From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [340]
He did not see any light, like The Malloy. It was more as if there were two of him, and one of him went off and away from the other of him. He could look back and see the other of him there on the bunk, and he did not know any more which of him was him. There was a kind of cord that looked like it was made out of jism connecting the two of him and he knew from somewhere, but unconcernedly this time, that if that cord ever got broken he was dead. Then he went further on into the still growing black spot and could not see the other of him down there on the bunk any more.
But wherever he went there was always his end of the jism cord stretching away in the ballooning black distance back to the other of him back there, it was not weird at all, it was all very natural, he went many places, and he could understand many things that had always upset him and bothered him, it was as if for the first time he had gone off the world like a spaceship and could really see all of it, and grasp the reason for all of it, and realize how all of it each had its own private point and that nothing was ever ever wasted, which surprised him, and that more than anything else it was like a small boy going to school every day, maybe he did not want to go but he had to go anyway, and if he does not learn one lesson one day it still isnt wasted because the wasted day helps him learn it that much quicker the next day and while certain of the upperclassmen may believe the lessons taught in the lower grades are not only stupid and wasteful but actively harmful and would even pass resolutions against them, still they would never have been upperclassmen themselves if they had not first gone through the grade school, which was just one more lesson to learn, and anyway the principal didnt pay any attention to their resolutions, even though they were his valedictorians, and this reassured him and he felt the sense of peace and contentment he had always felt he was about to feel, but never quite had, when he was having one of his drunken moments of almost-but-not-quite-reaching-it, because now he could see clearly that each one received only just what he wanted and secretly asked to receive, no more no less, and the secret to the combination on the lock of the understanding was all in the different qualities of the wanting, which depended on how long you had been going to school, which required time, much much time, time that could not even be measured as time, not at least as he measured time, so it was useless to worry and hurry for time, and that if all men killed the things they loved it was only because they loved them so hard, while if all the Beloveds killed the things that loved them that was only because they wanted so bad to be loved so much more, and it was terribly much harder to reach what you loved, especially if you really truly loved whatever it was, the harder you loved the harder to reach, he could see it all clearly.
Then a few minutes later somebody opened the door and shook him and he came back reluctantly, because he felt if he had only had a minute more just a few seconds more he could have gotten it absolutely clear in words of one syllable to bring back with him and lay it all out in black and white, and then he opened his eyes and saw it was S/Sgt Judson.
“Hello, Fatso,” he grinned sillily, noticing that his voice hardly had enough wind to bring it up out of his chest, and wondering why they had come back so soon for. Behind Fatso, he heard somebody gasp.
S/Sgt Judson without any change of expression slapped him hard across the face experiencedly with a grub-hoe-handle-calloused palm, the way a mother deftly but bored by long practice slaps her small boy, but he did not even feel it.
“Tough guy,” Fatso said