life on Earth, but a life free from negativity and hardship. A dimension the Earth dwellers cannot see, but one they’ll all later call home.

Within all this beauty and the cascades of light, I realised that as Earthly beings, we’re dead, and it’s only after our Earth life has concluded, that we’re truly born.