The Sweet By and By

“Where am I?” I asked the man wearing soiled dungarees, a thick flannel shirt and a sun-faded straw hat.

“Elsewhere,” he said, his gentle smile conflicting with the concern knitted into his brows.

“Do I know you?” I asked. “You seem awfully familiar.” He smiled.

“We’re all carved from the same tree. That’s what me mam used to say, anyway. Doctors, teachers, butchers, bakers, farmers and soldiers. All the same wood, carved in different ways.”

“How are you carved?” I asked. The man pointed a calloused hand in front of him.

“While I was carving up this land,” he swept his hand to indicate plowed fields in front of us that receded into the distance, “it was carving me, too.”

“So, you’re a farmer?”

“Aye. That’s how plowing carves ye.”

“What am I doing out here on a farm?”

“Telkin’ to an ole man, looks like.”

“I can’t remember the last time I was out in the country. I have no idea how I got here, but it’s nice. I like it. The fresh air, and the peace. All I can hear is birds and insects.”

“Does it bring ye comfort?”

“Yes, it does. A great deal.”

“I thought it might.”

“What do you mean? Did you bring me here? Where did I come from?” No sooner had the question formed in my mind than a hot and jagged pain shot down my back and it felt like someone had taken a hatchet to my forearm.

“Thing about questions, lad, is if ye ask them, they’re likely to be answered.”

I tried to remember how I got there, but the harder I tried, the more it hurt. Not my head so much as my body. Straining to remember made my back hurt. And my midsection. 

“I think… I think there was something important that I had to do.” The old man’s smile faded slightly, but he nodded and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“So, you’re wanting to go back now?” I nodded. “Well, God bless ye, lad. I’ll see you in the sweet by and by.”

Suddenly the landscape around me, including the old man, slipped away. It was replaced by excruciating pain, the screams of sirens, and the whimpering of children. I was on the floor, looking up into the eyes of my students who were cowering under their desks.

“I saw him blink! Mr. D is alive!”

Just then the door burst open and two SWAT officers entered wearing their tactical gear. They looked around to make sure the intruder was gone and then one barked into his radio.

“Command, this is D-16. I need an RA immediately in Room A44. There’s a teacher down with two GSWs in the back and abdomen. All children appear to be physically unharmed.”

“That must have been painful,” said the EMT. The kids said that when the gunman burst in, you jumped in front of the gun when he tried to fire at them. They thought you bought the farm.”