The world is more than what we see and hear, more than what we can touch. It’s a kaleidoscope of worlds, brilliant and bright and powerful, extending beyond time. Paul Samson is chosen, sent. He is a middle-aged man with a gift he doesn’t want, visions he wished he’d stop having. He’s dirty, homeless, and lost in more ways than he should be. It’s been a while since things became that way, and he isn’t sure how to—or if he even wants to—make things better. One day, he’s helped to a local shelter, a fellowship that feeds and houses homeless people like him. It’s there he meets John Williams, a pastor determined to help him regardless of anything else.
John Williams is a pastor of Tselem Fellowship. They’ve adapted a method of helping the less privileged that works in a slightly different way than normal. His family life might be in shambles, with a divorce on the horizon and a daughter that won’t say too many words to him at a time. He’s barely managing to keep it from completely shattering apart. Yet, when he has a dream, a vision, of a man in need of help—a man he is supposed to help—John doesn’t question it.
But, the world is more than what John can see, and feel, and hear. It is more than the people he watches walk down the street when he goes for a drive. It is filled with great and powerful things; places and beings that awe and stupefy, overwhelm his senses so it all seems slightly surreal. There’s an impending, silent danger. A danger to being found, a danger to being helped, a danger to that fragile balance that’s being cradled in a family’s life. How well will Paul and John handle something that will put them to test and strain everything they believe and stand for?
It superimposes the unseen world over the scene world and tells a story that is not just earthbound but eternal.
Seeing a world beyond this one
There is another world, more vast, without limits, without end, yet unseen to the physical eyes and ignored by the majority of the population.
The realm of light is a bright place filled with beautiful translucent beings. Its borders stretch without end, and its occupants multiply without cease. There is a hubbub, a collection of whispers passing between beings. They whisper and laugh, sing and play and dance. Here, spirits and souls, cherubs and seraphs and archangels mingle freely, existing in perfect spiritual harmony.
A soul, Paul, moves to where he can stare at the mortal realm.
It is majestic, the mortal realm, and magical. It was filled with everything and nothing. Beautiful things are living together. It was created with utmost care and perfect balance. But, its light grows dimmer with each orbit of the sun. Darkness shrouds its golden goodness, beams of light dispersed over its surface, desperately peaking out but obscured and dissipating below the spreading darkness.
Paul stares at the world, at the earth. He is concerned and fascinated by what he sees.
An angel, a seraph, comes to him, to stand by his side and stare too into the world.
“It looks…different,” Paul replies.
“The darkness is spreading. Earth suffocates in its greed, aggression, and selfishness.”
“From what I imagined, it is different. I’ve heard stories, but this…seems overwhelming…”
Below the realm of light, in the mortal realm, Cindy splashes in a puddle and squeals in delight. She’s just turned seven last month, had gotten the doll house she’d wanted as a gift, and now her backyard has several puddles from the rain that’s just fallen. Her mom had insisted on her wearing boots and sits on the porch, drinking coffee and keeping watch.
In a different place, Mabel walks along the street, rolling her eyes at the group catcalling her and clutching the handle of her bag as they stalk her. With her newly done nails, she puts up a struggle when they try to viciously grab her.
In a small, dank room, a drunk man takes another swig at a bottle of vodka. The room’s a mess, he hasn’t taken the trash out in weeks, and there are bottles of vodka everywhere. His hair’s a mess, and he’s been wearing the same clothes for weeks—he just throws on a jacket when he has to go to the liquor store. Tears stream down his face as he drinks; a picture frame lies on the ground not far from his spot, shattered with the picture of a happy couple slipping out.
Under an elm tree at a park, Ben and Stacy embrace and kiss with fervent passion. It’s their anniversary, just two years being officially together even though they’ve known each other since middle school. They grab at each other, hands in their hair, under their jackets, behind their necks, and whisper professions of love with breathless voices.
Tires screech on the main road as a white jeep tries to avoid hitting the back of a black Kia that’s suddenly stopped, but there’s an alarming crash, and the jeep swerves into a different car. It’s several minutes before the ambulance gets there,
In the realm of light where Paul and the seraph are watching everything, Caviel gives a simple nod to Paul.
Paul has never been to the mortal realm. He is a soul that has known not life and death. The world he sees is good but bad, filled with a light that’s dying and a darkness that’s spreading.