Way to Heaven
There was an orphanage in the center of the city. Alice was one of the children who lived there.
　By Elven
She was ten and was brought to the orphanage after her parents died in an accident when she was three. She was a lonely child who always dreamed of the outside world. She believed that God would give her an answer of her life, so she carried all her questions until a Christmas; an angel appeared in front of her. Through the conversations, Alice began her adventure‌
Way to Heaven By Elven
Table of Content Chapter One
P.1
Chapter Two
P.8
Chapter Three
P.14
Chapter Four
P.18
Chapter Five
P.21
Chapter Six
P.26
Chapter Seven
P.31
Chapter Eight
P.35
Chapter 1 It was a cold and snowy Christmas night. The sky was clear and the Milky Way starry. The streets were desolate and empty. All stores were closed. Everybody stayed at home and families gathered by the fire to celebrate the season. Only a few streetlamps weakly cast a misty light around the corner. The street was wet and covered with snow crushed by millions of cars and mixed with brown dirt. Amidst this dim and darkness was an orphanage. It stood indifferently in the heart of
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the city. By the building was a wall of shade trees decorated with little bulbs, illuminating the fence and pedestrian. The building was a two-store colonial. The side facing the street was built with a porch with two entrances on the side, each of which stretched out a ladder. One floor up was the bedroom of the children. Two windows allow air to flow into the second floor. They were two hollow carves looking into the street. A little girl could be seen sitting by one of the windows. A corner of her skirt was fringing out of the window frame and
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floating in the air. Alice lived in the orphanage. She was seated quietly by the window, murmuring to herself. The rest of the children were yelling and shouting in the room, playing with pillows and carpets. Nobody paid attention to her. None wondered why she never joined them. To them, Alice had always appeared to be an alone, isolated, and sometimes emotionally inconsistent figure. Since her arrival at the orphanage when she was three, she had never talked to anybody. Alice was a mystery, a
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solitaire understandable to none, probably not even to herself. A middle-aged woman came in with several boxes. Christmas gifts! Kids were happy and excited. They grabbed the ones they liked and opened them. Everyone got their favorites: TV games, sketch books, second-handed fur toys, or some balls. After the happy hour, the woman smiled to the kids and put them to bed one after one. She said “Merry Christmas� to each, bid everyone good night, and turned off the light before leaving
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the big room. Alice was still awake. She was saying a prayer as she always did every night. She was praying to God for revealing her the way of the world. To Alice, the world was totally new, sacred, and most of time scary. She always wondered the world outside of it, but she never had courage to take a look. The orphanage was her shelter, mentally and physically. “What are all those people doing in the streets? Why does everybody look so busy? Why must they do what they are told to do?
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Why is my life arranged this way? Can I have it the other way around? What is the nature of life?” Alice constantly asked those questions. That’s all she had been doing by the window, and she wondered if all the questions could be answered someday. Suddenly, a thing appeared. It startled Alice, and she got up to have a look. There’s a thing with wings, floating in front of her and glowing. An angel! The angel was in modern dress, wearing black jeans and some Coca-cola T-shirt. It penetrated the glasses and, without a
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word, held Alice in her wrist and took her high into the sky.
