All was still and silent. Peaceful. Calm. The warm embrace of safety. Jason unclenched from his recoil before realizing he couldn’t feel his…anything. What he just unclenched he couldn’t say, nor from what he had been recoiling, only that he had relaxed his…well, not posture, but something more intangible. Where the fuck am I? There was only white light, no matter how he changed his perspective around, the light was all. How did I get…no. I was driving just now. I’m sure… Panic rose in Jason’s core.

Trying to look down was strange, since he expected to see himself, but there was nothing. Just white, source-less light. Am I dreaming? He tried to wake up, but with no body he wasn’t sure how to. He squeezed with his mind, he threw his consciousness around, he tried to move anything at all, to will himself into another spot but nothing happened. Before! Where was I before? Jason could remember…very little. It was all a jumble. He was working, picking someone up? Right, he was driving rideshare, on his way to pick up a new passenger.

But where the fuck is this? Jason’s mind hurt. Lights and loud noise. He wished he could shut out the light around him, but he had no eyes; he just was. I called my dad, wished him happy birthday, and went to drive for my rideshare program. Then…I was here? No, I was at the church parking lot. St. Joseph Catholic Church had a parking lot in prime rideshare territory. It was right behind the bars on College Avenue, and close enough to the stadium to pick up people going to the football game. But then?

He argued with his sister, she always called right after breaking up with her boyfriend. Again. No, that happened earlier. Parking lot. Then…I got a call. Jason had been reading a book, something about Alan Watts maybe? He wasn’t sure. He put it in the glovebox and left to pick up a passenger. I left the lot and drove…

The longer Jason remained in this light the more relaxed he felt. Bright lights. Red lights. White lights. Roaring metal. He remembered. He had been sitting at an intersection just before the highway overpass. Fiddling with his phone to some text message while he waited for the light to change, then a car rammed into the driver’s door coming full speed off the exit ramp. I died?

The impact had been tremendous, the door crumpled in so quickly it was already occupying the space his left kidney normally did by the time he even flinched. It was the loudest sound he could ever remember hearing. And that light. Right in his eyes until it was all he could see.

Is this death? He always imagined being dead would be darker. Or maybe colder? He looked around. Fear of the unknown, and grief at losing everything and everyone he had known bubbled into his mind despite the calming light. Jason thought about all the things he’d never get to see now. Would his sister ever actually end things with her piece of shit boyfriend? Would his dad get a call on his birthday that his son was killed? Would his mom be ok after this?

His mom’s biggest fear had always been that one of her children would die, and that they’d be scared the whole time it happened. At least I didn’t have time to be afraid. Jason did the best he could to banish the fear he felt now. He was dead, but all things considered he was…well, this place wasn’t so bad. There was nothing to see or do, so he waited.

Without a physical body, and without any meaningful stimulus from the environment Jason soon reached a Zen-like state of peace. At least until a change finally occurred. Slowly, softly, like the brightening of the horizon at dawn, the white light around him began to change. A mild pink tinge at first, a cosmopolitan with the barest splash of cranberry, and then slowly deepening to raspberry martini.

It was strange, that the light seemed to be both gas and liquid. It didn’t just change from one to the other, it seeped and swirled and mixed gradually in a way that stained the existing color and changed it into something else. The red of cherries blended smoothly into the bright pop of orange peel into the deep glittering of gold into the happy yellow of sunflowers and on and on through every color Jason had ever seen. Beyond even colors he could comprehend, how could he describe a color that wasn’t based on anything he had ever seen before?

The speed of the changes increased, becoming a dizzying kaleidoscope of hues that Jason lost himself in the center of. Until, at last, the pace slackened. Sedately, slowly, and with care the colors cycled one last time as if deciding which it should be. As red slowly slipped into orange, and then a little more the light stopped. Everything was bathed in the warm golden glow of fall sunsets. A true ‘golden hour’. Not orange, but a lustrous brilliant gold that reminded Jason of fluffy blankets and apple cider with a touch of class.

It was comfortable, and warm, but also somehow solitary. Like being home alone in a comfy chair beside a crackling fire. An isolated comfiness. The light flared, becoming brighter, brighter, brighter like staring directly at the sun but Jason had no eyes to close. It seared his being, branding itself into him, flowing through him. He would have cried if he had lungs, but now he was only light.

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Mercifully, the light dimmed, retreated, and then vanished altogether. There was darkness, nothingness, the void. Jason’s nonexistent heart fluttered with anxiety. Without even the light from before he would surely lose himself. He wanted it back, it was his light, he knew it was. That light was his and he was that light. I am that light.

And light bloomed. A pulse of uncertain light, hesitant, asking, like the brief glow of a firefly. That golden light pulsed again, then again, like the beat of a heart. Quicker now, brighter, surer and more confident than before. I am that light.

