Interestingly, years later I would see the same brick building on the edge of the same meadow. In this �dream�, �vision� or whatever you want to call it, I had died as an old man sometime in the future. The oldest man in the county, if not country! This wasn�t much of an accomplishment; I sensed, as a long-established fact, that most of the population had died in some catastrophe. Generally speaking , the survivors were young adults and a few very elderly like me.
Children were rarely born. Infants who survived didn�t often live very long. Everyone lived a largely agrarian lifestyle in funny looking, round huts. They wore simple, tan colored robes. I was the largest landowner in the �state� and its richest man [though the concept of a �nation-state� seemed to have died along with the electricity]. This wasn�t something to be proud of but rather almost something to be ashamed of.
The young adults (there were few middle aged people) almost looked with pity on the elderly--survivors of a bygone, more selfish, more dangerous era, still struggling to come to terms with a new reality� unwilling or unable to leave the �old� ways of thinking behind. This wasn�t to say the new era was Utopian: personal relationships seemed tentative, less passionate, almost self-absorbed or selfish; modern conveniences were a memory; modern medicine was nonexistent. A great sadness permeated EVERYTHING. People rarely laughed; when they DID, the others looked as if they couldn�t understand what was so funny or thought the person �odd�.
I seemed to spend most of my time immersed in running my farm or giving answers to infrequently asked questions of how things used to be. Oddly, the questions (sometimes tinged with envy) grew more out of a sense of boredom and mere curiosity rather than any desire to rebuild the world. Eventually, I grew weary of this drudgery and decided to end it. I somehow �knew� that suicide (according to the priests) was not a damnable offense against God; I �knew� that Humanity had received long-hidden knowledge of God that did NOT forbid suicide. God simply preferred that we live out our lives. If we came Home early, well�that was okay too. But not something one undertook lightly, because it saddened God. I gathered my son, his wife and what few friends I had and gave a farewell speech to a subdued crowd. I sensed that they looked on me with pity that bordered on the resentful. One or two even seemed to look forward to my death. Most were�again-- strangely unaffected.
So, according to custom, I took poison and lay down on a smooth, cold table specially dedicated to the purpose inside the brick building [they called it the Death House, a �fitting relic from the past�]. I felt sleepy. No more pain from aching limbs or missing loved ones. My daughter-in-law shed a few �crocodile tears� as my son watched me pass away. I knew deep down, he�d miss me. I floated from my body and watched as my son and his wife hugged, then shuffle out of the room. It got dark. I don�t remember anything after that. I can�t communicate in words just how REAL�utterly, physically REAL this vision was. I could SMELL the cow manure, the wet leaves, the dry thatched roof. I could FEEL the warmth of the fire from the chimney as surely as I feel the keys on my computer�s keyboard right now. Dream or vision, this was a weird one!
