Temple One by Tony Greco

Temple One by Tony Greco

Falling, drifting, crushed, pulled apart. This is how I would describe the experience if I had to, but it would be so diminishing to bound it by words. We always have to force ourselves on things by naming them, describing them, numbering them…limiting them.

The first time it happened I had no idea what was going on, where I was, what was around me. All I knew for certain was that I was still me, even though I couldn’t see myself. All my senses were overwhelmed, taken to another plane of existence, I thought. I was somehow simultaneously blinded by the brightest light I’ve ever seen and the most pitched black I had ever been in. I was assaulted by the loudest sound anyone could imagine while also in a silent void that was absorbing all sound. My mind couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t begin to understand even an infinitely small part of what was going on. And then, all of a sudden, it was over.

I stood exactly where I remember standing before it happened, and I began to question if I’d just imagined it. But no, it was something unimaginable. No one could even dream a fraction of what I had just felt, so it must have happened, right?

Looking around, I saw candles flickering in the still air providing a warm glow, the incense wafting from where it burned at the foot of the statue. I heard the hard drive of rain on the high roof and saw through the windows the wind blowing the trees. Even a distant rumble of thunder after a brief flash of lightning. I was alone here in the still air, though it felt as if another presence were watching.

I had come here determined to get answers. Why had she been taken from me? What had we done to deserve this? What could I do to change it and have her back? My brain told me these were all unanswerable questions, but my heart refused to listen, desperately needing answers and dreading what they could be.

After the accident I was a mess; in shock, disbelief. She couldn’t be gone, could she? No, she was still there, just out running around, shopping or exercising. She would be back in a little bit. But it became clear she wasn’t coming back, and I simply couldn’t process that fact.

I spent days, then weeks, moping around the apartment, feeling deep despair and depression. Eventually I decided the only way I was going to actually live again was if I figured out why. So I decided to do something about it, try to figure it out.

Where to start? I suppose many people would go to prayer or something similar, but I wasn’t religious. My parents had taken me to church when I was a child, but I had drifted away in college and never looked back. But now…now I needed answers to unanswerable questions, and I figured the only possible way to get them was to ask something or someone who could answer.

Because of my lack of religion, I naturally started researching scientific explanations of some higher power, but, as you could imagine, this led me nowhere. Logic wasn’t going to give me what I wanted. I then shifted to meditation, yoga, and similar practices. These could eventually lead to self-peace, but weren’t going to give me the answers and closure I needed before moving toward that peace. So, begrudgingly, I moved on to organized religions.

Because most religions regularly require your physical presence in a place of worship, it soon became apparent that going to one or more was necessary. So I focused my investigation on spiritual centers, temples, churches, cathedrals, mosques; all the different places of worship for any and all religions. I took special interest in locations people had reported metaphysical experiences: seeing or hearing from God or another similar power.

I wanted to go to them all, ask my questions of every single higher power out there. If I cast a wide enough net, surely I could find answers, right? But my resources weren’t unlimited; I had to focus my journey on only the best of the best, where the largest number of people said their prayers had been answered. I narrowed the list down to a handful: seven temples around the world representing different religions. These seven temples I could visit. If I didn’t get my answers at one, I would move onto the next.

Some would call that a pilgrimage; for me it was a mission.

And that’s how I found myself at the door to the first of these, a small chapel in the high hills, surrounded by huge evergreens. It was small and unassuming, but I sensed something when I stepped through the door into the narthex. The sensation felt like a crackling in the air, the hair on my arms and neck standing up like they would during a lightning storm.

I moved through the nave up to the altar. The crucifix was surrounded by many tiers of candles, lit and softly glowing, and there was an ornate tile circle inlaid on the floor. The sense of otherness increased as I moved closer to the bright altar.

Upon reaching the altar I realized the sensations weren’t from proximity to a physical object, but rather from this location on Earth: this was why the chapel had been built here. As I stepped into the tile circle my senses were heightened even further. I could see the flickering of every candle of the hundreds lining the altar and walls. I could hear the raindrops strike against each separate roof tile. I could feel the hint of a breeze inside the room, even just the simple motion of air caused from my walk through the room. I could smell the ozone released into the air from the last lightning strike.

All of these sensations happened at once, and it was overwhelming. If my drive for answers hadn’t been so consuming I would have lost all conscious thought, would have fallen into this swirl of sensations like a bungee jumper making the first step. That single thought helped ground me, kept me out of this abyss that would have been so easy to fall into.

