I tightened my grip on the seam of the blanket and rolled my body over until my eyes faced the back support of the couch. Conan O’Brien was busy doing his opening monologue. The flashing white light of the television flickered in the darkened room, casting shadows across the floor.

It was 12:38 a.m.

I shut my eyes and let my mind flutter off like a butterfly from a sealed mason jar.

I can never remember the exact moment just before I fall to sleep. It is as if the Sandman fights with the rebellious to keep up his schedule and whisks the willing on his own time.

My consciousness wandered in the darkness for what must have been hours. I awoke later in a dream...

I was in a low-lit apartment atop a tall building in the middle of the city. It was nighttime. Scattered lights, long snakes of headlit cars, and red light flashes decorated the blackened horizon.

It was a nice room. Recently stained wood floors, cherry wood cabinetry, high ceilings, and white-painted cinder block walls gave the room a metropolitan feel.

It was like no place I had ever lived in, but it was like everything I wished I had.

Directly behind me at calf level was an unfolded futon in sleeping position. I lowered myself while my fingertips guided the landing. The black cushion was soft. I could feel the metal bars contort and squeak beneath me while I got settled.

It felt like home, but I was nowhere near it.

I heard a crash in the distance. A slamming door maybe. The crash was followed by a rhythmic stomp-stomp that gradually got closer and closer, faster and faster. Someone was coming.

Whatever was coming was big and coming quick. The stepper’s steps were deliberate, with haste. They thundered across the strips of wood on the floor. I looked to the back corner of the room and followed the sound until it reached the door to the apartment. They stopped.

I stood motionless with my hands clasped in my lap, anxiously awaiting the arrival of my large, speed walking guest. The latch above the door handle slid over and he pushed the door open. It crashed against the wall beside the doorway as if a storm had thrown it open. It was my father.

I was surprised to seem him. He died five years ago.

He looked about the room then over at me. He plowed through a small end table holding the telephone while coming over to where I sat. My face could not translate the emotional explosion inside me; I must have looked like a mannequin.

I stood up. He wrapped me in his arms.

Though I had grown much taller than him, I suddenly fit comfortably within his embrace.

I wept. We clenched tighter. I pulled my hands in so tight I thought I would surely tear through his body. The tears streamed from my eyelids and onto his black sweatshirt.

His thick fingers grasped tightly onto my shoulders. He held me at arms length. He didn’t have much time. My midsection buckled within his vise grip. He stared into my eyes as if he was searching for the question he knew I longed to ask.

I blubbered in front of him, bending my arm at the elbow to wipe my face. He looked just as I remembered him. He wore thick-soled work boots, worn out blue jeans, the black sweatshirt, and a green baseball cap. The sleeves on his sweatshirt were pulled past his forearm and the bill of his hat was flicked just a little higher than the middle of his forehead.

He peered deep into my eyes; I finally peered back. He was waiting for me. The flowing stream of tears ran dry and I hung there in his grasp like an infant once again.

I gathered what little composure I could and helped him search through my mind for what I wished to know.

Downstairs, an ambulance was screaming past the apartment building. The air from an open window shut the door he came in through. The subsequent silence punctuated my realization. I blinked hard and my eyes widened.

He had traveled so far to see me, so far to give me an answer. The question was simple.

“What is heaven like?”

He shook me hard two times and spoke through his teeth as if he had been holding onto the answer since he began his journey.

“It is exactly the way the biblical poets described it.”