i died. i found heaven; pearly gates, iridescent clouds, angels and cherubs lining the entry. it's perfect. harps and trumpets play harmoniously as you move, not obnoxiously, but sort of like when you're driving and having the radio on. they're white noise. god is here. he's large, titan-like, and exactly as i pictured as a child-mr. clean. bald, in a white t-shirt and matching pants, with an earring and searing blue eyes. the eyes are a little intimidating-they glow. and i, a small human, am faced before him. he approaches slowly, grinning widely with arms unfolding. but the closer he gets, the less pleased he is. he reaches me, and his smile is gone completely, no trace left, just a large and disapproving man. i'm scared, worried that everything the church engrained in me is coming true. then it happens-god looks me in the eye, turns his back on me and walks away. the light goes abruptly like in all those movies, once there, now black. the angels and cherubs have stopped, and before i know it, the clouds dissipate from below my feet. i plummet. it's an all consuming feeling; falling through vanta black for as far as eye can see. my clothes are being shredded off of my body, i'm screaming, falling backwards from heaven with my back facing below me. i grasp upwards as though that will do anything, as though god will somehow grasp my hand like he never did on earth. but he doesn't. and i fall. i flail. i kick and scream and sob until my throat goes numb and scratchy and there's no tears left to cry. a light comes from behind me, getting closer. now though, there's screaming, and cackling, and swearing and such tense agony all around me as i get closer. i slam into a ground made of hot charcoal. beside me, an enormous crater is filled with neon, oozing, bubbling sulfer. despite the taunting and screams of agony, i am alone. there is no one else here, just me, naked, alone. perhaps there was never agony after all, and hell is different for everyone. the taunting i hear is all in my head, the agony, the fear, the tension; it is all pent up inside of me-for eternity. perhaps i will be alone, my deepest fear, for all of eternity, for all of eternity's eternity. i barely made it through life, and i'm sure i can't survive the afterlife.

“Should someone radio Heaven?” Mark the Demon asked.

“That’s not really my problem.” Kevina the Damned replied as she walked away.

“Guess we know why you’re here.” Mark remarked. “Because of your unhelpful attitude!”

Kevina gave him the finger and left. Signing, Mark the Demon turned to me. “So, ah, how you doing?”

I stared at him with wide eyes. He was six feet tall with a trio of crimson horns crowning his forehead. Large jagged teeth that could tear me apart. He looked like an other worldly being--because he was one. “Is this real? Am I actually dead? Am I in Hell?” I asked.

Mark scratched the back of his head. “I mean, yeah?”

Tears welled up in my eyes. “Is this because I’m gay?”

Rushing over to me, Mark coaxed. “No. No! No! That’s not it at all! You’re… you’re not really supposed to be here at all, in fact. There’s been a mix-up… and umm… I’m just gonna have Kevina explain it to you.” He snapped his fingers and Kevina reappeared.

“B r u h.” Kevina said. “Why did you bring me back here?”

“To explain kindly to… who are you?”

“Jeremy.” I answered.

“To Jeremy why he is here despite not having committed a single sin according to my Sin-O-Meter.” Mark continued. “Patent pending.”

Kevina scratched her head, confused. “Well, I’m not really an expert on these types of things--wait, are those rainbow suspenders? Yeah, you’re here because you’re gay.”

“We don’t do that here!” Mark shrieked. “Kevina! You need to stop telling people that! You started one rumor and it caught on! It’s a filthy lie! This is why you’re in Hell!”

“That’s not why I’m in Hell. I started that rumor after I got here.”

“Why would you do that?” I sniffled.

Shrugging, Kevina replied. “I was bored. Being tortured for eternity just isn’t as exciting as you would think it would be. But you’ll figure that out soon enough.”

“No he won’t!” Mark screamed. “Stop saying things like that!”

“So, why are you in Hell?” I questioned.

“Because I murdered my parents.”

“Why would you do that?!”

“Because they named me Kevina.”

“You know what?” Mark interjected. “That’s fair. I’m abstain you from your original sin for that.”

“So I’m free to go?”

“No, you’re staying here and burning for that rumor you started.”

“Drat.” Kevina snapped her fingers.

“What happens now?” I inquired.

“Well, we could try to radio Heaven, figure out what’s going on--but they usually never answer. It’s unlike them to be rude like that too.” Mark answered.

“It’s because we have radios and they have like iphones or something.” Kevina crossed her arms. “They get such cool stuff in Heaven even though it was our people who built those companies!”

“Can you at least try?” I skidded away from a pit of boiling lava. “I really don’t like it down here.”

“Sucks.” Kevina said.