So intense did everything my senses were experiencing become that I wondered if I was in the presence of the divine. I fought through the sensations and pushed my questions to the front of my mind, intent on using this time and space to wring from the cosmos some understanding of my loss.

And then it happened, the twist. It felt like I was being pulled apart and crushed at the same time. I saw the infinite brightness that was also a void blacker than black, all the colors of the rainbow overlaid on each other like the fine cloth of a master weaver. In that twist some part of me still felt as if I was in the chapel, tiny, by comparison, to this expanse of all things.

The twist could have lasted years or milliseconds. That was one thing I lost all sense of, the flow of time. I had no idea when I had stepped into that mysterious spot, how long I had been trying to push for an answer, how long I was swept up in that extreme existence. It felt like it would never end, and then it did, quite abruptly. One moment I was being buffeted on all sides by sensations, and the next I was standing in the chapel, candles flickering, air softly tickling the back of my neck like a lover.

I was exhausted, totally spent. I nearly collapsed to the floor, all the energy rushing out of me at once. I made my way to a bench and eased myself down. I took stock of myself: I didn’t feel injured, just wildly tired.

After a few minutes I felt a little more collected, a little more human, no longer just something someone might scrape off the bottom of their shoe. I remembered I had a granola bar in my pocket, so I took it out, unwrapped it, and bit in. The bit of food in my stomach brought back from the brink of passing out, so I devoured the rest of it.

I sat like that for a while, collecting myself and returning to the world around me. I realized the storm must have stopped at some point because I didn’t hear the rain driving against the windows or the tapping of tree branches against the walls any more. In fact it seemed almost eerily quiet. I glanced at my watch, seeing only minutes had passed since I had entered the chapel.

The experience had been intense and exhilarating, but despite that I had a profound sense of disappointment. I had been convinced I would get some explanation, some perspective shift to help me cope, but that hadn’t happened.

Though I felt drained, I took a deep breath and got back to my feet. I did feel like some of my energy had returned. I took another look back to the altar, confused, mystified, and disappointed. Clearly this is not where I was going to get what I sought, so it was time to move on.

I took heart in the fact that this was just the first of seven religious sites I had identified. I knew I wouldn’t make it to my goal if I didn’t stay positive. I had to find it in me to bounce back when something didn’t go the way I’d hoped. I took that resolve and let it motivate me to push on.

I opened the door, which seemed heavier than when I first entered the chapel, and stepped outside. It seemed strange that there was no one in or around the chapel. I walked down the stone path leading to the road, lost in thoughts of my experience, barely paying attention to my surroundings.

I mechanically opened the gate and stepped out, walking to the door of my rental car. It didn’t open when I tried it. I pulled the keys out of my pocket and pressed the unlock button, but heard no evidence of the car being unlocked. I shook the keyfob and looked through the windows. I didn’t see my bag in the back where I had left it. I took a step back and realized this car wasn’t even the same color or type of vehicle. This snapped me out of my thoughts, and I realized the car before me was most definitely not the car I had driven there.

Had I parked somewhere else? No, I had definitely parked right there in front of the gate. I looked around and began to take in the details around me. I had a weird sensation that something wasn’t right. None of the surrounding cars looked familiar, and on some were logos that looked wildly unfamiliar. It didn’t appear any of the parked cars had been driven in hours.

On a hunch, I pulled out my phone and called my hotel. They didn’t have a reservation under my name. I checked some news articles on my phone and saw the top headlines were about an earthquake in a country I had never heard of before. They showed a map of the epicenter in what should be Chile but the boundaries were all wrong, the name of the country something wholly unfamiliar.

I started feeling the first threads of panic crawl up my back. What had really happened in that chapel? It was such a bizarre and intense experience that I hadn’t even considered what effect it had on me, only that it hadn’t given me neat answers to my questions.

My resolve wavered for the first time. What had I gotten myself into? Where or when was I?

Answers to those questions were as elusive as an answer to why she was gone, why I had lost her. Once again the drive to seek the reason for my loss overpowered any of my concerns: I had come too far to give up now. I let this thought fuel new energy to replace what had been sapped by my strange experience. No matter what I encountered I would overcome it.

I turned and walked down the street in this other. My journey for desperately sought answers had brought me here. There was no going back now, only forward, onto the next temple.

* * * * The End * * * *
Copyright Tony Greco 2025