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They were dressed in all white just like us. The only difference is that they were wearing emerald green name badges. They all smiled as they approached us. They wore the smiles of old friends and family who somehow knew us. Obviously, this was not the truth, but it seemed that they knew us somehow in that same familial manner. We were each greeted by name and told to follow them. I just stood and waited for someone to come and take me to wherever it was they were taking everyone else. I waited for a long time. All my journey mates were taken away toward the wall and slowly they all shrunk to ant size against the wall. I was all alone. I sensed that time was somehow different here. It had no relevance at all. I actually expected the mid-day sun to stay put right where it was at. It did. After what could have been an hour or five, I began to see one distant speck getting larger. It was a man. The man walked with purpose. He wore a white double breasted suit and had hair colored to match. His eyes were dark brown. He wore a green name badge like the other escorts had. As he stepped closer I could see his gentle smile. He made me want to talk to him. Something in his demeanor made my heart soften just a little and put me at ease. He extended his arm and spoke…”Come with me young boy. We will talk and learn together.” I just stood there. I almost couldn’t speak for some reason. I finally said,

“Um, where are we going?”

“To the gate of course. Where did you think we were going?”

“I really have no idea.” I said dumbfounded.

I had planned on this day for years; dreamt about it. I knew this day would come and yet here I was like an awe struck child. “Shall we go?” he said.

“Uh…yeah.”

He took my arm like a kindly old grandfather would take your arm. I wasn’t sure if I was being led or if I was assisting a tired soul along a long walk. He leaned close to me as we walked and said, “do you know what we are about to do young boy?”

“No, I don’t.” I said…again lamely.

“You are about to get a test of sorts. Just a small one.”

Ha! I knew it all along. It was a test. And now was my time to pass. I felt assured now that all would go smoothly. Whatever I needed to know, I’m sure mama taught me over the years. Surely she would not let me come this far without some sort of hint along the way. “What if I fail the test?”

“Ah, you young people are always so concerned with passing or failing. Don’t think of this as that kind of test. This is a test of you and you alone. There is no pass or fail really; just different endings for different people. End is such a harsh word really. It’s simply a conclusion.” As we walked towards the wall, we passed others who were walking back to the train already. Most of them looked very happy; some were actually crying in their happiness. We walked in silence for what felt like a long time. It was a comfortable silence. We approached the wall. As we approached, there was a small group of hosts and Journey members standing waiting for something. Just as we approached the group I noticed that a large section of the wall was enshrouded in fog.

People were actually walking in and out of this foggy area. I surmised that this group I was standing in was waiting to enter into this foggy area. My host stopped walking and looked at me directly in the eyes. “We are approaching the gate. Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“For that little test we were talking about earlier.”

Suddenly I felt very unprepared for this. I felt almost naked. I was stripped of all my knowledge and attitude and left standing with only who I truly was inside. When stripped of all that you are taught and left with just who you were born with, it can be very unsettling. My host sensed this emotional stripping and gripped my arm a little harder. When I looked around the small clutch of people, I sensed that they were feeling the same way; supremely vulnerable. I smiled at my fellow journey members standing there but they didn’t smile back. They looked too nervous and uncomfortable to smile back. I couldn’t understand there recalcitrance to smile and show happiness at this moment. With every minute that passed in this emotionally naked state, I felt more and more comfortable with what I was left standing with on the inside. My host finally chuckled a little and looked at me. His eyes spoke volumes more, than his mouth could have…”It’s time to enter into the fog – to see the gate.” I nodded in agreement and we walked quickly into the haze.

It felt like forever as we walked blindly through the fog. I half expected to bump into someone as we walked. We finally began to come out on the other side of the fog. The gate was enormous; probably five hundred feet tall and at least three hundred feet wide. It was solid gold…or so it appeared to be. I saw one other person and their host standing right up close to the gate and gazing through its gold frame. Beyond the frame was more fog. We stopped walking and waited for them at a distance. I saw the host wave his hand in front of the gate. My journey mate looked like he was talking for quite some time as he stared through the gate. When he finally finished talking to his host, the host touched him lightly on the crown of his head. My journey mate smiled wide and they both turned towards us and walked right past us into the fog.

