Published: 29-Jun-2021
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I had an out of body experience (OBE) yesterday.
One moment, I was sleeping and the next moment, I was looking at myself sleeping. I know I should have been shocked but it didn't feel weird at that moment. I don't know, it felt natural. Like this was normal. I then felt a tug upwards and started floating in that direction. Totally out of my control. Nothing I could do.
I arrived at a white plain. Just an expanse of white. I couldn't see anything beyond that white. And in that white, there was a gate-kind of an object. There was nothing else near it. I went around to the back. Nothing. Zilch.
I pushed it open and was pleasantly surprised. Well, I should have been more surprised by what I saw. But somehow, emotion in this 'white place' was subdued.
There was a line of desks, expanding into the horizon infinitely. Arranged like the counters you see when you enter a bank or airport. And beyond this line of desks, there was a city. Atleast I thought so because there were a lot of buildings, all either white or light pink, that stretched to a point beyond sight. Apparently, everything in this world stretched infinitely. There were no boundaries.
There were other folks like me, whizzing past from desk to desk and settling into a queue in front of a desk. It didn't matter there were 100s of desks. You could travel instantly to any desk. Wow, being in this world did have its advantages.
People waited patiently in front of a desk. And when their turn arrived, they spoke to someone at a desk I couldn't see clearly. I didn't know who they were but they clearly weren't human.
I instantly knew I had to choose a desk to go to. No one told me to. It was like there was an invisible spirit guiding me on what to do. I looked around and saw that a majority of the desks were empty. No queues. Few had a handful of people. And one desk, only one desk had a really long queue of people.Strange. I had to find out.
In an instant, I was standing behind the last person in this really long queue. There were people of all ages in this queue. Old. Young. Really young. I think I spotted a baby too. The person in front of me was a young guy. 20 year old or so. He turned around smiling when I tapped on his shoulder.
"Hey, do you know where we are?"
"Wait, Zora didn't tell you?"
"Who's Zora?"
"The old woman you meet right after you cross the gate."
"No, there was no one there."
"Oh ok. She might have been called away to the land of the dead."
"Land of the dead??"
He smiled and pointed to the sea of buildings beyond the row of desks.
"Oh. Wait, I am dead?"
"Ha! You're funny. Everyone here is dead. That's why they are here."
Just as I was processing this information, I heard a woman shout behind me.
"There you are. I guessed I would find you in this queue". She gestured me to follow her.
I just followed. I didn't feeling like questioning her. It felt like the right thing to do. Strange place, this. I didn't know anything about this place but still felt like I knew what I had to do when a situation presented itself. As we floated together, she introduced herself.
"Hi, I am Zora. Sorry I missed you at the gate. I was called away by the higher-up" she said, pointing to the city.
"Turns out, you were the reason they called me. Apparently, someone screwed up and you were called up here incorrectly. So I now have to send you back."
Wait, I was not dead now? I was still figuring out how to react to this when Zora interrupted me.
"And before you ask, you will remember all this when you go back. But don't worry, no one will believe you. So no mind-erasing and all that funny stuff."
"Hehe" I responded mildly, still confused.
As she opened the gate for me, I asked "Zora, if you don't mind me asking, what are these desks? I might as well get all my questions answered before heading back"
"Oh these....each desk represents a job. The job you will perform when you live in the land of the dead. And a person is totally free to choose what they want to do. No pressures like you have back on earth", she winked.
Wow, I thought. We had to work even here.
"But why was everyone lining up in front of that one desk when there were 1000s of desks? Which job was that?"
"Oh the one I found you at? That's product management."
Saying that, Zora gave me a light push. A moment later, I sat up on my bed sweating profusely.
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