Labyrinth of Memories
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A short story by Jason K Powers
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*clack*clack*clack*clack* echo’s through the long concrete hallway as his heels hit the floor with each step.  He can hear the sound of metal sliding doors creaking and cracking in other parts of this maze of hallways he is walking through.  Somehow forces in the back of his mind make them open and close, each one independent of another, and seemingly at random, but they are so far off down other hallways, it doesn’t bother him really.
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He passes doors on the left and on the right, reading the plaques above each door as he passes.  December 17^th, 2005, reads one.  Chasing a Kite, reads another.  First Fight.  First Kiss.  Car Wreck 2001.  Death of a Friend.  December 19^th, 1998, and on and on and on.  Some doors are bigger than others.  Some plaques have fallen off over time and all that remains is the faded outline of what was once there.  Some doors are padlocked, some double.  There are some spaces where a door should be, but seem left unused.  Perhaps to be filled later.
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One door is open as he passes, so he looks in…
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Jumping Off Rooftops

I sometimes find myself wondering what’s next. What’s next? Seasons change for everyone, and so, mine has recently changed as well… hence, the thought.

Several years ago, this type of change would have turned me perhaps bitter at life, disgruntled, upset, lost or the likes. Through a series of events in life, directions I believe God has led me to, people that have come in and out of my life, and even the unexplainable, it didn’t turn out that way for me, thank God. Simply a new chapter in life.

Sometimes life deals us some cards that we aren’t sure what to do with. Sometimes we aren’t sure what direction to go, and it’s scary. It paralyzes us. It immobilizes us. The longer we think about which direction to step, the scarier it gets and the harder it gets to make that decision. We’ve thought about it too long.

I’m reminded of when I was a kid… Me and a friend used to play at his grandmothers house throughout the year. She had a lower hanging roof off the back of the house, with a nice large tree only feet from it.
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Sometimes, some days, we find ourselves thinking that it’s just hard to get out of bed.  Sometimes, some days, we wake up, and just don’t want to go on.  We look at our lives and see the vicious cycle, day in, day out, over and over again.  Nothing changes.  Nothing rearranges.  Nothing new. 
“How did I get to this place?” we ask ourselves.  “Why am I stuck in this place, this job, this house, this situation?”
Sometimes, some days, we wake up and look back over our recent days, weeks and months and think that maybe it’s all just a waste.  Maybe we’re just wasting our time and our energy and efforts… all for what?  For some vague existence in some hole in the wall job, or some life situation you can’t seem to get out of?
“What’s the point?” you ask yourself.  “What’s my purpose?”  “There has to be more to it.”
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You’re right.  There is more to it.  But it’s probably not how you think…
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In the book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, the main character, Eddie, was a maintenance man at an amusement park called Ruby Pier.  He had worked there most of his life, and died working there.  In this fictional story, he finds himself talking to a little girl after he dies:
“I was sad because I didn’t do anything with my life.  I was nothing.  I accomplished nothing.  I was lost.  I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there,” Eddie says.
“You were supposed to be there,” she said.
“Where?  AT Ruby Pier?
She nodded.
“Fixin’ rides?  That was my existence?  Why?”
She tilted her head, as if it were obvious.
“The children,” she said.  “You keep them safe… It’s where you were supposed to be,” she said.^{(1)
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Christmas Eve. A surgeon, Turk, has been asked to work a 24 hour, overnight shift at the hospital because it is one of the busiest nights of the year for trauma and the emergency room. He tries to get some shut-eye in a bunk room for the doctors, and just as he lies down, his pager goes off and he gets up and rushes off to the ER. Some time later he comes back to the room to try to squeeze in 30 minutes of rest when again, his pager goes off just as he lies down, so up and out he goes. This cycle continues the entire night and he rushes out some 12 times throughout the night. After the final return, he slumps on the bed looking absolutely depressed and hopeless and tired.
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At 6:30 Christmas morning, Carla, Turks wife, is waiting at home for him, so that they can go to church. Just then Turk walks in the door.
“Hey! You better hurry up, mass starts in fifteen minutes,” Carla says.
“I’m not going. I’m not going… ever,” and Turk goes into his room and shuts the door.
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I went to visit an old friend the other day.  He and I have known each other since we were 16, working together after school during the week, on the weekends, and through the summers all through high school. 

I’ve visited him a few times in past few months and it’s really quite a sad state.  I’m always amazed at how just a few simple wrong choices from years gone by can lead a person to where they’re at today… where my friend is today… sitting in jail… 

I could tell when I went that he was beginning to get restless after being in there for so long.  The same walls, same room, same patio area, a revolving door of people, day in and day out.

As you walk in the visiting area to talk to an inmate, you’re separated by a thick soundproof, shatterproof glass.  Each of you sit down and pick up the telephone receiver and talk.  Your conversations are recorded, and your time is limited.

We talked about various and sundry things and before we knew it our time was up.  At the end of our conversation, I hung up the phone, waved my goodbye, and looking through the glass with my friend on the other side… I felt a kind of sadness for him. 

Leaving the visiting area at this particular county jail always gives you time to ponder. 
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I overheard a friend recently say, “My young son asked me what happens after we die. I told him we get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should have told him the truth – that most of us go to Hell and burn eternally – but I didn’t want to upset him,” (…a quote he borrowed, I believe).
He was responded by a couple other people saying: “Sounds like you did the right thing… To tell you the truth, the first is probably more the truth than the later… at least that’s what I’m betting on…”

I got to thinking about these statements, (go figure), and about destiny.

Destiny…

What happens when we die?  Where do we go?  Do we in fact simply go back to the dust from whence we came?  Is that the end?  Is there something for us after we die?

Author Deepak Chopra said in one of his books,

“On the material level, both you and a tree are made up of the same recycled elements.  Mostly carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and other elements in minute amounts.  You could buy these elements in a hardware store for a couple of dollars.  The real difference between the two of you is between the energy and the information.  Your body is not separated from the body of the universe.  Because of the quantum mechanical levels, there are no well defined edges.  You are like a wiggle, a wave, a fluxuation, a convolution, a whirlpool, a localized disturbance in the larger quantum field.”
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“People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can’t rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.”^[1]

Just as the stork is associated with bringing a baby into this world, the crow is associated with carrying the soul out of this world.^[2]  Movie ideas, old legends and other belief systems have a mass of stories about birds bringing death (or life).  Many of these are so very fantastical and one has to wonder how they ever came to be.  One of my guesses is that perhaps it was simply an attempt to make sense of the unknown.  While you and I may not believe in babies coming from storks or crows carrying the soul, there is one thing that is real… life is real… and death. 

Last April, I had the honor of officiating my grandmother’s funeral
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