As I walked up to the gate my host spoke, “Don’t be afraid. Just be honest with yourself and me.” We walked right up to the gate and I still saw nothing but fog as I gazed through. He waved his hand in front of the gate and the fog on the other side, parted, leaving a black inky void. “Tell me what you see young boy.”

“I don’t see anything sir.”

“Look again.” He said as his eyes searched me out.

I looked long and hard into the void and again I felt naked. I finally said, “Sir, I don’t see anything beyond this gate except space…black empty space.”

“Look again young boy. Surely you must see something beyond this gate.”

I began to feel an overwhelming sense of failure…all those years spent thinking about it. Mama. Surely she had given me something to go from. How could I be failing this-the most important step in my life? Failure was not an option. I was just about ready to make something up when my host’s words came echoing back to me, “Just be honest with yourself and me.” Tears began to well up in my eyes as I finally spoke to him again.

“I’m so sorry…I don’t see anything at all. I have failed you. I have failed myself.” The tears flowed freely now…”I can’t believe it. I just don’t see what everyone else does.”

“Shh…be still now young man. Watch the gate. Watch it closely,” He smiled.

The gate began to creak loudly as though it had not been opened in a very long time. It opened just enough to allow a single file line through it. I was drawn into it. The whole gate was just some sort of optical illusion. Upon walking through it, I was in a very small, pleasant waiting room of sorts. It was all soft green and there was a door on the other end of the room. When I looked around behind me, there was no gate; just a door that was now closed. My host looked at me with excitement in his eyes. I still sensed failure looming as I was not on my way back to the train.

“Do you know what this means young man? Do you understand what has happened?”

I shook my head with tears streaming down my face. “I’m so sorry. Can I still go back home?”

“No. You cannot. You still don’t understand, do you young man?”

“I’m afraid I don’t sir.”

“Do you know how many thousands upon thousands of people have taken that same journey before you?” I told him that I did not. He said, “Of all the people that have traveled to this gate, so very few have ever seen nothing. Only a select few have ever not seen anything. And no one has ever seen the things you saw on that train. You are the first one. There is something special inside you that helped you see the beauty which was all around your travels. No one else ever saw it exactly as you did”

I was stunned, unbelieving. “I still don’t get it.”

“My dear young man, did you enjoy your journey?”

“I loved my journey dearly sir.”

With a wistful look in his eye he said, “Ah, so few ever get to this room. So few ever enjoy journey. Their minds are too full to enjoy it; to take it all in. Do you know why you saw nothing?”

“No…I…well, no.”

“Whatever a person sees beyond that gate is their ending.”

“What ending? You mean journey’s ending?”

“No, no, the end to their life. Some see green fields, others see beautiful beaches, yet others see that quaint farm house where they spent their happy childhood years. Whatever it is you see is your own happy ending. Whatever you are blessed to see, we bless you with to keep in your eternity.”

Tears began to creep up on me again.“Well…what does that mean for me then? I saw no happy ending. I saw a void. Am I to spend eternity in darkness??”

He laughed long and hard, “Young man, you still do not understand. There is no end for you. You saw nothing for your ending, therefore you shall never end.” He said the last part with a happy twinkle in his eye. “Your ending is the journey itself.”

“But, I just finished my journey.”

“Yes, but you are just beginning the journey.”

“What do you mean by the journey?”

“So few people ever realize that eternity is just a series of steps in the journey. Eternal happiness, true eternal happiness, is a never ending journey. It is a journey of infinite steps.”

“Why me? Why didn’t all the others make it to this green room? Will I ever be able to go back and see my family?”

“If you choose to, you may go back any time you wish. As to “why you,”…it could be a lot of things but mostly it was your parenting and your ancestry; their blood coursing through your veins.”

Mama. She had known all along what she was doing. When I doubted her, when I rebelled, when I questioned journey…every answer she gave me was pointed toward this moment. All that time knowing that her son would probably never come back to her. Hot tears stained my cheek on their way towards my shoes. Mama had lived her life so that I could gain access to the journey of all journeys. I suddenly missed her so much. I missed her embrace, her soft skin, her scent.

