"Chiang, this world isn't heaven at all, is it?"
The Elder smiled in the moonlight. "You are
learning again, Jonathan Seagull," he said.
"Well, what happens from here? Where are we going?
Is there no such place as heaven?"
"No, Jonathan, there is no such place. Heaven is
not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being
perfect." He was silent for a moment. "You are a
very fast flier, aren't you?"
"I . . . I enjoy speed," Jonathan said, taken aback
but proud that the Elder had noticed.
"You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the
moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn't
flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or
flying at the speed of light. Because any number is
a limit, and perfection doesn't have limits.
Perfect speed, my son, is being there."
Without warning, Chiang vanished and appeared at the
water's edge fifty feet away, all in the flicker of
an instant. Then he vanished again and stood, in
the same millisecond, at Jonathan's shoulder.
"It's kind of fun," he said.
Richard Bach (1936- )
_Jonathan Livingston Seagull_ [1970]
