The spirit of Emmanuel rose in the air and simultaneously exploded into a higher region of reverie. But it went past Edenim of Deva and past the heavens and settled on the Highest one. The first heaven.

Emmanuel materialized. The Archangels turned around and were perplexed. One of them came towards Emmanuel and touched him. "Don't be afraid." He said.

"Welcome home."

There was a bright flash. And as if waiting for the flash to subside, Emmanuel waited, but the flash sustained. Emmanuel thought that he was either about to go blind or that blind people saw all white. He was confused, "What was this place?" is all he could think.

As he made out the features of the things around him, it looked nothing like Egypt or nothing like he had ever seen. All he could see were twirling lines that seemed to intrinsically form geometrical shapes: Circles, squares, triangles and others, millions of them, all around him!

There were pulsating objects here and there, and flashes of hundreds of colors, even colors that he never knew existed. There were also sounds, and voices, of all kinds. Some were laughing, some were talking, some where whispering, some were singing. He tried to drown those voices before he could go mad.

Suddenly, he realized that the he had unconsciously compacted all the voices and sounds to a deep, manageable humming sound. The sound and images were all around, in fact even the notion of "around" was hard to determine; he was seemingly able to see in all directions at once!

"Alright," he said to himself as he realized that this wasn't going to improve, only get worse. "Concentrate on one part of this mess and see if you can make out anything." He suggested to himself. As he stared at one part of the "Scene" he noticed that the lines had different depths, and thicknesses.

He kept on looking at one peculiar part... It seemed like... Feathers... He tried to see the bigger picture, oh yes, it was a bird of some sort, an eagle perhaps? Was he in the Halls of Ra himself? He shook that thought off. "No" He said to himself "Those are false Gods, they do not exist."

"Hello." A voice whispered in front of him. Emmanuel was startled as he "stepped" back and realized that it was a man, with wings! But his wings weren't really of feather; that was just an illusion he guessed, they were actually vibrating things, sort of like steam, it distorted the space around it, and it went up and down, like the waves of a pool. Emmanuel realized that he may be looking at a lot of things at once. All he had to do was just filter the things he wanted to see. Indeed, the mess around him disappeared into the back of his mind. And he saw the bird-man. The bird-man smiled and his form was changed into that of an old bearded man. "Are you... Are you... The God Horus?"

He smiled and put his hand down. "Sorry about that, I didn't realize you were never aware of the concept of angels."

"Where am I?" Emmanuel asked. He gasped as he saw a pulsating entity zoom past him. He looked at himself and realized that he wasn't "Human" anymore; he was just a rotating pulsating object. He was somewhat annoyed that the old man could be in human form while he couldn't.

"Good. I managed to bring you back to as far as the third heaven. Your soul is extremely light. You must have caught onto a much higher intensity of Kundalini as many awakened ones have." The man said.

“Kundalini?” Emmanuel asked, feeling absolutely lost yet trying to make as much sense as he possibly can.

“Yes, that is spiritual energy that is residual in your physical form in the world of the Unreal. Some describe it as “The Breath of God”. When you “awaken”, you release that energy onto the universe and become one with it. This process is known as Krishna-Consciousness.”

"So what is an angel then?" Emmanuel asked. The old man nodded, understanding that Emmanuel was asking the right questions in the right order: "Well, I'm not really an Angel like the Renaissance artists conceived us to be, but that's the name that Humans of the middle-ages gave us, about three thousand years after your time. So we've adopted it. In the Devic language our race as a whole is known as "The Humble Ones". My name is Metatron. Of the angel archetypes, I am a Malekadaman, one of the few Malekadamim in existence. It is a very rare class of angels. We are humans who've ascended at the point between death and the last moments of our lives with ultimate self sacrifice, thereby giving us the power to exceed the boundaries of the conventional aural spectrum. You see, you become the faith that you choose. In my faith, I did not believe in heaven or hell, and I was able to achieve the ultimate state of enlightment, hence why I am here. Most people call it heaven. I just call it a repository for the universal energy. You and I, my brother, are one of the same so I can see."

"You say words, sir.. That I have not heard before in my life... What is aura... What is spect..."

"Spectrum," The man said "An aural spectrum is a hypothetical gradient line that represents the weight of one's soul against the common denominations of light wavelengths. The lighter you are, the closer you are to the higher, blue range which makes you a positive light soul, like the Angels who are made of pure ultra-violet hue. However, if your weight is heavy with the hypothetical "sins" and the guilts thereof then your aura will be darker, heavier and closer to the red range which makes you a negative light soul, like the demons, made of infra-red hue, hypothetically. You see, light and heat is the only way that we can describe properly in terms of where you come from, the world of the Unreal, or what you call, Reality."

