Nine years after COVID-19 was finally defeated, an even worse blow came from the biosphere. The scientists called the disease COVID-20. It spread like wildfire across the world. The virus could exist in someone for two months before symptoms appeared. This made it much easier for the disease to spread. By the time the symptoms first appeared in people, the virus had already infected millions of people.
They called it "the coughing death." First a person would start coughing occasionally. Then that person would cough more and more. By the time the person got hospitalized, it was usually too late. There would be a very high fever, usually followed by a brief coma and then death.
Gene and his wife Carla were both hospitalized on the same day. When Gene was put in a hospital room, he thought he might never see his wife again. As he began to fade out of consciousness, he saw his electronic life signs monitor display a temperature of 106 degrees. Then after what seemed like a deep sleep, he awoke. He was very surprised to find that he was no longer in a hospital.
Gene looked around and saw himself seated in a train traveling at high speeds. Next to him was his wife, her eyes closed. The train car was filled with passengers. Gene looked out the windows of the train, but could see hardly anything. It was as if the train was traveling through a dark tunnel.
Soon Gene's wife woke up. "How did we get here?" asked Carla.
"Your guess is as good as mine," said Gene. "The last thing I remember, I was very sick in a hospital bed. But I feel fine now."
"Me too," said Carla. "Never felt better."
Before long a man in a black uniform came into the car, demanding to see tickets. The man looked like one of the conductors on an Amtrak train. Soon the conductor came to Gene and Carla.
"Tickets, please," said the conductor.
"I don't remember buying a ticket," said Gene.
"Check your left breast pocket," said the conductor, as if he had said it a thousand times before.
Looking down at his body, Gene saw a slip of paper in his left pocket. It read the following: "GENE BOONE, COVID-20, JULY 13, 2030." The letters were in green. After seeing this, the conductor stuck a little piece of paper above Gene's seat, which had on it a green arrow pointing upward. He put another such slip above Carla's seat.
Gene watched the conductor move to the seat in front of him. Reminded to check his front pocket, the man in the seat in front of Gene produced a slip saying in red letters, "DOUG GRADISON, MURDER-SUICIDE, JULY 13, 2030." The conductor stuck a slip of paper above that person's seat. But instead of having a green arrow pointing upward, it had a red arrow pointing downward.
The train continued to hurtle forward, seemingly passing through a long dark tunnel. Gene got out of his seat, and started moving around, asking questions of other people in the train car. He soon found that all of them were as baffled to be on the train as he was. Most of the people had a story to tell just like that of Gene.
Most of the passengers said the last thing they remembered they were very sick, with symptoms like that of COVID-20. One person said that the last thing he remembered was his car accidentally smashing into another car. Another person said the last thing he remembered was toppling from a ladder while trying to clean out the gutter on his roof. One of the passengers said he thought he was still back in his hospital bed, and that he was just having a delirious hallucination of being on a train.
Looking around in the train car, Gene could see that above almost every seat was a little slip of paper with a green arrow pointing upward. But above two seats the slip of paper had a red arrow pointing down. Soon the train started to slow. Not much could be seen in the darkness outside the train. The conductor entered the train car.
"This is Stop #1", shouted the conductor. "Please move over here to the exit door if you have a red arrow in the slip of paper above your seat." Two people got out of their seats, and came toward the conductor.
In the dim light some faces could be seen outside of the window. They looked rather like the audience of a strip club, or like some mob cheering on the fighters in a street brawl. "What kind of stop is this?" asked one of the two people about to exit.
"Don't worry, you'll meet your kind of people," said the conductor. After the train slowed to a halt, an exit door opened, and the two passengers left. Looking out the window, Gene and Carla could dimly see some faces and their unholy expressions.
"This is not the kind of stop I would ever want to get off at," said Carla.
"Damn right," said Gene.
The train then accelerated, and started moving faster than ever before.
"I remember reading about people who had close brushes with death," said Carla. "They often reported traveling through a mysterious tunnel. Do you think there's any connection with what's happening now?"
"I don't know," said Gene.
Waiting for the train to reach its destination, Gene's mind became filled with vivid recollections of all that had happened in the life he had led. With unusual clarity and speed, he seemed to remember the whole course of his life. The scenes passed through his mind almost as clearly as if he were watching some movie displayed on a wide-screen TV in front of him.
Carla closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat. She began to have a strange vision in her mind's eye, a vision of unusual clarity. She first vividly visualized a building she recognized as the local hospital, as if she were floating above it. Then she intensely visualized different floors on the building, filled with doctors and nurses wearing face masks. It was like her mind was passing through each floor. Finally she visualized a basement area where there were many cloth-covered bodies on shelves and tables. Her mind seemed to hover above one cold cloth-covered body. That was me, she thought. Like someone awaking from a bad dream, she snapped out of the strange vision.
Gene kept looking out a window, eager to see some sign of light ahead of the train. Finally he saw a glimpse of some light ahead of the train. "We're heading towards some light!" he exclaimed.
Finally the train came out of the tunnel. Suddenly the train car was flooded with light. Looking out the windows, Gene and Carla could see a stunning landscape. Bathed in some unearthly light, it looked more beautiful than any landscape they had ever seen.
Eventually the train approached what looked like a town, one with buildings of exquisite elegance. The train started to slow down. Looking out the window, Gene and Carla could see that a big crowd had come to see the train's arrival. The people looked very happy. The conductor came into the train car.
"Last stop!" yelled the conductor. "All passengers must exit."
Gene and Carla got in line to exit. The train came to a halt. They could hear outside of the train a boisterous sound of cheering, trumpets blaring, and church bells ringing. The door was opened, and Gene and Carla could smell some wonderful scent unlike anything they had smelled before.
"Don't be too surprised if you see there's no track underneath the train," said Gene.
As the first passenger exited, a wreath of flowers was put around his neck by a smiling woman. People outside the train were throwing colorful confetti, laughing and cheering.
"Mother!" yelled the first passenger to exit, recognizing someone in the crowd outside of the train. He ran to greet her.
"Where are we?" asked Gene.
"Somehow I don't think we've left our home," said Carla. "I think we've finally arrived at our real home."
Christian theme?
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