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Chapter 2 “Who are you?” asked Alice. She felt no fear, only wondering what’s going on here. They were getting higher and higher. The houses down there became small, and the Milky Way just right above them. “That should have been my question, young woman,” the angel asked, “Who are you? Why are you so eager to grow up?” “I’m Alice. If I may say, this is confusing.” “What is confusing?” asked the angel “This!” “Oh, you mean this. Well, you said some prayer. The Lord listened and sent for me.” 8
“So, you are my CHRISTMAS GIFT!?” “Of course I am! And, if I may say, it is not polite to talk to a GIFT like that, young woman. For the first conversation you have ever had with others, I can’t say I have had a good impression on it.” “What is wrong with my conversation?” “People properly compose themselves when talking to others, but you don’t. You criticized my presence and remarked that it was confusing.” “How do you know I have never talked to people?” Alice was amazed how much this creature had known about her. 9
“Oh, I know. We who live in Heaven know everything. It’s time for landing. We are almost there.” “Where?” Alice found them in another time zone of the earth, because they are in a daytime area now. The angel brought Alice and descended at a park. They landed on a piece of grassland. “This is a park,” the angel said, “It is the best place for you to observe the way of the world.” It was about ten o’clock in the morning, and there were a lot of people in the park. Alice felt surprised and excited about the real world. 10
An old woman was about to enter the park. She was completely bold. Her face wrinkled like the curtain hanging in the orphanage’s living room and dry like sand. She was in a shabby dress and a pair of broken shoes. With a pushcart the woman stopped by the crossroad, trying to get across the busy street. She had poor eyesight. It was obviously very difficult for her grabbing a safe window in the busy stream of cars. She looked miserable and helpless. Alice watched her about ten minutes before she finally passed the crossroad with her pushcart. “What kind of life do you think she is living?” 11
asked the angel. “I don’t know”, murmured Alice, “What should I do if I looked that old, moved that slow, lived in a city where nobody cared about me, and led a life close to its end?” “Where is her Christmas gift? Where is her angel?” Alice looked up from her toes and asked. “You tell me?” said the angel, “What’s the reason you think God arranges her life that way?” “Where is her angel to bring her up into the sky to help solve all her life’s questions? “Does God want her to suffer, too?” “Did she do anything wrong?” asked Alice with her eyes 12
wet. “Nope” “Actually, that’s the way of God, and that’s the way of the world” The angel replied, “in His world it’s no use to ask why a person’ life is arranged that way?” “People don’t ask the reason they must grow up or the purpose of life. Everybody must live a life, and that’s a reason good enough for most people to move on. What you just saw that happened on this woman was aging, and that’s the way God loves people” “Why?” “Ask ‘How’, not ‘why’”
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Chapter 3 “Now here is another thing I don’t understand. Then how do you make of this poor woman who has to make a living that way?” asked Alice when she was now looking at a stretch of the park, in the far end of which a peddler walked by. “Come, today’s the last day of this special sale. Look at these beautiful cups I’ve brought from Japan, Italy and Malaysia, too many countries.” She was shouting and trying very hard to make a sale. “I don’t get it,” said Alice, “Why must people do that kind of a thing for a living? And why 14
should people be separated form each other? Why should people be classified by nations, races, languages, or religions? Why can’t they live all together happily and peacefully indiscriminately? Why can’t people just stop by and buy everything from this poor woman so she can have a day’s rest?” “People thought these were God’s trick, or better say a punishment caused by opening the Pandora’s Box.” The angel joked. “Well, in my opinion, people are just trying to excuse themselves from unkindness, hatred, and violence”, Alice complained.
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A customer came and stopped by the peddler. She bought one of the sets of seven cups. Alice saw this, and she frowned. “But, tell me, dear angel, if everyone has one mouth 16
only, why do we need so many cups?” “If God has built only one heaven, why does He need so many angels?” The angel replied. “Is that anything to do with Hope and Desire?” Alice asked. “Fulfilling desires, you may say. That’s what people think”, the angel smiled, “And that ‘how’ most of people spend their life time.”
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Chapter 4 “Who is yelling?” Alice turned around. Three little girls came out from the other side of the playground. They have toys and dolls in their hands, and some of them were playing rudely and chasing with each other. Suddenly, one of the poor little girls fell down on the ground, and she began to cry loudly. “Oh God, Annie, are you alright?” asked one of the other girls. She ran quickly to Annie and inquired her situation, “What happened?” She turned to another girl and frowned to her, “You are
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chasing her too fast, Sophie.” “I’m bleeding now,” Annie complained. “I think we should go home and get a bandage. Where’s Mom?” said her. Alice took one step forward. “You see, dear angel, here’s the problem.” she continued, “I always feel sad like that little girl on the ground, and NONE of HIS Miracles has ever happened on me. I just wonder why I never feel happy since the world is full of God’s love like the holly book says.” “You know, little girl, the world is a mere
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creativity. You have created by yourself in your mind, and it changes everything in your eyes. The manner of reality actually depends on you attitude toward it,” the angel answered. “But why can’t we be both happy and sad? Why can’t we be both chicken and brave? Why can’t we enjoy both the crowd and solitude? Why can’t the past or the fact just died out from our memories? Why can’t we find the secret path to Heaven?” Alice asked.
