Ed Schussler

U.S. Air Force Veteran

The Afterlife It all ended for me, In the mil-i-tary, when I shipped out under the steel-gray dawn of Boxing Day, 1964. A culturally acquired work ethic and the abhorring fear of failing in real college led me to night school. Thirteen years later I emerged from Rutgers University educated beyond any reasonable capacity of my intelligence with a BA in economics and an MBA in small business entrepreneurship, to boot. 18 years ago, after decades of frustration in corporate life, I struck out or was I thrown out? on my own. Today, much of my time is spent traveling around the world in a buying, selling and promoting frenzy. With 3 lovely daughters, three grand grandchildren, 41 years of marriage, mortgages and sundry mutts, I am still haunted by recurring memories of relationships-left-behind: Just rewards for a roaring life. Yet, with increasing frequency, and at times and places least expected such as the dimly lit confinement of a tin-can sarcophagus hurling through the jet-black abyss a gremlin seated in my chest reaches through my throat, grabs my aging brain stem cells and shouts into ringing ears, Go back, Go back, Go back. Panic subsides as I resign myself to the realization that however many times I may revisit England, I am unable to return. Dilemmas spin in their eternal orbits. At almost the same moment a cold, knobbly-knuckled finger of the grim reaper taps my shoulder and in raduliform whisper he reminds me that after this life, there is no other.

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