The Afterlife of Billy Fingers: How My Bad-Boy Brother Proved to Me There's Life After Death (8 page)

If you have things you have to do, seeing people's souls could be a big impediment. If people could see each other's souls, the whole world might shut down. Think about it. You'd go into a store to buy something and get hung up for hours marveling at the cashier's soul. If you saw the soul of your so-called enemy, you'd probably fall in love with them, and then what? And if you beheld the soul of someone you already truly loved, like I did with Ingrid, the intensity of that experience might incapacitate you for the rest of your life. You can understand why seeing souls could be a problem on earth. It would become one big love-in.

I guess because Ingrid and I are now both Universes, we're ready to gaze upon each other's souls. There's nothing we want or need from each other except to float around and enjoy the light. That's it. No words, no attachments, no demands, just two Universes passing in the light.

Are we the Universe? Google it.

Billy was speaking even more slowly than last time, and his speech was slurred. I sensed it was becoming harder for him to communicate with me.

When I searched “Are we the universe,” a YouTube video of the late astronomer Carl Sagan came up. In it, he describes how we're all made of “star stuff”; how billions of years ago the elements of our bodies were formed from stars, and how our desire to explore the cosmos is really a longing to return to our celestial origins. Whoa! That's exactly what Billy was talking about. And it's not only Billy who is made of the cosmos. We are all literally made from stars. Becoming the Universe isn't just a poetic image. It's grounded in scientific fact.

F
or the next few mornings I saw Billy's blue light as I woke up, but it vanished quickly. Finally the light lingered, and when I focused on it, I could hear Billy's voice. It was barely audible and even more distorted than before, but through intense concentration I was able to make out his words.

We haven't spoken in a while—or have we? It's not easy to speak in my new state. My thoughts have so much space between them it's an effort to string them together, but I'm doing it for you. What's a gift without a little effort? Don't be scared, honey, because of the difference in my voice. It's still me, I think. I'm laughing; can you hear it?

With all this space between my thoughts, the past has become unimportant to me. If the past was different, would it matter? Would I still be where I am now, talking to you and having the greatest experience of my life, I mean death? I don't know.

What's important now is that I have been delivered to this bliss that is beyond pleasure, beyond joy, beyond anything that can be imagined. My present bliss factor is four hundred million times
the potency of the healing chamber I was in right after I died.

I have to get used to talking to you from this new stratosphere. I'll try to dial into my previous state of consciousness. Wow! From this dimension memories are psychedelic, stereo-symphonic—what's that word I'm searching for that has to do with computers?—virtual, virtually enhanced. But I can't hold onto the memories. They come and go, and there's no landing or impact. Death is really amazing.

I'm alone, but I'm everything. It's difficult to explain things when there isn't thought. There's nothing that I socalled want or need. Satisfied is much too small a word because it implies fulfillment of some lack, and lack is an earth thing. I know that at this moment you're able to feel a fraction of a fraction of my bliss, something inside you that's luminous and healing.

Remember this, my darling—remember this. What you achieve on earth is only a small part of the deal. If there's a secret I could whisper, and that you could keep, it would be that it's all inside you already. Every single thing you need. Earth is just a stopover. A kind of game. Make it a star game. If I could give you a gift, it would be to teach you how to stay free inside that game, to find the glory inside yourself, beyond the roles and the drama, so you can dance the dance of the game of life with a little more rhythm, a little more abandon, a little more shaking-those-hips.

Billy was dictating so slowly it took almost an hour for me to transcribe his words. But it didn't bother me. Nothing bothered me. I was ready to make my life a star game, whatever that was.

That evening, around seven, Billy interrupted my dinner with an unusual invitation.

Meet . . . me . . . at . . . the . . . ocean.

I put my food in the fridge, slipped on a heavy sweater, threw a blanket in my car, and drove to the ocean. The air was soft, the stars bright, a yellow crescent moon hung in the sky.

“How do I make my life a star game?”

