"Where am I?"
Fen Chiang could not explain where he had ended up. He didn't even remember how he got there. It was all so... surreal.
The place looked like a finely decorated room, but it was made of something... incomprehensible. It didn't even seem to be matter at all. And the light... it was just absurd. It seemed that there was both light and darkness at the same time, as if the two of them were just one! Not to mention the size of the room. Sometimes it seemed very small, a moment later it became enormous.
Even time seemed to have ceased to function properly. When Fen Chiang tried to remember how long he had been in the hall, sometimes it felt like a few seconds to him, in other times entire years and even centuries.
There was therefore nothing he could do but continue walking hoping to find someone, even if the space in that place was so distorted that it did not even give him the perception of going straight.
After several hours of walking (or maybe a few minutes, or maybe a few millennia, who knows) he finally found something that broke the stagnant atmosphere of the place: in the center of the room there were two armchairs, and on one of them there was a figure.
Did it look like... a woman? It was a woman, right?
Fen Chiang couldn't say for sure. The features seemed delicate and feminine, but at the same time retained a kind of authority and harshness typical of men. Her hair was long and silky and shone with a thousand colors, but not as if it were struck by the light, but as if it were themselves the source of the light. The body was wrapped in a pearly white robe that covered her from the shoulders to the feet, leaving only her arms and head uncovered. The end result was an almost incomprehensible entity, which is also supported by the fact that she seemed to emanate a strange force: even though she was the same size as him, to Fen Chiang she seemed as big as the entire universe and beyond.
The man had many mixed feelings towards the person in front of him. He felt he must be afraid of her, his instincts dictating it, but at the same time he felt an unfathomable peace and calm as he approached. Her smile was magnetic and her eyes looked like a mother's as she watches her baby in the crib. It was impossible not to feel some kind of protection and tranquility in her presence.
Fen Chiang could only define that woman as beautiful and terrifying at the same time.
When he was next to the armchairs, the woman finally spoke. "You arrived. I've been waiting for you" she said. Fen Chiang felt like faint at hearing that voice: it was subtle and sweet, but at the same time firm and authoritative, as if every element would have had to respond to every command of that woman; moreover, it did not even seem to be a normal voice, but at the same time it seemed the union of billions of other voices and also the total absence of a voice. It made no sense, yet Fen Chiang had no other way to describe it.
Seeing that the woman did not say anything, he understood that she wanted him to speak. A myriad of questions formed in his mind: where were they? What was that place? Who was she? Why was he there?
Yet the words that formed on his lips were only: "What happened?"
"Don't you remember?" the woman asked without changing her expression in the slightest.
"No! I..." Fen Chiang started to say, but then he stopped. Like a flash, images appeared before his eyes: he intent on driving a car with a woman beside him laughing at some joke, and in the back seat a girl six or seven years old, and then... a big truck that suddenly came upon him. The revelation hit him like an arrow. "I'm dead?"
"Condolences" the woman replied, and then she looked at the chair in front of her. "Sit down. I like to talk to everyone who comes here"
Mechanically Fen Chiang sat down. All his body was tremblig. He was shaken like never in his life. "My daughter... my wife..."
"They are fine. The truck only hit the part of the car where the driver was. Your wife and daughter survived with just minor injuries" the woman explained. "Maybe you will be heartened to know that your death wasn't without purpose. The driver of the truck was an alcoholic, but after what he did he got remorse. To make up for his mistake, he not only supported your family with medical bills, but he also changed his life. For the thirty years following your death he gave thousands of talks on the dangers of drunk driving and helped many people, including teenagers, to get out of alcoholism and other addictions"
"Oh... well, good for him" Fen Chiang whispered. In a way, he was a little relieved. "And my family, how...?"
"... how did they deal with your death? Initially bad, for obvious reasons: mourning is still mourning. However, they managed to move forward. Your wife started her own business and created an animal protection company in your honor" Fen Chiang was moved by those words: he remembered that in life he had loved nature and animals very much. "Your daughter, on the other hand, had to face all the difficulties of growing up without a father, but she always stood up against adversity. She has become a strong and commanding woman and married a guy she met at her university, rather shy but gifted with great talent. They are both paleontologists, you know... your daughter inherited your passion for dinosaurs"
Yes, dinosaurs were also something Fen Chiang loved very much in life. Now the anxiety and fear were completely gone: even though he knew that under normal circumstances he should have had to be gripped by anguish, he could not help but calm down next to this strange woman. His only concern was the future of his loved ones, and now that he knew everything was fine, he could rest easy. "Wait!" he exclaimed when he realized something. "How do you know all this? How long have I been dead?"
