Free Memory's Door (A Well Spring Novel) by James L. Rubart Page B

joy, laughter pouring out of his mouth in a torrent. Even Doug had joined the celebration, doing cartwheels through the air and yelling like a crazed U-Dub football fan.
    The whole thing was so natural and so absurd, both at the same time. All fear of the future, all worry about what would happen with Perry and where Brandon fit in her life, the always-present strain of her job slipped away. And whatever scenario the Warriors would face with the Wolf melted away and joy unspeakable buried her.
    As they cavorted through the sky, the river of air grew stronger and they picked up speed. After what seemed like hours, Dana squinted toward the horizon again. The sun had sunk lower in the sky and now she saw a thin smear of colors. As they streaked toward it the smear turned into a wall and grew larger till it towered above them, a mile at least, probably more.
    The four of them were traveling so fast she doubted they would survive the same velocity on earth. The greens and blues below her blurred. She should be frightened but she couldn’t touch even a hint of that emotion. Only an overwhelming sense of love and joy she was sure would explode out of her in seconds. And still they moved faster.
    Then the wall of colors was before them, looming too far above to see the top and too far to the sides to take in its vastness. Only seconds now and they would slam into the crimson, emerald, turquoise, gold, and aqua wall and certainly be destroyed, but Dana didn’t care. She stretched forward with her fingers and pulled at the air as if swimming, as if she could draw herself into the wall with more speed. And she was laughing and crying and shouting and coming closer to exploding every second.
    Then in a flash she reached the wall and smashed into it and she slammed her eyes shut and waited for death to come but it didn’t. As she burst through the wall, the sense of love she’d felt earlier was a drop in the Pacific Ocean compared to what she felt now. The colors wrapped themselves around her and pushed into her and through her and each color was a hand of God that held her in infinite tenderness and strength.
    Their speed slowed and they flew lower and soon a landscape took form in front of them. She glanced at the others, their faces basking in the splendor of the moment, then back to the world appearing in front of her. Mountains and valleys and deserts and forests and seas grew and vanished as they flew over the splendor.
    None of them tried to make conversation. What would they say? Words would crash to the ground in epic failure trying to describe what they’d experienced, what they were feeling, what they’d seen, what they were still seeing.
    Finally the birthing of worlds around them slowed, and they stood on a plain that reminded Dana of the Australian outback but this one was more vibrant and the air tingled with . . . she didn’t know how to describe it. Life was the only word that made sense.
    “Where are we?” Marcus’s voice sounded strange.
    Doug opened his arms and turned 360 degrees before answering. “‘The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondageto decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.’ ‘Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away . . .’”
    “What?” Dana made her own turn. “Are you saying this is the new heaven and the new earth?”
    Doug laughed. “No, no. That is yet to come. Our eyes will not see that till the age we live in ends and all the sons and daughters become the audience as the Great Artist once again creates what was to have been in the beginning and what will be again for ages to come.” He made a sweeping gesture. “This is only a foretaste of what that world will be, and not nearly as