“No, not sucks.” Mark countered. “Look, I’m gonna radio Satan. In the meantime, I’m just gonna ship you to Heaven. There’s clearly been a misunderstanding or something. A switch in the records. Probably because of that false rumor…” He glared at Kevina.

“Woah! Hold on! You’re just letting this guy to go free?” Kevina exclaimed. “With no proof of innocence? Just like that?”

“Yeah.” Mark replied.

Kevina scoffed. “Unbelievable. He could be some kind of criminal mastermind, you know? Staged the entire thing?”

“He’s wearing rainbow suspenders! The odds of Jeremy being a criminal mastermind are pretty low.”

About twenty minutes later, we arrived at the Hell to Heaven teleporter with Kevina complaining the entire time. Mark turned to me. “Again, I am just so sorry for this whole mix-up.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You’re a pretty nice for a demon.”

“Gotta save that sadistic behavior for the Damned, you know? Well, off you go!” Mark cheered.

I stepped inside the glowing blue teleporter and Heaven flashed before my eyes. I grinned. “And pretty naive too.” I whispered, stuffing the Sin-O-Meter’s batteries into my pocket.

Who knew all you have to do to get out of Hell is wear rainbow suspenders and pose as an innocent gay? Even if you’re just a simple, straight, convincing psychopath.

Richard Orion has died. It was a Tuesday in Ohio and nowhere near any city, Richard crashed his oldsmobile in a fit of self rage. It was suicide. No one was around. No one heard the car screech on a patch of ice and go careening off of a hill to smash into the ground going somewhere between sixty and seventy miles an hour. To Richard’s surprise, he felt everything. The vertigo of the fall and the panic it created. The immobility of fear as he sat in his seat. The determination of his decision. When he felt the impact, he upchucked his breakfast, saw the red in it, then lost consciousness.

Upon awakening, he saw paradise. A great hill floating in the sky. But it fell slowly past him, and he could not steer himself toward it. Upward he flew to where the sky darkened and all was stars and the vastness of space. Onward he travelled, a meteor without destination. Or so it seemed. Within a few hours he descended, quickly, and found ground beneath him before he could breathe. Maybe it was the dust choking him. He had landed on a floor covered in hardened mud. It stretched as far as he could see. He thought to himself: “I’m damned.”

Rolling over, Richard spit onto the land he had seemed to have been banished to. It was as if he knew that suicide was frowned upon in heaven. And as he remembered watching paradise pass him by he began to weep. Suddenly and without control. So there he was, aged by many seasons of life and dead by his own hands. There was no safety to be found in visiting a church or tuning in to the Christian station in his oldsmobile. Those days were gone. Yet what lay ahead? He didn’t know.

When he stopped crying, he pulled himself to his feet. Finding himself clothed in a dark green cloth wrapped like a greek toga about his frame. He desired to move, but he didn’t know where he was. He made a motion to go left, but thought better of it. He looked up, but the sky was just as dark as his ascent. In any case, he figured he might not be in hell. Hell was a place beneath the earth. Whatever banishment this was, it was definitely a place far from the world he lived on. Sure that he was still dead, he made his way forward. It was the surest way he knew.

He wondered if there were others here. Surely it was a divine effort that placed him where he was. Whether it was God, he didn’t know. It could also have been extra terrestrials seeing as the flight went through space itself. Therefore he had come to the conclusion that he was stuck on a strange planet in the universe. One saved for the dead. The thought chilled him. He felt human, and weak as such. As he walked, guilt began to wrestle with him. He wrestled back. It was no complex matter, he had grown to detest life.

From the american president to the homeless shelter humanitarian serving meals out of their van to the desperate, there was no escaping the senility and pessimism that never escaped his mind. He drove by it all, listening to the radio station after station hearing nothing but overplayed songs and worn out conversations, all without companions. When he could, he would pick up a hitchhiker and give them a lift to their home or grocery store or the big game. Then he had a friend. For as long as the ride would last he would forget the solitude he had sought when he got in the car and would have a conversation with someone other than the sound system.

That day there were no hitchhikers. Not even on the highway. It was terrible. Terrible to feel so alone. Like all the people in the world had stood you up and there you were, the only person at the concert without an act on the stage to be found, the only one in the theater with no movie playing. That was the final straw. He saw the bend first. The patch of ice so conveniently at the apex of the curve. His foot was on the gas first, then he was flying, flying, flying…

Surrounded by dust he moved into a wind that had picked up in this strange land he had come to. No one anywhere. It was as if nothing had changed between life and death. Richard felt it’s pain sticking him like a gangster from the 1920’s. It’s knife stuck in his chest, leaving him limp. He dropped to his knees and cursed his poor balance. The breeze whipping dirt into his white hair and his face. Would he suffocate? He pondered this. How would whatever phase of death this was pass him?