The woman burst out laughing, a crystalline laugh that made Fen Chiang's heart tremble. "How long? There is no 'how long' here, little child. Time, like space, is a characteristic of the universe where you existed when you were alive. But here we are outside that universe, consequently we are also outside its time stream. Here, past, present and future are one. If you at this moment passed over, you would meet both your ancestors and your descendants of all ages, even if from the perspective of your universe you are just dead"
"Oh, I understand". Falsehood: he didn't understand anything! "So I could also meet my family?"
"If you pass over, yes"
"What do you mean by 'passing over'?"
"Going to the afterlife, of course! What do you expect, that you can stay here forever? Your idea of 'eternal rest' is a bit boring" the woman laughed again.
Fen Chiang was confused. "I don't understand anything" he admitted.
"It's normal"
"But who are you? If it's not rude to ask"
The woman made a movement that looked like a shrug, but that single movement was enough to make Fen Chiang feel as if the entire universe had just shaken. "My name is made up of letters and sounds that would be impossible for you to hear or pronounce. If we want to make a rough translation, it would mean 'all names and no names'. However, I am called by many names by the thousand creatures of the thousand worlds of the thousands mortal universes that I created. In your world humans refer to me as God"
Fen Chiang was shocked. "Wait... God is a woman!?" he exclaimed without thinking.
The deity barely moved her eyelids, another movement that seemed to make the whole creation tremble. "I'm not really a woman. I contain in me all the existing genres and at the same time none. However, I admit that my current form can remember the female exponents of the human race, so you can safely refer to me as a woman. It is not important, after all"
Fen Chiang was astonished. "But so you are..."
"... the one who created the universe, all things visible and invisible, etc. etc. Yes, it's really me" the woman anticipated.
"And if now I passed over..."
".... you would go to Heaven, at least until you decide to leave"
"Leave? What do you mean?"
"That generally no soul stays in Heaven too long... generally not more than a few billion centuries". God seemed amused. "You see, Heaven is a perfect world to live in, free from defects and without thoughts. However, too much perfection gets tired in the long run. Souls begin to feel the lack of that unpredictability, that lack of security, of those life goals that were set in the mortal world, and even of the failures and pains, which are still something that makes people grow. So, when they want, they can reincarnate and start a new life"
"Oh... Ok, that's clear" Fen Chiang felt he finally understood something. Indeed, the idea of a perfect life, devoid of that spice that characterized the unknown, did not appeal to him very much. "Sorry, is this not a risk? I mean, if in their second life they did something wrong that they hadn't done in the previous life, wouldn't they end up in Hell or something like that?"
"And even if it were? Life is always a risk, right? That's exactly why it is so beautiful" laughed God. "Anyway there is no risk in this case. Even in Hell no soul remains forever"
"For real!?". This Fen Chiang was not expecting it.
"Of course! Which parent would punish his children for all eternity? Or which judge would condemn a person forever, without even giving him the chance of go out for good behavior?" God looked annoyed for the first time. "The idea of 'eternal punishment' is a nonsense that human beings have invented to better ward off crimes... we can say that it is more or less on the same level as the Boogeyman with which parents scare children to make them sleep at night. In reality, a soul remains in Hell only when it has not sincerely repented of all its mistakes. Some take a few months, others millions of years, but in the end everyone realizes how much harm they have done with their actions. At that point they just reincarnate and have a second chance"
"Wow... well, it actually makes sense" Fen Chiang said. He remembered that when he was alive he had not been particularly religious, but he had always found the idea of eternal punishment or eternal bliss ridiculous. If God was indeed the creator of all things, and therefore their parent as well, why would she (or he? They? How the hell should call her?) have had to make her (his? Their? Aaaaah, who cares) children suffer for eternity? It was just silly and petty.
As he mulled over this, Fen Chiang thought of something. "But does this mean that I could have already reincarnated?"
God smiled. "Of course! You've done it four times already"
"Four!?"
"Exactly. In your first life you were a dragon from a universe not far away from your old one. In the second, you were a powerful conquering general in a universe where intergalactic empires reigned. In the third..."
"Wait, wait!" Fen Chiang was blown away. "In what sense other universes? Are there parallel universes?"
"Of course! There are more than a hundred billion of them!" God answered, then she put a finger to her mouth. Her hand was white and shone with pure light, and her movement seemed to have raised a wave so immense that it covered the whole reality. "And this brings us to why I wanted to talk to you"