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Chapter5 “Would you like to have something to drink?” the angel asked. “There is a vending machine at the entrance of the park.” “Sure, I would love to,” Alice replied. “The let’s go look for some”, the angel said and led the way to the other side of the park. It was getting hot and the sun had reached the top of their heads. “It was almost noon,” thought Alice, “But where’s the orphanage? Am I not supposed to stay in bed and sleep like all good girls do? She began to felt uneasy and
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exhausted. “I am getting sick of this quest. Which is the reality, the orphanage, or the park?” she wondered. While Alice was thinking, an office-worker who was talking boisterously on her cell phone passed in front of her. She was talking in a loud voice, and seemed not to notice that she had drew the attention of other people. “You’re right, Mr. Martin. We’ll have a department meeting on the 2nd floor and yes…yes…I’m sorry?
Oh,
un…no…actually
you I
mean can’t,
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now…un-huh? I’m
going
to
Singapore for an annual gathering. Yes…but I really can’t…listen, Mr. Martin…no you listen, I
told
you
I
had
to
attend
that
meeting…no…hello? Hello? Mr. Martin? Come on!” The office-worker seemed tired and anxious. Alice was wondering. She did not know anything about people’s job or the meaning of the word “career”. She turned to the angel. “What is this all about? Where’s the door to life? Where’s the door to the world? I want to rest a bit. I want to escape for a while. Why
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people are always busy out there, like that office lady? What do they pursuit and why?” “Who says that sixty seconds make one minute, fifteen minutes make a quarter? Who says those twenty-four hours is one day, and that day and night exchanges? Who says three hundred and sixty five days is one year, and another year follows? Who rules the order of four seasons, why don’t they turn backwards?” The angel replied, “Those rules, believes, and values are all humanly made. It is nothing to do with us in Heaven. We never think of
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creating these principals and laws. People like to use all of these things to pray or to question God, and they forget that these are all come from their own thoughts. Only by themselves can they find the door to happiness. That’s the story�
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Chapter6 “Can we stop the story here?” Alice asked, “I’m sort of confused.” The angel gave a loud laugh and handed her a can of coke. “What is this?” asked Alice. “Something they don’t have in the orphanage. Something they don’t have in Heaven, either. It only exists in men’s world. You see, there are still some bright sides of the reality regardless the rules too hard to understand.” “Really?” Alice doubted. She drank a mouthful of coke. “That’s for sure.” She nodded her head
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at the coke. “The world needs all of these in order to run, perhaps?” “Are you trying to cheer up yourself?” the angel said indifferently. “No, I still can’t find a way out. But if not, perhaps a can of coke will help. Wow, I love this drink.” Alice laughed. This is the first time she laughed from her heart in all these ten years. While they are drinking their cokes, they noticed that there was an old couple walking around the park. The old man and the old
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woman hold each other tightly in hand and sat down on a wooden bench. They looked at the grassland and the children who were playing on the slide and the swings. Alice heard that the old couple speaking quietly to themselves, and everything made her feel peaceful and warm. She put down her coke and said, “I’ve never known the humanly world out here, and I never thought I would have a chance to step out the door of the orphanage. Yet for my earlier life, I have always wanted to try to look at everything
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from the good and lovely aspect of it. Now that the God has sent me an angel, I may be able to figure out the answer of my biggest question: the meaning of God’s love.” “Love is hard to understand, my little girl.” the angel spoke softly, “God leaves this most precious thing on every person, the only way to find out what exactly love is, is trying to feel what it is with gratitude, and without measuring.” “Why should people love each other?” Alice asked.
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“So they have a change to understand and treasure the beauty of humanity.” “That is love?” “You tell me.” the angel replied.
