The Road Less Traveled by D.A.Sanford - HTML preview

The reason

I have now lost count of all these different lives. Remembering each situation. Now, when I reach my thirties, I start to expect to move on. This one though seems familiar but it is not like any of the other life changes.

In every life, there were people around me. Now there is no one. The only good thing is that I have my motorcycle again, my jacket and no one stopping me from riding. I do get a foreboding feeling that I never got in my hundreds of years, this somehow could be my final stop.

Part of that feeling is founded in the fact that the last incident, I remember the terrible pain I felt. The horror of being torn apart. Now I find myself not going away from that death, I was traveling but now I am facing the direction that I came from. I do not see my other bodies lying there in the rear view mirror. Absolutely no evidence of the deaths.

I ride off in the direction I came. There is no one at all.

Accident after accident. Murder after murder. Life after life. All the previous changes, I looked for the area that I lived in but they just were not there. Now, as I ride, I pass my hides, those fields, my residences, my camp sites, my mansion and finally that hill side home I called a prison.

I keep on riding. I now know where I am driving to. I stop at the house that I was brought home to from the hospital when I was born. I left that house after graduating and married my wife.

In all those miles, there is no one. Nothing alive at all. Then it hit me that I haven’t even stopped to eat. Drank nothing and haven’t slept. The motorcycle has never needed any gas fill up.

My journey seems to have come full circle. I ride and ride. There is a sign that cautions me to watch for rocks in the road. “Caution Falling rock area.” I am watching for rocks in the road. I should have been watching the cliffs.

I felt the falling rock impact me and I blacked out. Maybe this time there is no further parallel world. That’s okay. All those times, all those worlds, all those situations. The knowledge and experiences, for what?

“I can answer that.” A familiar voice said. Now there is that man from the path and two chairs. He invites me to sit. Then he explains. “All of us had to go through the training needed for us to assume the position we were created for. You see, there is a new parallel universe that has formed. Now it needs it’s Supreme God. You are it.

As we speak, that universe is forming. It needs someone to shape it, to guide is and yes to correct it when needed. You see, each universe is alive. As a baby, it needs nurturing. As a child, it needs guidance. As an adult, it needs to live within the rules that are set. In its elder life, it needs caring for. In its death it needs someone to put it to rest.

We have unlimited power. We are present everywhere at the same time. That you will find interesting, and we know all but we are lacking in the feelings, the experiences. Without that experience, we would only apply the letter of the law not the intent. That is why so many lives without knowing why.

You have experienced the initial birth. Once you were born, you were essentially immortal but allowed to age. You did things. You were controlled, you were rich and poor. You died many times or should I say you saw death of those lives. Each and everything you saw, felt and experienced made you whole. That is what you needed.

Now for the fun but frustrating part. Each sentient life form must be able to make choices for themselves. Right or wrong, they must choose. You will create the demigod system. They will do the day to day correcting. You also need to form a minion god system. They will be your managers so to speak.”

It is almost like a fog has lifted and I can now see the road ahead of me. I know that I was created for this role and had willingly accepted it. All the things that this universe’s Supreme Creator has told me is correct down to the last period.

I look and he is smiling. “Just as I knew when I was told about my status, you now know all that you need to mold your universe. This is the way. Now time means nothing to you. You now exist for that universe. You now can feel it from beginning to end. One day you will need to have the same talk with the next universes supreme.

You also know that when your universe comes to an end, you will have the luxury of our final life. We can visit all the other universes final lives as just one of them. Our final life is like an old folks home. We can travel but also we can sit around and swap stories.

I know that we are out of time. I don’t mean that time is up, I mean that time no longer exists for us. Just the thought of that would have fried my brain before that rock fell on me. I have one silly question for this Supreme.

“Do I need to wear those white robes that so many paintings show in your universe?”

He smiles and now he has on my motorcycle jacket. “You can change your appearance to anything you wish. That ability is needed to blend in with a world’s population. A word of advice, the white robe as well as the white rooms are for those mortals you create. I have found that they need to grasp on to something. The white void makes it so that they concentrate on you, not your surroundings”

“I’ll keep that in mind but I will thank you for all those motorcycle lives. I will be creating a world for myself that I can just ride. A place that I can go to to be able to properly decide on an action that I must take.”

We are now in a sloping meadow. The grass looks like it is freshly mowed. A stream flows through it. All around it are trees.

“This is my place to think. As I said, time does not exist for us. He points to a push mower. I like mowing the grass. Not with a motor but this simple push mower. I sharpen the blade and mow this entire meadow. When I need to think, the grass is always in need of cutting. I can eliminate all thoughts and let me think of the solution.

Like a writer who is deeply intrenched in writers block, I need to do something else. A distraction. Then I realize that I need to write the opening and then the final chapter. Then it is easy. All I need to do is write until I get to that end. The mowing is what clears my mind.”

I know what he is saying. “Riding does the same for me. I need to concentrate on the road. You never know when a boulder will fall on you. By the way, There were so many ways that you killed me, why was a rock the final thing?”

“You were born as a human, you lived all those lives. You experienced the sight of all those deaths but never experienced any of them. You will always remember that rock. My final death was on a battle field. I was a medic and covered a wounded soldier when a grenade exploded near us. He lived, I did not. That is why I am so hard on those who start wars but never fight them personally. You will find the meaning of that rock yourself. Don’t worry about that. You have until your universe dies to figure that out.

And if you still don’t find what the rock is, that is okay. You do not need to solve all those little things. That rock is kind of your rebirth. That is the only hint I will give. Now it is time to go to your universe.”