A sudden sense of urgency swept over my host. “Come. We must go now through that door and onto the journey. I believe there is a private train waiting for you. Come now.”

He walked over and pushed the black door open outward. Gold. Everything was gold on this train platform. I was on the other side of the wall now. The hiss of steam roared loudly in my ears. There stood in front of me an antique steam engine. It was exquisite. Every machined part, from the smoke stack to the wheels, was shining gold. With every step I took toward it, the sun glinted and gleamed over the glossy surface. There was just one car attached to it. It was a very long caboose. My host touched my shoulder from behind. I was momentarily startled out of my awe.

“I believe this will suit you a little better.” His eyes became deep and he searched me as he spoke. “This is a little slower. I trust you will be comfortable at this new pace. One moment at a time, I am sure.”

Steam ushered from the engine again as a loud whistle went off to signal its departure. I reached out to shake my host’s hand. He shook it soundly. “I almost forgot to ask you your name.” I said as I looked to his name tag. It was blank.

“Just call me friend.”

Mama had led me here. And a friend had opened the gate.

The journey commenced.

Commencement: The ending of one thing and the beginning of another.

When I was ten, the late night stories started. When mama saw that I’d grown tired of the story game, she came up with this. I thought I was too old for stories at night, but she didn’t. It was actually kind of nice to have mama there at bedtime. It took me six months to even realize what she was doing. The stories never ended. As hard as I tried, I never stayed awake long enough to hear the ending. Here I was again, playing the never- ending story game with mama. This time I would win though. If I just stayed awake all night, she would have to end it sometime. Every night I would steel myself and firm up my resolve to stay awake. Every night she would win out. I tried everything. I tried reciting the multiplication tables in my head. I tried drinking Coke. No matter what I tried, the story went on until I went under. And so it went for almost four years.

By the time I was almost fourteen, mama seemed to sense that I would be able to outlast her one of these nights. With no warning or notice, the stories stopped. I still got a kiss good night but that was it. My body was changing. My hormones were raging into full gear. If the stories hadn’t stopped, I probably would’ve rebelled and made them stop myself. My relationship with mama was straining under the pressure of friends and school. She was taking a back seat and my friends were riding shotgun. When all my friends talked about their futures they would include school, marriage, family, etc… All I could ever see in my future was journey. It consumed me. I had to know what awaited me at the “end” of journey. My life had been devoid of any endings for a long time.

Sometimes I would press mama for some guidance in my life. Unlike my friends’ parents, mama never put pressure on me to go to college. She didn’t press religion like many of my church going peers’ parents did. Mama was never all for or against anything. Mama let me choose my own fate. Even the classic childhood mistakes were allowed to happen because she let me choose. The first time I ever drank cheap wine, mama knew. Of course, I didn’t know that until years later. My brief stint as a smoker was totally transparent to mama. Again, she knew, but let me choose my way. Even though I knew she had her own set of morals and standards, she kept her expectations off of me. She never tried to live her life through me like some parents. She never over- preached like most others. Mama always loved me; even when I didn’t love myself. After a time though, even mama started to fall under my cynical gaze.

As journey grew closer each year I almost began to resent my mom for not giving me enough structure in my life. Everything was so open ended with her. Why couldn’t she just put her foot down and say “You’re going to college whether you like it or not.” As many kids do, I began to pick fault with the way my mom was raising me. Nothing she did was good enough. The more obsessed I was with journey, the more I pushed my mama away. I had to strike out on my own without her. I had to find out what lay ahead for me. One day I decided to defy convention and ask my mama outright what journey was and where it ended. It was a gloomy dingy winter day. I had just come home from school and was feeling particularly ornery. “Mom, I think it’s time you told me what journey is all about. From start to finish, I want to know it all.” She smiled at me as though she expected this from me. That made me angry.

“Journey is what it is. We all must go when called upon from age eighteen to twenty one.” She went on reciting as though she were reading from a text book. “We are taken from our place of birth or origin and joined with thousands of others who have been called to go that year. Journey is weeks, maybe months long. The end of journey is different for everyone.”