Emmanuel shook his head: "Alright, rabbi…” “…My name is Enoch.” The old man said, forgetting that he did not introduce his human ego.

“Alright, Enoch.” Emmanuel tried to gather his thoughts together: “So this is all there is, to this afterlife? A world full of bright light? And… Lines?"

Enoch laughed: "This, is only a state of mind, what you are seeing, is completely different from what I am seeing, yet we both exist in the same perspective in relation to one another. As far as you and I are concerned, you see, we might actually be millions of leagues apart. What you are seeing, however, these lines as you call them are merely physical waves and energies of different types emanating from the physical universe and echoing here, since this is the higher plane. So essentially, if you know where to look and listen, you can observe happenings and beings from any point in space or time."

"Oh." Emmanuel said. "Very strange, this world."

Enoch nodded: "Indeed. Frankly though, I wouldn't call it afterlife; you're more like in the para-life. You have left the normal cycle of life, death and reincarnation and have entered the main pool. Think of life as a stream that goes towards one direction and constantly increasing time, the higher state of consciousness that you have reached is like a branch from the stream that pours into the ocean. The ocean has always been there, and is timeless. In all reality, you have and always have been here, you are only conscious of it now because you are free of your conscious confinement that is the human body. Simply put, your eyes are open for the first time."

Emmanuel frowned: "What?"

Enoch waved in the air, realizing that he may be giving too much information all at once: "My brother, a lot of those who reach this state take years to learn about as much as you have just learnt just now; you have all of eternity to learn. However, before you can be admitted and be crowned a true angel, you must pass one final test."

Emmanuel looked around: "What test?"

Enoch sighed: "I'll be honest with you, I'm not usually the best of people to do this, my colleague, Neria the Queen of Deva has been reassigned to the nether realm and is therefore unable to take part in these proceedings as usual, therefore, I will simply tell you what you need to do."

Emmanuel raised his hand: "Wait just one minute. You just said that this world is timeless, how can this Neria person be on a mission on Earth if that doesn't bring her into a specific time and place?"

Enoch cringed: "You are very perceptive, brother. There is a long answer and a short answer. I will give you the short answer. Deva is a world that is actually halfway between the world of reality and the dream world. It is sort of a window that looks out onto the three dimensional world of earth and is hence governed by time. However, only the Devan royals have the power to see in this three dimensional perspective, everyone else is bound in the higher dimensions."

Emmanuel blinked impassively; he was flustered.

"So," Enoch continued "Now all you have to do is make a choice."

Emmanuel: "What choice?"

Enoch: "Before you can become an angel, you must know the choices that you are up against. Because as an angel, you will no longer have the power to go against the will of Eternal Energy, or what others might feel more comfortable with calling, "God". You are going to be fully submitted into "His", or “Her” divine will."

Emmanuel nodded: "Since I'm in heaven, I assume that is obvious, no disrespect intended, rabbi." Enoch nodded: "Yes, but it wouldn't be fair for you to decide before seeing your other options. All of which, by the way will result in you not remembering this conversation or the fact that you have met me. You will begin anew from the dawn of time, and you would probably not even have existed in the current line of life that you have just gone through. Simply put, you will become but never have been."

Emmanuel nodded: "Alright, other than becoming Angellic, what are my other choices?"

Enoch: "In your current state, you are nothing. You are neither human, nor demon, nor angel. You are a daemon, for lack of a better term." Enoch raised his hand towards Emmanuel and he was now back to his usual human figure, he looked at his skin and it changed from black to lighter hues, ending with white, then turning back towards dark.

"Your first choice is humanity. You will be reincarnated in either the pre or post-dilugic era, anew with a pure soul of zero karmic burden. Not only will you have no memory of who you were in your Emmanuel arch-persona/arch-psyche and all the other personalities you have been in prior lifetimes, but you will also have no recollection of the choice that you had made and the knowledge you gathered in the course of making that choice. Do you understand me so far?"

Emmanuel nodded: "I can't believe that I am able to take so much information so fast, but I believe I do understand, yes."

"Good," Enoch said, raising his hand towards Emmanuel and granting him beautiful tall wings, blonde hair, bright blue eyes and a powerful straight-standing figure: "Your other choice would be to become a Malekadaman, like myself. A human turned Angel. Although you may be limited only to the realm of Deva, or possibly higher. That depends on how strong your strength of will in making your choice is going to be." Emmanuel nodded, signaling that he understands, so far.

