Recall how TMWSIY begins. Col. Forbin was shaving and thinking about what a waste his life was. "Fifty-two years of obedient self-restraint, of hiding his tension behind a serene veil of composure." He then started thinking about this "door." He discovered the "door" out of his reality when he was preoccupied (most likely brooding about his life) and walking McGrupp. This is a door that had always been there, yet the Colonel had never noticed it. Once he noticed the existence of this, he felt that his "dreary life was a prison from which there was only one escape." Forbin has set himself up. He was so upset about his life that he finally used the only escape he had, the escape that he had for so long refused to see. That morning, he took the razor, slashed his wrists, and stepped through the door.

If one is on the correct karmic path, the idea of removing oneself from this mortal realm would never occur to you. And for 52 years Colonel Forbin had been there. He would not want to die when there still were wrongs to right. After all, he had sided with good all of his life, refusing to let even the idea of marriage affect his goal. We could wonder for years as to why Forbin decided to end it all. My personal theory is that being retired is what did it. For nearly 40 years, he was fighting for what he believed in. When that was taken away from him, he was at a loss as to what he could do. Regardless of the reason why he killed himself, the act called into question as to whether he was ready for Nirvana. Which was more important, the act of suicide or the good life that he had led before that? Well there was only one way to find out; Forbin's status was to be put to the test. Therefore after passing through the white corridor that so many people who have encountered near death experiences have told us about, Forbin found himself in Gamehendge.

Gamehendge itself was the test. Forbin had a challenge. A truly enlightened person (and only a truly enlightened person) would be able to join forces with Tela and restore Gamehendge to its pre-Wilsonian days. Gamehendge would become the Nirvana that Forbin would be able to live in for eternity. Alas, like a suicide at the end of a good life, Forbin fell just short of his goal. He first was unable to prevent Tela's death. Then, instead of reading The Helping Friendly Book and letting the sacred creed be his, he delivered it to enemies of Icculus. Finally, he ended up being imprisioned, unable to change things at all anymore.

While Forbin sat there "he realized that he was back again through the door." The prison was changing from one of walls and bars into the prison of the womb. As he began to transform himself, he heard for one last time the cries of the Lizards, and Icculus, looking from above, knew that Forbin was wiser. Maybe this time around he would go all the way to nirvana. Then he thought of how silly it was that humans had to jump through these hoops to learn what they should already know, and he laughed.

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