A Trip to the Border

Thirty years ago in one of my first trips to the border, I crossed the line and stepped into a basement where a small group of us were playing Jeopardy, a game where the answer is supplied and one must furnish the question. We played awhile, and then that indescribable border sensation occurred, the psychological shift accompanied by self-referencing thought streams and an emotional state one might predict for a person profoundly disoriented.

The experience occurred simultaneously as my friend Jim, hosting the show for the players, looks down and says, "Wait, here’s a stack of different answers."

He picks up a card and flash we are in a richly colored field where we see two dogs peacefully sleeping, one resting its head and paw on the other.

We flash back to Jim, who waits for us to state the question. We are speechless. The buzzer rings, and Jim reads the card, "What is love?"

The two other players and I look at each other with faces saying, "This is really weird."

Jim picks up the next card and flash we are in pitch blackness and silence. Then we hear a loud sound of stone scraping against stone, and about 15 feet in front of us blinding white light so bright we cannot look at it comes from the floor as a massive stone "door" slides very slowly upward. Sheer, screaming terror beyond terror drowns all consciousness and as we fade we’re rescued with a flash back to Jim. We are open mouthed and looking at each other with quizzical and very disturbed faces suggesting, "WTF?!" and now we are frightened. The game is not funny or fun, and we are not amused at all.

Jim looks at us. No one says a thing. Jim does not know what we saw. The buzzer rings and he reads the card, "What is reality?"

Ann says, "I don’t like this game" to which Steve immediately replies, "Yeah, let’s quit."

Those two get the hell out of there, leaving Jim and me alone. He looks at me. He is very serious, "I have one more answer. Do you want to see?"

I am so screwed.

He holds up the card and flash I am in an old attic by myself. Clean, the attic has a shelving unit in the center. At the border, one can know something without having to learn it, and I know all of the items on the shelf belonged to an elderly woman who had died. I approach the shelf and look at the items, an ashtray, a photograph of grandchildren, a very old photograph of her as a child and one of her at her wedding, a cigarette lighter (the shiny metal Zippo), some reading glasses, jewelry including her wedding ring and a watch, all old. Remember those cases women used for their cigarettes?

The shelves had some folded clothes and some shoes, a thermos, and my psyche starts to enter a state of deep seriousness, the kind that shuts people up, and the state darkens as an unspeakable dread floods the emotional space and I sense that these items are all that remain of the woman. Toss these items, and that’s it. The English language has nothing to describe where I went psycho-spiritually at this point, looking at all of the items, but imagine if you could taste, touch, hear, feel, and smell "abyss" and "fragile" at the same time. Then flash I am back with Jim. He looks at me, and from my face he knows I have nothing to say.

He looks down at the card and then at me, "What is death?"

He looks back down at the card and gets very upset, his face starting to cry and his eyes welling up, "I’m so sorry. I’m wrong. What is life?"

Jim starts really falling apart, sobbing, "It keeps changing! What is death?"

He is so frightened he shakes uncontrollably, falls to the ground and starts wretching in complete panic, "What is life?"

The Border. Think I made it up? Could you make that up?