Cosmic Disneyland

Cosmic Disneyland


         One morning when my son was 5 years old, a wonderful thing happened.

I figured something out...(I think) all by myself.
Let me tell you this little story of how it came about.


         I happened to be upstairs asleep, as was my wont on a Saturday morning, intent on grabbing that precious little extra half-hour of snooze-cruise, after the busy week was done. My little guy, being fiercly independent and a smart lad, always got up on those Saturday mornings early, and went downstairs to the kitchen where he'd find the cereal bowl all set out for him....in "just add milk"-mode...which he would, gobble then in short order, and then busy himself with some small quiet pastime while waiting for his elders to stir in the upper regions. After which, why, I would cook a second breakfast and he would dine all over again.

         This little half-hour of his solitude would normally prepare him for his Saturday in the best of spirits, and I would usually find him in good repair. Not so the morning of which I am about to relate. It all happened this way.

         There I was, dead to the world, and completely...when it came upon my open ear a sound, that sort of sound that any parent listens for even when not listening. A sound of pain and anguish, of terrible terrible trouble, not necessarily life-threatening....but nonetheless something buried deep into our primal psyches, that trigger notwithstanding alarm bells of no small dimension.

         In short....it came upon me in my slumber that all was, in fact, not quite right. So I rolled over.
And listened. There was a sound of sobbing. As the foggy shroud of soggy slumber slowly lifted, fading into a semi-conscious stupor, I pondered that sound. It was not the sound of physical hurt. No cuts or scrapes, bruises or breaks in the infrastructure....no blood or broken bone in this....just a curious and rather small sound, of a soul in the throes of a great wrestling with the iron, so to speak.

         I kicked the bedsheets....mourning the loss of my last few moments of precious oblivion from life's mad and wakeful workload, and then laid flat upon my back. A hollow groan escaped my lips, (to let him know I was awake) and nothing more. He heard, alright, and answered with a howl. The bedroom door swung open, and in he crawled. Upon the floor he imitated in best fashion some common garden thing that oozes on the mossy rock...a nameless shapeless helpless thing that is the stuff of slime and grime and most foul to the touch. (He played it much.)

         Upon my side I tried and tried to assume some posture of wakeful readiness for whatever this was all about, failing miserably at that, sighed ponderously and croaked my cranky question as to what this was all about? To which proceeded from the depths of his small soul, more sounds of melodrama, pitiful to behold. Alas...sleep now gone forever, it seemed, I resigned myself to this sad fact and attempted to open a baleful eye. Failing that, I shifted once or twice, and flailed the bedclothes like an angry scarecrow. He crawled upon the floor, collapsed in fits and groans and weeping most profoundly, I knew in fact this was not of the crocodile variety.

         I became vaguely alarmed. Again I cleared my slumber-sodden throat, and asked just exactly what was the matter?

         To this question, after a serious interlude of choking sniffles, snuffles and otherwise theatrics....he thus spake:
"Daddy, how come we have to die?"

         Well.

I flailed the bedclothes yet again. I sighed a great and ponderous sigh. I shook myself into a further degree of wakefulness, and stretching, mumbled some growly bit about how it comes for us all.........(pictures of ghoulish and cartoonish chorus lines of grim reapers dancing upon my morning mind...)


         But then, right there in the middle of the bedroom floor, he did confess that the cause of all his stress...that the simple fact was, if this awful occurrance was normally the result of an aging process....the awful truth that I was a whole lot older than him, (ancient, in fact) meant that I would depart much sooner, thereby leaving him alone and without the pleasure of my company.
My heart did somewhat soften then.

         Patting the bed, I invited him up. Slowly, like the creeping worm did he ascend unto my height, when with one eye now open to the world, I smiled and hauled him aboard. We rocked awhile, and like the child he was, he took some time to settle in and settle down. I waited for the sobbing to subside. And while I waited, I pondered a goodish bit about this strange and troubling thing, this iron in his soul, as he grappled no doubt with the problem of mortality.

         What to tell him? What to say, what comfort to offer, what words of wisdom could I give to soothe the seething torment and allay his dreadful fears? A good while went by. Small arms clung fiercly, the tousled head fevered and damp, a ragged breathing slowly became more regular.


         And then it came to me. Of course.

I said to him, "You know that place you're always asking me to take you...the one I always say I can't afford...it's so expensive?"
He mumbled small-voiced, "You mean Disneyland?"
I said, "That's right. Disneyland."

He sighed, no doubt shifting a little bit into a different gear, remembering perhaps his passion for that place. He snuggled, and the fierce grip loosened, the breathing was almost normal now. A sniffle came and went in an absent-minded way.

"Okay," I said to him. Now take a minute or two and think real hard about Disneyland. Think about everything you know about that wonderful place.

He did. He giggled. (a good sign.)

"Now," I said, "Imagine a place more wonderful than a gazillion gazillion Disneylands."


         His brow furowed with the effort. He gave it a righteous attempt. That little imagination worked and worried overtime.

"Have you got that picture?" I asked.

He closed his eyes. A great groaning sound emanated from the effort. No doubt heroic and epic masterpieces were now being brushed upon the canvas of his mind. I waited patiently. Finally, he nodded.

"Now," I said, "Imagine a place even so much more wonderful than that....it would make this Disneyland seem just like the dentist's office!"

Well then he giggled like anything, and I thought to myself...."Hey, I'm not doing too bad here!" But this little chore was not quite finished yet.


         I said to him then, "Now let's just suppose that this wonderful place is somewhere out there, and just like Disneyland, requires a ticket.....and the price of a ticket....is to die."

He pondered that for a moment.

I continued. "Yep.....the only way in is just that one way. No other way works. And the ticket allows you to stay and have fun.........forever."

More furious ponders ensued. The wheels were turning.

I was saving the punch line for last. (I thought it was a pretty good one, actually.)


         "Okay," I said. "Now, just imagine what it would be like if we all knew for absolute positive for sure....that this wonderful place really did exist, and that all we had to do to get there....was to check out...to die. What do you suppose would happen then?"

He shook his head. He was intrigued no small bit...I could tell.

"Well," I said, "Think about all the times that people are unhappy. Perhaps they don't like who they are, or what they are, or where they are, or what they're doing. Now just imagine if they knew that all they had to do to escape this was to just quit.....check out....die. What do you suppose would happen if they knew this super-duper Disneyland was waiting at the other end for them, and they could stay and play forever?"

Again, he shook his head, but now a silly grin played about his mouth.

"Well...I think....that they'd all just run up to the roof and jump off, or dance about in the traffic, or any number of things that would take them outa here pretty quick! In fact....maybe pretty soon there'd be no-one left around. They'd all be gone to Disneyland."

He laughed. I took a deep, deep breath.

         "And that's why," I whispered, (thinking about bacon and eggs)......."We're not supposed to know."