“What do you mean different for everyone?”

“Each person experiences it differently.”

“Experiences what?” I said, finally feeling closer to an answer.

“The end.”

“What was your ending like then?”

“My ending was exactly what I thought it would be.”

Now I was getting somewhere. “What did you think it would be?”

“We’ve talked enough about journey now.”

Her tone was firm. I knew not to push it. I had been so close too. What was the big deal! Why was everyone so damn tight lipped? Maybe everyone was so tight with the info because there was none. What if it was just a big joke? If it was, then God had a very twisted sense of humor. No way, it couldn’t just be a joke. Too many adults had spoken of it way to reverentially for it to be joke. If not a joke, then what? A test of some sort? That was it! It was some sort of test. That was why all the adults were so quiet about it. They had all passed the test and they didn’t want to give away the answer! I had finally figured it out. Mama thought she was so smart being zipper lipped about the whole thing. Ha! I had it all figured out. Now all I needed was the answer to the test so I could come back and not tell any of the children. What happens to those who fail the test? I never knew anyone who didn’t come back. It must be easy. I had heard rumors of people who never came back from journey. That’s all they were though…rumors. No one ever confirmed one person who I actually knew that didn’t come back. Yup, the test was going to be a breeze. I just wanted to know what it was. Somehow just knowing that I had figured it out a little bit made me feel better.

As I sat waiting for the train to seal up and leave, my neighbor to the left was bragging about being called on to go to journey early. “So I must be ready for it or they wouldn’t have called me to journey at sixteen.” I admit I was jealous. I had never heard of anyone going early. The train sealed up silently and began to speed forward immediately. It gained velocity very quickly. It didn’t speed up so fast that any of us were thrown back. It got up to cruising speed in just a few minutes. It was fast. Very fast. Within minutes the city was gone and only gentle country side surrounded me on all sides. The gently sloping hills were so very green. It was noon and I was hungry. Without another thought the lunch cart stopped at my couch. The food assortment was exquisite. There were stacks of pancakes, piles of perfect little petit fours, and the bottom shelf had nothing but succulent sandwiches and hamburgers. I ate until I couldn’t eat any more. I drank till my thirst was quenched to the bone. It felt wonderful to finally be on my way to this silly little test and finally know what comes at the end of it all. For the first time in years journey wasn’t bothering me. My stomach was full, everyone was generally quiet, and the scenery was too beautiful to miss. That’s when I noticed it.

Far off on top of one of the little green hills was a huge castle. It looked like the one at the center of Disney Land. It was perfect. I wonder who owned it. It was maintained so perfectly that it appeared to look fake. Just as it was getting too far away for me to see, I could swear I saw a very shiny looking man riding a horse out of the castle gates. How much of the world had I missed never leaving my small town? An actual castle. Wow, a guy on a horse too. We really were in the country side now. I was so amazed by the passing scenery that I hardly noticed that no one else was looking out of this oddly transparent train. As I stared off into the passing fields a scarlet dragon swooped over the train breathing fire onto the transparent roof. I flinched as fire licked the side of the cabin and the dragon banked off to the west. Amazing. I turned to the boy next to me and asked, “Are you a little scared?”

“Well, sort of. Journey is a big deal to my family. I’m not that happy about going but I guess I am a little scared.”

How could he be so calm with all this going on outside the train. The dragon never came back. As the train sped along, it banked right up against the most beautiful wheat fields. The wheat had been partially bailed into huge round bails tied up with wire. The wind whipped through the wheat and I could see the golden tops swaying together in their own special flow. How had I missed this kind of stuff at home? The world was so beautiful. So beautiful that not one other passenger even glanced around to see? I couldn’t understand. As the sun set that first night of journey, I will never forget the moons. There were 3 moons orbiting along side one another. Two were pale blue and one was light pink. Spectacular. As our beds unmelted right out of the cabin walls my eyes were glued to the sky. Everyone else took so much time to put there things away and talk to each other. I jumped right into bed so I could gaze up at the moons and the stars. As I drifted off to sleep there was a huge meteor shower. So it went for the rest of journey. I would rise to one miracle and go to sleep on another. It was so fabulous that I truly began to believe that this was what journey was for. Curiously, I never heard any comments from my fellow journey mates about all the beauty around us. It was as though they just didn’t care to see anything but the inside of the train; even though the train was designed to be a viewing vessel. After weeks or months, the train finally approached the stopping point.