Jason bloomed, exploding with his golden light to fill the darkness and deny the void. Brighter. And so, he became. What started as a candle became a flashlight and then a bonfire, illuminating his existence, broadcasting it, announcing it, he was here.

A new change had occurred while the world was dark, but he could see it now. Intricate patterns and veins wrapped up the space he was in. They felt both very far away and intimately close all at once. Swirls and patterns like stardust painted across a clear night sky reflected his golden light back to him, standing out against a stark white backdrop. It was beautiful.

Jason turned, looking all around at those patterns before deciding they looked an awful lot like flower petals. If flower petals were made of mystical space patterns. The petals shivered and loosened, shifted and ever so slightly opened. A cool breeze felt from above caused Jason to shift his attention upward.

At the peak of this space, a small opening had appeared letting light and cool air into his golden sanctum. The petals opened more, revealing lights, many lights, together like a shifting aurora. Jason suddenly wanted to be with those lights. Through some function he was unaware of, Jason reached and yearned to open these petals to join that light. An arm, his arm, slender and pale he noted as he reached out for that opening.

He grasped at the opening; his feet, new feet, planted into the ground for support as he pushed. All at once, the petals opened fully, falling gracefully outward in all directions to the ground. His eyes were unable to look away from the color, that shifting riot of rainbow fireflies glowing gently in a twisting column upward past where their density became so great that he couldn’t see through them anymore.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it.”

Jason whipped his head away from the lights and turned around to face the feminine voice behind him. She was slender, beyond what he thought was normal but not in an unhealthy way. Delicate was the first word he thought of to describe her. She was wearing a flowing dress that fell to just below her knees, made of what looked like white and purple flowers. Barefoot, she was standing on an oaken platform just outside the range of the flower he was standing in. A slight breeze caused her to gently tuck a few strands of long, pale mint colored hair behind a slender, pointed ear as she watched him with eyes that matched the hair.

“Uh…” Jason expertly articulated as a sudden urge to know what the fuck was going on began to overcome him. “Where am I? Who are you? What’s going on here? How did I get here? I’m dead, right?” The torrent of questions exploded out of his lips like gushing water from a broken dam. He was somewhere again! His eyes traced over the area again, too quickly to really take anything in. Less panic and fear, but more a manic feeling of curiosity and wholeness. He touched his face and arms confirming that he was really alive, and with form. No longer just light. Jason looked down as his hands reached his chest and stomach. Something was…

“Wait! Where are my clothes!? NO, NO WAIT! WHERE IS MY JUNK!!” Jason cried out shrilly as he felt the smooth, horrifyingly empty patch of skin where his-

Tinkling laughter like windchimes brought his attention back to the woman standing beside the flower. Her mouth was hidden behind her hand, and the corners of her eyes were wrinkled with mirth.

“So many questions! A fine Fairy you’ll make indeed.” The woman looked at Jason fondly, the warmth of family in her gaze. She began counting on her fingers as she spoke, “You are in The Mother Tree, I am the caretaker of The Mother Tree, Altatina, we’re having a birthday party, you were just born here, you are not dead, nobody is born with clothes, and I don’t know anything about any junk!” She wiggled seven fingers at him with another smile. “Now, come on! It’s time for the birthday party!” Altatina motioned encouragingly for Jason to come to her, but his mind was still too preoccupied to just follow the flow with some strange woman.

“Birthday party? No, No. I definitely died. Wait, born here? I was…reborn here? Reincarnation is real? I was absolutely on Earth until just a bit ago. I remember dying…Is this a different world? NO WAIT! Really! What happened to my junk!” As Jason’s pleading eyes looked up at Altatina he suddenly noticed something else was missing.

It wasn’t until that moment Jason realized that the air had previously been filled not only with lights, but also the distant dull roar of many voices and conversations. This, only noticed in counterpoint to the aggressively curious silence that loudly hushed it. For the first time since his arrival Jason really, seriously, turned his eyes away from his immediate situation and looked.

He was standing on a luscious, golden flower. Its petals, with intricate whirling patterns curling around five-pointed stars reached almost all the way toward the edge of the circular wooden platform it was blooming on. The platform itself appeared to be made from many branches that were too perfectly woven to be natural. Past the edge of the platform was open air. Air filled with glowing lights of every color, a twinkling multicolored field. Despite only being glowing lights, Jason had the distinct impression they were all looking right at him.

Through the air and past the motes of light, extending upward all around them was a cylinder of dark, twisting wood like the inside of a colossal hollow log. Built into the walls of wood were buildings of curious, fantastical shapes, many with light shining out through empty windows. The entire space was illuminated by the motes of light, up and up as far as Jason could see.

Many people were gathered on mushroom balconies, looking through glassless windows, or hovering in the air with glowing wings. Wings?

“Wait, wait, wait. Did you say fairy?”