I got laid off today. For some reason, as I was making my trip home, I starting thinking about an early dream of mine. At the time I thought it was absolutely terrifying, today I think I understand a bit more about why it scared me so much.

When I was younger I dreamed that I went to Heaven. How could one have a nightmare about Heaven? Well I was raised in a very religious home, you see, and as much as people might like to imagine otherwise, many concepts of Christianity are kind of hard for a kid to understand. My biggest fear?

Forever.

Just the day before I had my dream, I sat in a sermon where the speaker talked about "forever". He was quite smitten with the idea of forever, talked about it as if it was the answer to all problems, the boon of our very existence. Forever. To an 11-year-old kid, forever might as well be tomorrow, there's just very little to understand about it. But this preacher just kept pushing it and pushing it. Then he wove "forever" into Heaven, and that's when things started to get scary. You see, he said that when we repented our sins, when we were faithful to God, when we accepted Jesus as our Savior, we would go to Heaven and stay there with Him forever.

And ever.

Well, how did people act in Heaven, I wondered. Could I still watch the Power Rangers in Heaven even though my Mom said it was violent? I liked the Power Rangers. What if I got bored of Heaven? What if, I thought, I didn't LIKE Heaven? Radical stuff. But the thought scared me somehow. It scared me because the preacher claimed that as long as we were faithful, when we died and went to Heaven we would be transformed, that in a sense we would automatically love Heaven and never grow tired of it.

So to me, the concept of being changed was, somehow, unsettling. How would I be changed? If I wasn't me, if I didn't like the things I liked anymore, who would I be? Would the real me, the old me, still be stuck somewhere inside, doomed to remember what I was like before but powerless to change?

So the dream I had that night was of Heaven. Except in the dream I didn't automatically know I was in Heaven, there was no sign. What did Heaven look like? It was a mall. If I remember correctly, it was the young men's clothing section of my local JC Penny in Coral Square Mall. There were people in the mall, milling about, but they had no faces. There were no exits and I was very disoriented, I didn't know where I was or how I got there. Then I noticed everybody was dressed in white, and that there was a rather hazy being in the far corner of the room that was positively radiant. But when I tried to look at Him, I couldn't, it was if there was nothing there and yet there he stood. Too far away for me to discern his facial features and somehow too hazy to see, like an out of focus camera. So if that was Jesus, I had to be in Heaven, right?

There was silence in Heaven. I was getting more and more nervous. Then my nervousness gave way to panic. Why couldn't I leave? Why didn't I change? Was there a mistake? Was this really Hell? Was I tricked? Why didn't anyone move, why didn't anyone talk, why didn't anyone look real? Human? Why was Jesus just standing there, not doing anything, just standing there in His Infinite Blurriness? I stood there for what felt like hours, for hours that felt like days, and nothing happened. I started to wonder if I was dreaming and, if so, why was I in the dream for so long. The preachers always spoke of dying suddenly, of dying in your sleep, so you had to be PREPARED. Always be prepared, boy scout shit. I was terrified at the thought that THIS could be forever. That I was lied to, that I had been bamboozled, that all the preaching bigwigs had it all wrong. Heaven was just a mall, a quiet mall with indefinite angels, murky saviors, dull atmosphere and claustrophobic quarters. I waited for what I thought WAS forever, and the moment I realized that forever must mean this, this feeling, stretching on and on before me like a never-ending sea, I woke up.

I was in a cold sweat. I was crying uncontrollably. I was shivering and whimpering to myself and I couldn't tell if the wetness was my sweat or if my bladder was scared pissless (ha!). I was quite aware of my dream, remembered it vividly, and was ashamed to think that I was afraid of Heaven. But I was.

And today, as my ex-boss used words like "revenue" and "investments" and "returns" and "losses", and his eyes said "fired, fired, fired, FIRED"; as they took my badge and gave me a fake smile; as I filled out my last time sheet, packed up my few belongings, and was escorted out of the building, I finally understood. As I sat there in my car wondering how to tell my parents that they were right, that I should've been a lawyer all along, that the working world was hard and unforgiving and full of promises of wealth and success, full of backstabbers and moneygrabbers, I understood. I understood what scared me so much in that old dream that rose up in my senses like an elusive smell I can't quite place. I understood what my brain was trying to tell me.

Heaven is a prison. Forever is too long, much too long. If this was supposed to be the pinnacle of all creation, if this was supposed to be the reward for a life well spent, if this was what my hopes and dreams were hinged on - and it turned out to be a prison - well that's really terrifying isn't it? My dreams and ambitions became my cell, and I couldn't seem to do anything about it but wait. Wait it out and hope that I'm dreaming.

Life's weird.