The train began to slow so gently that it was almost imperceptible. As it slowed, we began to approach what had looked like a solid white horizon. I had noticed it for while, but was so engrossed in the scenery beyond the train that I gave it no thought. The closer we got, the more I could tell what it actually was. There stood a wall so vast in proportion that it literally blotted out the sky. It was stretched out from East to West as far as the earth curved. If the wall did not run east to West, it would block out the sun for half the day. I had never, ever seen anything so…so…large in all of my life. As the train approached, it felt like we were going to run into it. We didn’t. All of my fellow journey mates were so stunned by the wall that they momentarily forgot to be nervous about where we were at. For one brief moment they were taken up in their awe. Awe wanes in a very short time it seems. My head was still stuck on what I had experienced on journey. The wall began to actually under whelm me. What was happening to me? I had to focus. There was a test to be taken; a job to be done. My mind was just stuck on the long voyage that had so entranced me. Silence. Again with that total and complete silence. The walls did their pin drop suction trick once again and we were hit with such brightness, most of us actually had to close our eyes briefly. Unlike the boarding platform, this platform was really, really white.

I imagined that someone had ground up millions of pearls and mixed them into some sort of pearl concrete. The platform we stepped onto, the supporting structures, and the wall itself were made of this stuff. There needn’t have been any sun at all. As my eyes adjusted to it all, my mind could not. My mind was again drawn back to journey while my eyes were left to cope with this pearl dream. I just couldn’t bring my mind to bear on what lay ahead either. I had been so presently focused on the train that I just wanted to stay there. I still did. It was comfortable to me. I slowly slipped into the present moment and my eyes seemed to focus more sharply. Curiously, there were no other trains or platforms anywhere. There had been one slice into the platform big enough for the train to pull into. On both sides of the train the platform extended for miles. The platform actually extended as far as the wall did. I could just see one huge Pearlescent ocean. As more and more people unloaded onto this pearl platform we began to notice people approaching from the wall. As they approached us, it truly put the wall into perspective to see those tiny specks at its base slowly become people.

I knew why I stood here. With all the others…we all knew. It was our time for journey. The train station was unlike anything I had ever seen before. White. It was just so beautifully white. My well shined white shoes stood still upon the solid white marble floor. The marble was not as much in slabs as it was just poured into one vast train platform. No seams could be seen anywhere as I walked on this pure white expanse. Thousands upon thousands of us were all waiting on the platform together. I could sense the group excitement in the air. It was like static on a humid day. Here we all stood united in purpose, yet divided in plan. We each had our own unique plan for how we were going to handle journey. Each plan was as unique as it’s owner. Everyone was dressed in the finest apparel their money could buy. Some finer that others, but that didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that it had to be white. Each passenger waiting on the platform was very unique from the one next to him. Some men wore hats, some wore bow-ties, and yet others wore no ties at all. Yet all were white…down to the souls of their shoes. Some women wore long flowing evening gowns. Others wore smart business attire. All white of course. As I looked around, I was struck with a sense of individuality unlike I had ever felt before. I felt like a four leaf clover in the middle of a huge clover patch. Somehow unique, yet not. The train approached.