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Chapter 7 “But why do some people never feel this love?” Alice asked, “Sometime I also feel alone that that I am one of the abandoned, given up by people, the world, and God.” “People do,” the angel replied, “ask that often.” “Ouch!” cried Alice, “What is that?” Alice picked up a book from the ground. She raised her head. A student who was dragging his book bag and walking around the park, throwing some of his books away, one of which hit her hard on the shoulder. Alice stared at him but
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figured out somehow she was transparent to him. He looked tired and desperate. “Oh, holly banana!” cried the student, “Everyday I have classes from eight to five. How ridiculous it is! And, after that I have a three-hour long make-up class. What have I done to deserve all this? Why should I suffer these hours in some places I don’t like? And guess what, I got nothing in the end. I don’t like studying. I love music, but my parents say that only if I get into the university will I be allowed to have my own band. Why? Birds don’t have to study?
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I’m hundreds time smarter than the birds, and I still ought to study hard…” “He really should try to live in the orphanage. Only that kind of routine and boring life in the orphanage can kill people.” said Alice, “But I don’t know about that, I’ve never gone to a real school.” “My dear,” replied the angel, “Everyone has got their own problems, and it always comes with diversity.” “So you think that I should be satisfied with all that I have had?”
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“In a certain way, yes, because comparison is never fair. It won’t help you find truth, either.” said the angel. “Are you trying to say that God arranges everything for some reason? That my life is like this has also got its reason?” Alice sighed. “Well, people often explain things in the way understandable to them.” “Does God really mean that?” Alice asked. The angel smiled without a word.
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Chapter 8 “I don’t know if you’ve already noticed this in the every beginning,” the angel said after a long silence, “That people can’t really see us.” “I know, and that’s why the boy was not aware that he had hit me with a book.” Alice said rudely, pretending that she was angry. “Well, maybe we can perform a little magic, young lady. Do you want them to see us?” “Forget about that,” said Alice, “I don’t think I’m ready to meet with people in this reality.”
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The sky was getting dark. The sun was going to set now. The angel was staring at the skyline and seemed to be contemplating on something. “Do not fear, my child, you will leave the orphanage and find yourself back into daily life with all those people some day.” The angel said delightfully. “Really? Do you think I will?” Alice asked, “I know that there are so many things I can never understand. I don’t know why they happened to me, either. I also know that there are some things I don’t even care at all when I try to look back a few years
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later. So, why should I give so much damn of everything now? I can’t stop asking myself that question, if I don’t give everything a damn a few years later, then why should I mind them now?” “Because you are a human, and because you live.” the angel turned his face toward hers and smiled at her, “Once you live in the moment of the past, and now you live in the present, and then you live in the future. “I live, so I care. I live, so I question. I live, so I find the answers.” Alice delighted. The angel
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did not say anything; he kissed Alice on the forehead and held up her hands. Alice closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she found that everyone in the park was gone. The view started to melt and everything disappeared. The angel and Alice flew up again into the air. Slowly, the houses became bigger and bigger, and the stars were not so clear now. Around a corner Alice saw a familiar building, the orphanage. They stopped by the window of the bedroom. Alice stepped on her bed. She turned around toward the angel. “When will I
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be free? When will I be away of all of these?” she said with sorrow. “You are always free, my dear, and you will always be free as long as your set your mind free.” replied the angel. “But always remember,” said him, “Everything you have now, is always the best thing or the best arrangement that God’s given to you.” Then, the angel disappeared. “But wait, dear angel! How do I know if all this is just a dream?” Alice cried. Alice wakes up and finds herself lying in her bed. It is daytime. The sunshine is warm
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and pleasant. Alice sees a white feather next to her pillow, a little souvenir from the expedition of last night. She laughs. She gets off her bed.
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There was an orphanage in the center of the city. Alice was one of the children who lived there. She was ten and was brought to the orphanage after her parents died in an accident when she was three. She was a lonely child who always dreamed of the outside world. She believed that God would give her an answer of her life, so she carried all her questions until a Christmas; an angel appeared in front of her. Through the conversations, Alice began her adventure‌