Become . . . the . . . Universe.

I tossed my blanket aside and lay down in the sand. In the endless expanse of sky above me, stars sparkled like diamonds. Soon, Billy's presence pulled me up and up and up and whirled me around, as if I was falling up a hole instead of down. I fell upwards into the starlight, faster and faster, becoming lighter and lighter, dissolving into space. Then, my fear kicked in and landed me back in my body lying in the sand.

All the things I usually take so seriously suddenly seemed insignificant—specks against the vastness of the Universe. Billy was teaching me a star game.

I
wanted to learn more about the star game, but Billy disappeared. This time I couldn't feel him around at all and the letdown was bigger than usual.

It was early July. Tex got a book deal and didn't have time for the writing group, so it broke up. People were having fun at the ocean, enjoying dinner with friends, going to parties. I was taking long beach walks at daybreak, composing spacey music on my synthesizer, and watching shows about the cosmos on cable TV. I felt displaced, outside of things. I wasn't quite grounded in my own world and didn't have access to Billy's.

Had Billy completely dissolved into the Universe? Is that what finally happens after we die? I was sad, but not the same kind of sad as I had been when I first learned of Billy's death. I loved him even more now than when he was alive. And I knew for certain he loved me back. Was our time together over?

A month after that night at the ocean, I saw the blue light above my bed. As I stared at it, excited, I heard Billy's voice, and this time it was crystal clear.

Barnabus, Barnabus, hello from Barnabus.

Hey Princess. This will surprise you. We're not only allowed to write this book—we're supposed to.

I was floating around becoming the Universe when suddenly I was sucked back into a body, a body made of light. When I was the Universe, when I was the stars and moons and galaxies, I wasn't thinking about the fact that I didn't have a body. I never seem to be doing that thing people do, thinking about what I don't have. That's because I'm so into what is. I am what is!

Instead of flesh, my new body is made of concentrated light. I'm still me, but I'm really different. Becoming the Universe has definitely changed me, prepared me for this event. I'm still ecstatic, but my consciousness is clearer and more focused than before.

So, I'm wearing holy robes and I've got a full head of curly black hair like when I was young. I also have a mustache. There's no mirror. I just know how I look. I'm still Billy, but I feel even more like myself than when I was alive. My bad-boy tendencies seem to have changed into something else. When I was alive, my so-called misbehaving was really my way of looking for my own truth down there on that very illusion-filled planet. My rebelliousness has served me well now that I'm here. Now, instead of being a wise guy, I'm a wise man.

Wisdom is coming from inside me and shining out in all directions as bliss pours from my heart. I don't have an actual heart, but it's coming from that area. I'm radiating love; I'm just pulsating with it. There's so much hate on earth, even in the name of God. What a concept!
Hate in the name of God. That's why Christ said he's the protector of the meek. They aren't such big haters.

I'm in a sky that is very, very blue. This blueness is my first experience of concentrated color on this side, and it's way beyond human imagination. On earth, your senses are separated from each other, but this blueness I can hear and smell and taste and touch.

Before, when I was the Universe, I was in a nighttime sky, and my memories were see-through, like watercolor paint. I wasn't thinking about that until now that this new color thing is happening. There's that now thing again, so there's definitely some kind of time going on here. Like I had no body and now I have one. Time here has nothing to do with clocks or earth's turning. Here, time has to do with something being a certain way, and then a change. Moments are oceans ebbing and flowing and taking you with them. You're not waiting for the next one. You're just in the ride.

My new eyes are looking up at something indescribably bright, but it's definitely not the Sun. The Sun is puny compared to this giant blue-white ball of light over my head. I'll try to describe it accurately. It's a giant sphere—so big I cannot see where it begins or ends—with rays shooting out of it, and the rays are as bright as the sphere. It's the best thing I've ever seen, alive or dead. It gives me this feeling, no, this experience—it's more like you have experiences here, not feelings—that everything I ever hoped was true, is true, and is even better than I could have imagined.