There wasn’t a track. There was just a thin metal rail. As the train approached from far off, there was something missing. All eyes were focused on the approaching train. I could hear nothing. That’s what was missing. Noise. I stood in a noise vacuum. The train was not just quiet, it was utterly silent. It approached without even a whistle. I could see why no whistle was necessary. The train was so stunning to behold that a whistle would mar its grand entrance. It floated mere centimeters above the rail as it glided to a smooth stop. Its shape was a cross between a bullet and a very sharp arrow head. It had no visible windows or windshield of any kind. Even the doors that were surely there could not be seen. It was fluid in motion. The only difference between the train and flowing mercury was that the train was sold white. No seams, no doors, no windows, just a smooth white surface with no angles at all. The mid morning sun tried to find a place to glint off its surface and failed miserably. Sunlight could not be reflected in the train’s surface because its surface just radiated light from every fluid curve. Maybe it was the suns way of saying, “you’re too beautiful for me to pick just one place to reflect off of.” I was totally slack-jawed. I had not imagined journey beginning like this. Just as I scooped my jaw off the floor, a sweet melodic voice radiated up from the floor: “Journey will commence in 20 minutes. Please board the shuttle now”.

My furthest back memory of journey begins with my mama. Never mother, almost never mom, but most always…my mama. It was one of those spring days that become eternally ingrained into your consciousness as the “good old days”, or the proverbial “happy childhood”. The sun did not shine that morning as much as glow. It’s funny…as a four year old the umbilical cord is still intact…it’s just invisible. I would always stay within a certain range of my mama. If I strayed from her sight, I would periodically poke my head around to make sure she was still there. A light wind licked my lithe hair. I sat on my aunt’s patio turning circles on my cousins’ old tricycle. Life was good. Every now and then I could peer through the glass doors and see mama laughing and playing pinochle with her sisters. As a child, I could sense a special moment between mama and her sisters. That moment transferred to me just by watching how happy mama was. Happy conversation among adults is truly underrated when it comes to raising a healthy child. It always warmed my heart to see mama in her happy place. I decided to go inside so I could just listen to the “grown-up” talk. As I stood quietly next to mama’s chair, my aunt spoke very softly. “You know he’s going to journey with this year’s group.” The table fell silent; silent like a grenade. The pin was pulled. My aunt was speaking of her oldest son…and all her sisters knew it. Her words spilled out in a rising crescendo of guttural rhapsody. “It just doesn’t make any sense. We all had to go on journey, and here we sit playing cards! It doesn’t matter. Why do we try to teach them?! What’s the point of giving them years of our hopes and expectations? They make us go…for what?! It’s just a let down!” Her words exploded out like shrapnel as tears began to well in her eyes. “We can’t even talk about it! How are we supposed to teach them without all the answers? How do you prepare them for something nobody understands anyway? Well, not anybody….” Her face went slack. The tears of frustration just fell out of her eyes silently. There was silent understanding from the other three sisters. No words were spoken about journey at that table again. Mama noticed me standing there and she actually did a double take. Not knowing how long I had been listening, she took my hand and led me to the living room and shut the doors. Mama looked me right in the eyes to size up the damage that her sister may have done…then finally she spoke. “Journey is sacred. That means that it’s special. Sometimes when people don’t understand something, it can scare them a little. Your auntie just doesn’t understand journey.” After a long thoughtful pause she added, “I’m not sure I understand it myself. I went and so will you…and so will all of us. We must go to journey when we are old enough.” Sensing my attention span growing wafer thin she put her soft hands on my cheeks and guided my gaze into hers. “Whatever lies at journey’s end for you, is for you alone. I hope that one day you will be ready.” I don’t recall mama talking directly to me about journey for many years after that.

When I was six years old the game began. I will never forget the night she started it. The sun had just set over the foothills and a light crisp breeze was blowing through the house. Mama always opened up all the doors and windows as the sun set in our small town. It was a daily ritual that I came to love over the years. She would go and switch off the air conditioning unit and then open the window right next to it first. She would proceed to the backyard doors, then on to the kitchen windows and lastly the front door. I could always feel when the front door finally opened. It completed the little open ended wind circuit and allowed the free flow of the slowly cooling summer air. She had just finished her ritual when she pulled out my favorite blanket from the hallway closet. It was shiny silver stitched into squares with down feathers inside it. My favorite sci-fi show was on. Considering men were still landing on the moon at the time, curling up in a shiny silver blanket and watching sci-fi was not as weird as it sounds. There we sat…me in mama’s lap with the blanket wrapped around us. All was right with the universe. When the first commercial came on, mama began to whisper in my ear, “Let’s play a game. I am going to start a story on this commercial. When the show comes on I will stop the story wherever it may be. On the next commercial you have to continue the story.”

