Standing on the Edge
                      by Lyndon DeRobertis



     What a day!  All three cashiers call in sick four days
before Christmas.  And of course, no one could come in to cover
for them until at least one o'clock.  So, I, the lowly assistant
manager, had to run register all by myself.  I'd already been
ringing for three hours and my head was spinning, when I saw
something that made me drop the two bottles of Listerine I was
bagging.
     Over in aisle three a woman just stepped off the Cosmetic
shelf.  I mean, she just walked off the shelf.  I blinked, and
only the impatient faces of the dozen people waiting in line
stared back at me.  "I must be losing it!" I thought.
     The line of customers going by seemed to never end.  I
didn't even see them anymore.  I just mechanically smiled, "Will
there be anything else?  That will be three dollars and thirty
eight cents, please...Have a nice day..."  My body was on
automatic pilot, and I was drifting off to...I have no idea
where, but it wasn't there.  
     Every now and then I'd unpleasantly find myself back in
reality.  Then surprisingly I heard my voice, "That will be two
thousand three hundred forty nine dollars and sixty two..." 
What!  Had I really gone mad?
     The customer was giggling.  I looked up.  It was the woman
on the cosmetic shelf!  Her crystal blue eyes drew mine like
magnets.  I thought my heart had stopped.  I could not look away. 
All I saw was that wonderful blue.  The world seemed to fade, and
I was standing on the edge of a blue void.  It was the most
beautiful sight.  A vast nothingness.  Or everythingness. 
Eternity seemed to flow around me like rushing water.  I was lost
in an endless moment of utter peace.
     "Humpf!  Excuse me, sir.  Are you going to give me my change
or not!"
     I blinked.  A middle-aged woman was peering out from behind
an armful of packages she was struggling to balance.  "I..."  The
girl was gone.  "Yes, I'm sorry," I stammered, trying to regain
my sanity.
     The day finally ended.  I lay in bed half awake, flipping
the remote, trying to find something on TV to help me unwind.  "I
can't take too many more days like this," I sighed, trying to
calm myself down.  News, some horror movie.  Talk shows.  Nothing
good on.  I flicked through the stations impatiently, and then I
saw her face.  I had already passed it, by the time it
registered.  I tried to find the right channel again, but of
course, she wasn't to be found.  I shook my head.  "25 years old,
and I'm going crazy!"  I turned the television off and fell
asleep laughing.
     When I awoke, light was streaming through the tear in the
window shade.  I groggily rolled my eyes around the room and
yawned, saw the clock and jumped up.  9:15!  Late for work!  I
had slept through my alarm, again.  "Great, this is going to be
another great day."  I threw my clothes on and flew out the door.
     As soon as I hit the highway I was stuck in traffic.  Of
course.  I inched along for a few minutes, then came to a
complete halt.  I really felt like crying as I looked out through
the windshield and saw cars stretching out forever up ahead.  And
of course, the radio was acting up again.  Completely dead. 
Figures!  I threw the car in park and groaned.
     "Hi," a voice said.  I froze.  Not in fear, but in awe, for
it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.  I looked in my
rear view mirror and saw her sitting in the back seat.  "Hello,
Lyndon," she said smiling.
     "Hi..." I gasped.
     She giggled.  "Sorry.  Hope I didn't scare you."
     "No..."
     "Good."  And then quite suddenly she began to tell me who
she was and why she had appeared in my life.  "I'm a
Bodhisattva," she declared, as if I was supposed to know what
that was.  "We are all spirits," she continued, oblivious to my
questioning look.  "Spirits on our way to perfection.  To the
spirit, life is an endless cycle of being born into life after
life, with the goal of becoming One with the Ultimate."  
     Part of me wanted to groan.  Reincarnation and all that
crap.  But somehow hearing about it under these circumstances
seemed to make the concept a little more believable.  She said so
much more and I was intrigued, but I really had no idea what she
was talking about.  "You can go now," she giggled, pointing
ahead.  I stared blankly at her in the mirror.
     Finally, I tore my gaze away and peered in front of us. 
