The Skybox

A story about a person waking up in a box in the sky.

Black. All I see is black. Are my eyes open? I’m not sure. I try to open my eyes. It seems to be working, but everything is still black. Am I blind? I reach out with my hands in front of me. There’s something solid there. A wall? I’m lying down on my back. Soft and comfortable. Pillows? Must be. I reach to the left and right of me. More walls. Am I trapped?

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“Is anybody out there?”

Still nothing.

I hear a sound. Something moving. I reach out again in front of me. The wall is gone. I stand up, carefully. I’m dizzy. So very dizzy. And it’s dark. So very dark. Where am I?

“Hey?”

Still no response.

Suddenly there is light. Overwhelming light. My eyes hurt. I close them to protect them. Tears on my cheek. Adjusting to the light. Clouds and blue sky. Wind. I’m in the sky? I look down. I’m in some kind of box. Outside of the box are clouds. The box is suspended in the clouds? That’s impossible! How is this happening?

“Can anybody hear me?”

Still nothing.

Are those clouds real? I need to feel them. Climbing over the edge of the box. Touching the clouds with my bare foot. They’re not solid. Back in the box.

“Why are you here?” A loud voice speaks, apparently coming from nowhere, or everywhere?

“I don’t know.”

“What do you want?”

Thinking. What do I want? Do I even want anything? Yes I do. I want to know where I am.

“You are everywhere,” the voice answers.

I ask, “how did you know the question I was going to ask?”

“I just know.”

Shock. The voice can read my mind. Another shock. Who am I?

“Only you can answer that,” the voice booms.

“I don’t even know how I got here, let alone who I am.”

“You are here because you need to be here.”

I need to be here? What does that even mean?

“You needed to be everything and now everything is you.”

Puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“If you truly didn't understand, then you wouldn't be ready yet and you wouldn't be here.”

“Can I go back to…” Where? Where did I come from? I don’t know.

“You can, but do you really want to? You are still attached to the ego. You can let that go,” the voice says.

Let go? But what is my ego?

“It's the illusion you use to make sense of your existence and the world around you.”

I touch my face. It feels solid. I am real, aren’t I? So then I have an ego? But why do I have an ego?

“It is simply your simplified sense of you.”

That doesn't make sense. “How can I be me if I don’t even know who I am?”

“You are you, yet you are not.”

"I’m so confused. I want this to end."

“There is no end and no beginning.”

Feeling annoyed. “Can you please stop speaking in riddles?”

“Sure.”

“Do you know what I’m doing here?”

“You are here because you did something that didn’t work out exactly the way you intended.”

Feeling desperate now. “What did I try?”

“Obviously something you didn’t expect to lead you to this.”

“So you don’t know what I did?”

“If you don’t know, I don’t know.”

I got an idea. “So you ARE me?”

“Yes and no.”

Thinks hard. “We are one?”

“Yes.”

I should ask a smart question. “Do you know who I was?”

“You were a human being living on the surface of a planet you call Earth.”

“And I am not anymore?”

“Yes you are, yet you are not.”

Why isn’t this being answering me? “You promised no more riddles.”

“It isn’t a riddle if you know the answer.”

“But I don’t know the answer!”

“Yes you do.”

Thoughts running through my head. How eerie it is not to know myself. But I do know me, yet I don’t. This is so confusing!

“Breathe,” the voice commands.

So I breathe. In. Out. In. Out. I close my eyes. In. out. A memory of a soft kiss. Warm feelings of affection. Mine or the other's? I can’t tell. A face with blue eyes, infinite portals of beauty. Then it’s gone, drifting away from the edges of my consciousness. Another memory of a child, playing with a ball. The child smiles and the feeling of joy is overwhelming. I’m still not sure if the feelings are mine. Then it fades away. Another memory takes it’s place. It is of an old woman looking sickly yet radiating love and gratitude. She looks at me and I can feel her pride in me and then a beautiful light. My pride, or hers? It fades away, just like the other memories.

“Good. Now stop thinking.”

Now that’s a weird idea. “Stop thinking? How can I stop thinking?”

“Listen.”

I stop breathing. All I hear is the wind.

“Keep breathing.”

I breathe again. Still nothing but the wind. I listen more intently. I can hear my own breathing now, louder and louder. Slow and steady. In through my nose, out through my mouth. The wind seems to somehow compliment my breathing. 

“Breathe slower.”

I count between my breaths. One, two, three, four.

“Don’t count, just feel.”

Breathing slower. The wind seems to calm down simultaneously to my breathing.

“Don’t analyse, simply enjoy.”

I try to enjoy, but my thoughts keep returning to the who and why and the now.

“You are safe, you are loved, you are everywhere. It is enough. Just be.”

So I am. Now I feel engulfed with warmth. Colors around me. Red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple. All the colors I know and even more colors I have never even seen before. The clouds are amazing! They are all connected to each other. Colored lines going from everywhere to everywhere, pulsating with some kind of energy. Lines coming from my body going to the clouds and beyond. Intricate patterns everywhere, too difficult to describe, ever changing. A sense of completeness and awe overcomes me. It’s all one!

I try to look at my body, but it’s no longer there. I only see a radiating light. That’s not true. I don’t actually see it, I somehow sense it with all my being.

“Now you are ready.”

Ready for what? Did I just ask that question, or did I merely think it? What's the difference anyway? I already know the answer. It doesn't matter, I understand it now.

So you do.