“Who ends it mama?”

“That’s half the fun, no one ends it. It’s a never ending story!”

“Every story needs an ending mama. It’s not a story without an end, is it?”

“Of course it is. It’s the greatest story of all. The story takes on a life of its own. The telling of the tale is reward enough.”

I’ll never forget the beginning to the longest story ever told. She spoke just loud enough to cover the frosted flakes commercial. “There once lived a knight in a castle very far away. This knight was unlike any other. He was a robot. He could do things that no other knight had ever done before. When the battles got heavy and the other knights began to grow weary, he….” Darn show interrupted my story. And so it went. For that night and many, many more to follow, we played the story game. We watched a lot of television so the commercials were always a naturally good breaker point for storylines. But the game was played while doing dishes or any other task that may have been mundane. Those times were actually better because we got to choose when to end our part of the story and dump it into each others lap. She was right. After a while the telling of the tale was as fun as any ending I could have come up with. I still got antsy every now and then to put an ending to it. I needed that end. I needed that closure. The older I got, the more impatient I became with the game because I needed that brass ring to reach for. That pot of gold at the end of the storytelling rainbow. The story stopped almost three years after it started. I was to blame. I refused to keep it going without an end in sight.

When I turned eight or nine years old most adults started talking about journey more openly. They had to be careful though. For them it was like carefully plotting a circumnavigation of the globe; touching on one point here, sailing by another point there, and avoiding any thorny areas by going around them. There was always a certain sense of self restraint involved. Even at a young age I could sense it. They always wanted to say more than they were saying. The more I heard or didn’t here about journey, the more I began to obsess on it from a young age. Journey was still at least ten years in the future and I had to know it all now. How would it end? Where would it begin? What is it like? All the adults could ever tell us was things like, “You all dress in white and meet together with others of similar age and you are taken away from here.” They might ad details like, “It’s fast but very long. It takes many weeks of travel to get to the end.” What end? What was the deal? If they had all been and they were back now, there was no end to journey at all. How annoying – another story with no end. I made up my mind by age nine that I would know everything about journey by the time I was eighteen and ready to go. Surely I would be ready by eighteen, and not have to wait like some, until as old as twenty-one. I would be ready.

“…Board the shuttle now.” The train yielded openings in the most amazing of ways. As we all stood staring at this hermetically sealed white liquid bullet, little black spots appeared at even intervals in the side of the train. The spots appeared like someone had dropped single drops of black paint onto the snowy white surface of the train. When the black drops hit, the surface around it actually ripples like a pond when a pebble is dropped in. The ripples grew outward in concentric circles around the black spot until they were outright waves. Once the waves got big enough around the little black spot, they actually got sucked right into the spot itself. My eyes finally realized that the little black spot was the trains interior. There was and unsettling silence that actually grew more silent as we watched these pinholes suck into themselves and create round doors for us to enter into. You would think that the interior would be splattered with white paint…but it wasn’t. My jaw dropped when I had seen the exterior of the train. It fell off upon entering the train. There were no windows of any kind. The whole thing was one big window. There was no top or bottom part that I could not see out of. The only thing that established any boundaries was the beautiful Victorian furniture used to make us comfortable. The shell of the train was lightly tinted so the sun didn’t bother my eyes too much when looking out. It was the ultimate “glass bottom” boat. I loved it. The view was spectacular, and we hadn’t even left the station. The Victorian couches were sitting along the walls and the interior sat like a subway car; everyone facing each other. Unlike a conventional train, there was just one long compartment. When I looked down and saw the thousands of white clad bodies entering the train, I looked into eternity…one long tube with tens of thousands of people getting in. Where was I going to sleep? There was plenty of room inside. I didn’t even have to stoop when I walked. This was going to be cool. I would finally solve the riddle that was journey. Where would it end? Where was this sleek vessel taking me? What was the point of it all?