There were no cars.  There was no road.  There wasn't anything
but that deep blue, blue void.  "The Ocean of Eternity," she said
matter-of-factly.  "Here there is every story imaginable.  Every
reality conceivable.  All that has been or ever will be.  This is
the Ultimate."
     I stared out at that wondrous blueness, and slowly I saw
that it wasn't a void at all.  Scenes were floating by like
threads of dreams.  And in each instant I could see a whole story
that somehow I knew was a person's life, or a whole age of time. 
I saw people living in the farthest reaches of the past, and in
the most distant future.  People from my world and people from
galaxies far away and unimaginable.  I stood silently in awe.
     She was smiling.  "See how similar it all is.  They're all
born.  They all laugh and they all cry.  They all struggle and
fail and succeed, and they all die.  Just stories in a Great
Play."  
     I nodded.
     "But inside," she continued, "inside they are all part of
this Ultimate."
     I almost understood.  She smiled again and pointed out
ahead.  A city street lined with cars met my gaze.  Reality.  I
felt let down.
     We got out of the car.  "We're going to the library?" I
asked, recognizing the street.  I didn't know what to expect
anymore.  She nodded and we walked towards the building.
     "A Bodhisattva," she explained as we walked down the aisles
of books, "is a spirit which has reached that level of perfection
that all spirits struggle through life after life to attain. 
Rather than become One with that Ultimate you have seen, we
choose to return to help others to find perfection."  Smiling,
she handed me a book.  "This is the Upanishads.  And this is the
Bhagavad Gita."  She pulled book after book from the shelves and
piled them into my arms.  "...the Bible...the Koran..."  Then
others like Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and Lost Horizon.
     "We are each alone as we travel through our lives," she
continued as she walked towards a table.  (I stumbled behind
beneath the stack of books.) "Alone and searching for a place
where we know we belong.  And yet we walk with so many others,
and it is only when we help others in their search for happiness
that we ourselves are happy."
     It sounded interesting, but what did it have to do with all
these heavy books.  "The world is changed with each and every act
we make.  When we help someone to smile the world is a little
brighter.  We bodhisattvas have come to believe that in that
endless reservoir of stories that make up mankind's history and
his imagination, there is a perfect one, a Perfect Story.  If
only it can be found, then it would permeate into every story,
and there would be no more pain and suffering for any to feel
again."  She paused.  Then she pointed at the stack of books as I
placed them down.  "These are some of the attempts at telling
that Perfect Story."
     We sat down.  "Every writer delves into that Ultimate
everythingness, tasting it as you have today.  The stories they
bring back are enlightening glimpses of the human experience. 
But only a handful help nourish the human spirit to grow in a
positive way.  In these works the more enlightened writer,
unknowingly, has brought back a tiny piece of that perfect story. 
Each writer's vision is colored with the insights of those who
came before.  And each leaves something for those who follow to
ponder over.  Somewhere, lies that Perfect Story, waiting to be
discovered and pieced together."  She stopped, and with that
beautifully serene smile, seemed to be waiting for me to say
something.
     "Um...How do I fit into this?" I finally asked.
     "You always wanted to be a writer, right?  Well, I came to
tell you that that's what you should be doing."  She smiled one
last time, and then she was gone.
     And so I live on the Edge of Reality.  I am a writer now. 
And I read everything I can get my hands on.  I guess I live just
like every one else in most respects.  I pay my bills, often on
time.  I go out with friends.  Perhaps I'll even get married
someday.  But all of that is like a different part of me.  It's
like a role I put on and wear.  It's only when I am alone delving
into the Ultimate, as my Bodhisattva told me I do when I write,
that I'm really me.
     I've never seen her again, and sometimes I'm sure I imagined
the whole thing all those years ago.  But whether I did or not,
this is really the life I was meant to live.  And so I write
stories like this to get the money to allow me to live another
day, so that I can continue to search for that Perfect Story. 
And in everything I write, I try to leave a little of what I've
found to help other searchers, so that someday one of us will
find that Perfect Story and a New Age will be born.


copyright 1994
Lyndon DeRobertis