"And your last choice..." Enoch continued, raising his hand one last time. "Is to be a demon and reside in any level in hell of your choosing."

Emmanuel's wings receded back to his body, which turned into a bristly, brownish skin. His eyes were completely black with absolutely no whiteness as you'd expect in a human eye. The front part of his face was elongated, like a wolf and his feet were hoofed like those of a goat. Tentacles came out from the back of his neck and went down to his upper and lower back. He felt pulsating heat inside of him, as if protecting him from a devastatingly cold environment.

Emmanuel blinked. He was now back in his human form. "How long are you giving me till I make my decision?"

Enoch shrugged: "As long as you wish, Emmanuel. Time is of no importance in this universe, that is the first thing you need to get used to."

Emmanuel: "And I won't be able to reverse my decision then?" Enoch nodded: "How can you if you don't even remember making that choice in the first place?" Emmanuel sighed, understanding the frailty of that moment: "I understand, rabbi."

Enoch flinched at the term that Emmanuel kept calling him with, but no matter, he thought to himself, once he makes his choice, he will forget all those skewed man-made words.

There was another flash. This time, it subsided. In a way, Emmanuel felt relaxed that he was taking a lighter barrage of external stimuli.

Emmanuel stood on a beach. He looked at the distance and looked at himself and realized that he was now human, a REAL human. He was hairy and black-skinned, though, which was unexpected; he was used to his brown Semitic skin.

He looked around with fleeting caution; he had never seen this place before.

He walked around; for some reason he felt that his arms were unusually long and heavy, and it made his back hunch slightly.

The beach sand was playing with his toes as he walked. He saw a column of smoke in the distance and wondered what it was. He walked towards it, walking through the thick trees and brushes.

Suddenly, he was in a clearing. There was a camp fire in the middle and a man and a woman, sitting naked on a pile of rocks. They were both equally hairy from their head to their toes, in fact, the only way Emmanuel could tell that the other was a woman was because of her large breasts.

The two were wolfing down on a carcass of some strange animal he had never seen before. They seemed to be experimenting with cooking although the fire was probably there more for warmth’s sake rather than sanitary cuisine.

Suddenly, the woman screamed as she looked towards Emmanuel. The man stood up and grabbed a stone. He flung it towards Emmanuel, but the latter reacted quickly, dodging the stone as it flew in the air. Emmanuel looked carefully at the two people as they paused.

Emmanuel realized that they weren't looking at him at all, they were looking behind him. He slowly turned around, but saw nothing. He turned back, and the two had disappeared.

There was an earthquake, then another. Emmanuel turned around and gasped in horror as he saw an immensely gigantic green beast looking towards the sky. It was an oversized lizard.

It stood there and sniffed the air as if sensing some food. Either that or it was the camp-fire. The creature looked at him.

Predator and prey stared at each other with an uncomfortable pause.

Emmanuel looked around and wondered if there was some kind of escape. The creature lunged forward. Surprising, considering how far it was! This immense and extremely horrific creature was about to swallow Emmanuel. The latter wished that he was back home instead.

Emmanuel looked around, expecting himself to be back in the Higher Repository in front of a disappointed Enoch. But instead saw a fireplace. It was familiar. A smile subconsciously crept on Emmanuel's face.

"Emmanuel! Oh what did you do this time!" He heard a familiar voice speaking in Egyptian tongue. It was his mother, Sit'aman. She was a beautiful Egyptian woman with tired but blessed hands. She looked deathly ill as she applied an ointment to little Emmanuel's cut finger. Emmanuel stood there as he saw his own self as three years old.

The little Emmanuel flailed his hands towards his mother and hit her in the face. The woman shed a sad tear. The adult Emmanuel sighed, oh how she suffered.

Although she died while he was at a very young age, he still remembered how she smelt, how she felt when she held him close and her soft, mesmerizing voice as she sang him a sad Egyptian song about sun-boats in the River Nile that made him drift to a tantalizingly delicious sleep.

He hoped she was happy now, wherever she was.

"Can I see her again?" Emmanuel suddenly asked; sensing Enoch standing behind him and realizing that almost anything that he learns can tip his choice instantly.

"It is your choice, Emmanuel." came the obvious answer from his mentor.

The sky opened. Emmanuel and Enoch ascended.

(Continued...)