So I'm standing under this blue-white sphere and a smiling radiant man comes along. I use the word
“man” to let you know he isn't some other species or anything like that. Whether he's a man or a woman doesn't seem to matter much to me. He's also wearing a robe. I'm surprised by the robe because it's brown and looks like burlap. It's the most earth-like thing I've seen so far, so I'm guessing he has something to do with what goes on down where you are. I couldn't care less about his robe, really, because the radiance of his face is so spectacular.

I don't know him, but he seems familiar. And although I don't remember ever meeting him before, I know his name is Joseph. His hair is silver, and I think he's an elder, but he's not old. His hands reach out towards me as he looks at me with the bluest eyes I've ever seen. I know it sounds corny and contrived, but it's not. It's brilliant and oddly familiar, like I'm being welcomed home from a long journey, only the land to which I've returned, well, I've forgotten how brilliant it is. Everything is waving with energy. That's a good way to describe it. It's all energy instead of matter.

Joseph puts a book in my hands. It's not really a book, but let's call it a book for now. He just puts it in my hands and I can feel everything in it. It's such a privilege, such a gift. Gift is too small a word.

I never thought of myself as smart, Annie. In fact, some of the brilliant teachers I've had tried to convince me I was stupid. I was never stupid. I just didn't go along with the party line. They were trying to spoon-feed me their interpretation of life, instead of letting me live and find things out for myself.

Joseph looks down through a hole in a thick layer of clouds, which I now notice below us, and there you are sitting at your computer. And I know for certain that you and I are supposed to do this.

I understand. This journey we're on together can get scary for you sometimes. Having your newly dead brother appear, talk to you, show you his world, and arrange synchronicities in the form of little clues to prove to you he is real—well, it's disorienting.

Why is this happening? Because it can. Did you know that Harry Houdini spent years trying to contact other dimensions, looking for evidence of an afterlife? And even though he was the greatest magician ever, his attempts to communicate with the dead or contact the living after he died never succeeded. He was missing the essential ingredients—the right sender, the right receiver, and permission from those on this side of things.

I know you don't want people to think you're flaky. I told you before; don't worry about what others might think. That's another important secret of life. Don't live by what you “
think”
others think. You figured you'd maybe get around the issue by turning the book into a novel, but I'm telling you, Annie, this is better because it's real.

To be standing in the sapphire blue firmament with this book in my hands is a great honor. I always wanted to write a book. You didn't know that, did you? I wanted to share some of the wisdom I gained during my travels, help others connect to the spiritual side of life. But in my wildest fantasies, I never imagined I'd become an author posthumously
[laughs].

And don't forget to Google “Barnabus,” the name I said as you woke up this morning.

I was stunned. For the first time, I could see flashes of Billy's world, his shimmering robe, a flicker of Joseph's blue eyes. And for a millisecond I saw the blue-white sphere, which gave me a fleeting feeling that nothing could ever go wrong again. Best of all, I saw Billy's radiant face, with a seen-it-all, done-it-all, bad-boy-saint knowingness in his eyes, looking up at the sphere as if he had been expecting it to show up all along.

I Googled “Barnabus.” The first search result said:

Saint Barnabas (1st century), born Joseph

Joseph! I couldn't read another word. Being told that we had permission to write the book, actually seeing Billy for the first time, and this proof about St. Barnabas being named Joseph—all of it sent my brain into overload.

Did having permission mean I was now obligated to tell the whole world about Billy? Was Billy trying to persuade me by making me feel special, saying even Houdini couldn't do what we were doing? Having conversations with a dead person wasn't something I wanted to be special at.

My brother wasn't the only one who could be rebellious.

I
knew Billy could no longer speak to me directly. Since he started becoming the Universe, I had to focus on the blue light that appeared above my bed in the mornings, or I couldn't hear him. It was like a cosmic radio—to hear the broadcast I had to tune in. I decided to ignore the light, at least until I figured out what to do next.