All You Need Is Love

A Story by Deep Dish

A short story of a young man who can't sleep and ends up having a very strange dream.

I couldn’t sleep, so I tried to count sheep. It didn’t work.

I got up out of my bed that’s just a little too big and a little too comfortable and walked out of my room and into the kitchen. When I opened the fridge door it hurt my eyes; but it was a good type of hurt. Like when the person you love hits you in the arm. Or like when you get sunburned for the first time of the summer.

I grabbed out some day-old takeout chicken wings with the sauce soaked into the breading and a nearly empty gallon of two percent milk. I finished the wings and the milk. I wasn’t hungry but I thought maybe if I ate something it would help me sleep. It didn’t work.

I walked into the living room and laid on the floor. I began to do push-ups. I got to one hundred and thirteen before I stopped. I thought maybe if I did push-ups they would make me tired and help me sleep. It didn’t work.

I got off of the floor now feeling sick from the wings and sweaty from the push-ups. Then I walked back to my bedroom and gently got back into my bed that’s just a little too big and a little too comfortable.

I just laid there with my eyes closed in the silence of the night. I’ve always thought it was funny that I’ve never experienced actual silence. It’s like a myth. There’s always a cricket. Or if not a cricket then the wind. Or if not the wind then your breaths. Or if you manage to let out a silent breath, you can still hear your heartbeat if you listen closely.

I just laid there in the darkness, listening to the crickets thinking they would help me fall asleep. It didn’t work.

Then I tried listening to the wind. That didn’t work either.

Then I tried listening to my breathing. That didn’t work either.

Then I tried listening to my heartbeat. I listened real close. It was quiet at first but I kept listening. It got louder. It went from a faint buh-bump, buh-bump, to a pounding drum. It was all I heard. There were no more crickets. There was no more wind. I don’t even know if I was still breathing. All I knew was the darkness around me and the pounding drum resonating through my chest and into my head and arms and legs and fingers and toes. I kept listening. I was getting tired. Very tired. More tired than I had ever been.

Then the pounding suddenly stopped with one loud BUH-BUMP. I kept listening, but there was nothing. It was silence. I tried to open my eyes but realized I didn’t know where they were. I tried to pull the covers of my bed off of myself but couldn’t find them, or my arms. Or my legs. Or my anything. My body was gone and I was just there in a void of dark silence. Real silence. I’m not sure if I can even say I was there, in the void, not only because I don’t know where “there” is but because I don’t know what I mean by “I” when there was no body to contain whatever I am, or whatever that part of me was.

I wasn’t tired anymore. I wasn’t sick or sweaty anymore. I was… The silence was broken by a voice.

“Hello.” It was familiar and friendly. It was my own, but I didn’t say the word.

“Hello.” I said back to myself.

“Am I dead?” I asked.
I heard a kind and amusing laugh, “Hahaha no, you aren’t dead. There is no such thing as death, at least in the way you understand it.” the voice replied.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, everyone you’ve ever known has believed death to be the end of life. They have believed it to be the transition to somewhere else, or even nowhere.”

“So, then what is death?” I asked.

“There is no death.” the voice said, making me feel silly.

“Then what happens when you die?”

“You don’t."

“I’m confused.” I replied.

“Don’t you get it?”

“Get what?”

“Where do you think you are right now?” The voice was the one asking the questions now.

“I don’t know.” I said, puzzled.

“Guess.”

“Well, I guess I’m within myself.”

“You’re on the right track.” the voice said.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Guess.” it said again.

“You are me?”

“Yes.” the voice replied, giving me the first actual answer of the conversation. It continued to speak, “Don’t you ever wonder where the voice inside your head comes from? The voice that asks questions, and makes decisions, and thinks of ideas? That is me. And I am you.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” I told myself.

“Yes it does. Haven’t you ever questioned what is going on when you imagine things? When you think of a memory, you can see it right? You can hear it and even feel it in some ways. When you read something, you can see it and hear it and feel it. There has been this belief that all of this occurs in your ‘head’ but that is not the case.”

“Then where does it all happen?” I asked, feeling confused again.

“Where are you right now?” the voice asked.

“Within myself.”

“Are you in your head?”

“No.”

“So where are you?”

“Nowhere.”

“Wrong.” the voice told me, “You are everywhere. You are every thing in every time and every place. That is how it has always been and how it always will be. The entire universe is within you.”

“This is a lot to take in.” I replied.

“If it was easy to understand then everyone would have it figured out. But here we are, thousands of years after humans gained the ability to think, and still nothing.”

“You’re making it sound like I’m a god or something.” I accused.
“You are, at least in the way you understand a god to be.” the voice retorted.

“So, everything is within me? Just me?”

The kind laugh came once again, “Hahaha no, you aren’t that special! It is everybody. Everyone is connected with each other.”

“So everyone has everything within themselves?” I questioned.

“Yes. Go ahead. Try it out. Think of anything. Think of your body if it will help you.” I thought of being in my own body again and in no amount of time I looked down and saw myself; the hands, the arms, the legs, the feet, it was all there.

“Now think about something you want. Anything.”

Right then, a cookie appeared in front of me. Not just any cookie, but a chocolate chip cookie, like the ones my great grandma used to make before she passed away four years ago. They were the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. It was just sitting there, suspended in the void. I reached out, grabbed it, and took a bite. It tasted exactly how I remembered.

“How did you do that?” I quickly asked the voice.

“You did that.” it replied.

“So this is like heaven? Is this where we go when we die? We can have whatever we want?”

“Like I said, you don’t die. But it is like heaven in a way, although you don’t have to die to come here. You can have whatever you want whenever you want.” the voice told me.

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t have to come here in order to have whatever you want. You can get anything at anytime. Every limitation you have only affects you because you have been told it affects you. You’re like a god, remember?” it explained. “Wait, so I can make anything happen?” I asked.

“It is time to get up.”

“Wait. No. I have more questions.”

“There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.”

“What do you mean? Please tell me.”

“There’s nothing you can sing that can’t be sung. Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game, it’s easy.” the voice was singing now, something familiar.

“Please, don’t go I have more to ask you!” I shouted.

“All you need is love. All you need is love…” The singing voice began fading out, becoming quieter and quieter. “Please! Please!” Even my screams, begging the voice to stay, faded out into silence.

The buh-bump of my heart came back. Then the sound of my lungs returned. Then the wind. Then the crickets. My eyes then ripped open to the sound of my alarm playing “All You Need is Love” by the Beatles.

I woke up feeling more rested than I had ever felt in my entire life. I remembered the conversation vividly; every detail, every word. It was the most realistic dream I had ever experienced. I sat up in my bed to kick off the start of my day. I look down at my shirt to see that it is covered with crumbs; the crumbs of a cookie.