She Died and Went to Heaven

Helena was dead – she was most definitely dead – well... at least she was certainly dying. Nothing else could explain the nearly complete numbness that had crept up her body and the feeling that everything around her was spinning, reeling, falling to the ground.

Her mind went blank as an unplugged computer screen as the din of the world fell from her ears; she couldn't hear a single sound, not even the slightest footfall of those around her, while time stretched and she seemed to collapse into herself.

Her life flashed before her eyes or, rather, the parts of it that had gotten her to where she had always wanted to be – the parts that mattered; She is four years old, assisting her dad in helping an injured juvenile monitor lizard off the road – vowing, that that was the kind of work she wanted to do.

Fast forward to the tenth year of her life - Helena is in a new school, her life is now full of changes, but one thing has been consistent; she wants to be an animal doctor – or a veterinarian, now that she had learnt the term – and that is something that never changes as her life goes by.

Skip to the lead-up to the toughest examinations Helena had ever taken – her IGCSEs. She has never been so stressed in her life but one thing kept her going – her desire to become a vet; it gets her through the most demanding times of her life and, as she gazes at the gallery of her past, she spies a triumph.

Helena from a year ago is peering at the most meaningful sheet of paper she had ever held, it told her that, believe it or not, she had gotten into the university she had always wanted to get into – the one that had been appearing in her dreams for years on end – Massey University... 

Wait- the vision of that phenomenal place of her fantasies became suddenly clearer than the memories in her head and- she sighed and opened her eyes. As she breathed sensation began to return to her legs and arms as, simultaneously, the sound of the world resonated once again in her ears.

As Helena forced herself out of her past and brought herself back to reality, she was once again staring out at Massey University – at her dreams coming true. She was looking at the hustle and bustle of a college campus; at college students and wide open spaces and buildings that contained the lecture halls and science labs that she had been imagining almost all of her life. She took a few tentative steps onto the campus before beginning to walk towards her first lecture.

However, as Helena strode deeper into her dreams she felt a sudden fear clutch at her chest – one born of a nagging doubt that had been growing at the back of her mind – what if she wasn't good at her courses? Suppose she ended up disliking them? 

All Helena had ever wanted was to become a veterinarian. All she had ever dreamed of was to get into Massey university - to study the lore that would get her to her dreams. Now, if she went in there and she didn't like it...

She would have been chasing a fake fantasy all her life. Everything she had worked for, everything she had achieved in the past, would have been for nothing. If  she was proved wrong about her ambitions, her dreams would have been  just a mirage – a false lead that had stolen her life...

Helena found herself stumbling into the lecture theatre, not sure she wanted to enter it anymore, doubt threatening to overwhelm her, when she chanced a glance at the hall itself. She gasped and stared – what she was looking at fulfilled her wildest dreams and more but, what forced her breath to catch in her chest was the slide that was up at the front of the theatre.

It displayed a the lecturer's presentation the he'd planned for the lesson and what was on it made Helena's knees wobble; there was a little bit of what she had learned in the past - familiar friends - mixed in with what she did not yet know - things she had been longing to learn for as long as she could remember.

It proved to her that her dreams had come true and that she was most certainly going to love it. Discovery, animals and science – her passions – combined into one gorgeous profession. Helena was alive – she was most definitely alive... and she was thriving.