As the guilt harassed him again, he had no patience for it. Attempting to banish it from his mind, he got to his feet and continued on. Straight ahead. Daring his mind to ease it’s attack on his soul. But he wasn’t going to give in. There was to be none of that. Richard faced the way before him and kept walking. As he went, he felt the wind growing stronger. He must have been walking into a storm. He wondered if it rained on this planet, star or speck of dust as it seemed to be.

And in his loneliness, he began to speak with himself. “How can this be my destiny? Where have all the people gone? My earth, my home. Well it’s no big wonder what happened to my fucking car! Heh! Drove the fucker right over the… well I, I don’t think that will do to speak much of that. I-” The wind grew in heaviness again. All around him, there was sand, wind, and space.

Then he confronted himself. “So what? So I- I killed myself, eh? I never wanted to be alive anyway! My mother and father, they both hated me. Ever since I pushed my little sister off of the swing to have a turn, and she fell, they- they could never get her to stop crying! And the blood. All that blood running down her leg. They never saw me the same again. But it was my turn! So I thought of myself before I thought of her, or anyone. That’s what a man has to do! I read that. When no one was around! No one’s… No one’s ever around.”

The wind howled around him now. He was fumbling in his stance, trying to maintain his ground, but the wind shook him too much. It made him angry amongst his sadness. “I was the best friend no one ever had! Where were they when I was ready to settle down? Where were they when I faced the world on my own, with the world falling around us all-” A funnel formed where he was standing, and the ground opened up as did the sky. He fell with the land and the rain came in after him. Pounding his skin and soaking the rag he wore. He sank lower and lower with the mud carrying him beneath. The planet swallowed him, and his consciousness was lost forever.

fin.

Once I had been a cherry tree, I remembered that now. I remembered the sounds of the birds, come north for the spring and squabling for space in my branches. I had devoured sunlight and drank in the rain, housed the birds through summer. In the fall when my fruit turned nearly black the birds that arrived in spring would gorge themselves before departing again. The snows insulated my roots through bitter winters, until spring thaw brought fresh life. That was...long ago? Now, here, I am nothing.

Hovering in the in between, or rather, hovering within, I can sense the strings that hold the world togther. A network and buzz of energy, thought, intent, desire, that holds one being to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next...I don’t know how many times I have been here before, hundreds perhaps. I have seen the world as it is meant to be, and forgotten. One is consumed, one thrives, one tumbles and decays, one sprouts form the rot. Sometimes it is a seems as a web, well ordered, strong lines arranged neatly between the beautifully geometric sprawl of sage in the desert. Sometimes it is the aurora, pulsing sweeping, swirling around humans until they colide, or warping the path of the marten through the snow till she finds an unwary squirrel. Around and round, and yet, never quite the same.

It is breathtaking.

Once, moments ago perhaps, I had been a hare, long eared and long legged. I can still feel the rapid beat of the tiny heart, pulse quivering through the muscles tense as a stretchd slingshot. At the end though, those legs had not been quick enough and the little brain to slow to escape the lynx. That dead flesh that I had been momentarily she now padded away with, leaving a scarlet stain in the snow. I can see it, feel the snap of her teeth, the satisfied knowledge that neither she nor her kits would starve this week. I do not begrudge her her meal, nor morn my death. Here, now, I am everything.

There are others here, coming and going like the birds that visited me when I was Cherry Tree. A very few stay; at some point the structure of this network becomes more intriguing than the lives it connects and they stay, watching. I am beginning to understand. I am not sure how long I remain mesmerized by the eternal dance. The humming lines and auras surround everything like a heavy cloud of midges, or a sweet perfume. Beings pop in and out of existence on this plane; thousands alight as a forest is flattened. It could be so simple to fix the world, connect that man driving the skidder to the trees he stacks casually. Perhaps just a little nudge to re-unite the quarelling lovers, or that estranged daughter. A thin thread stretched between the leaders of waring countries, or a quick line for the bone and skin polar bear to a lazy seal. It is still too alluring and at last I can watch no longer, the temptation to just shift this bundle of energy over here just so...

I reach out with my mind, extending myself into the lacework, searching, then with great concentration I try to pull on a line nearly burried in the tangle that is the jungle. In the infinitesimal second that I feel myself connect, I snap out, and back in, to conciousness. It is more jarring coming back, for a moment I remember, everything; My many lives, the deep and peaceful sensation of knowing the entire universe, and a saddness that I could not be content with the knowledge alone. You meddled. Again. This perhaps is why babies come out wailing; I know I was furious at myself, this time and all the others. But the memory fades quickly, it would be unbearable to live with, and I begin my next afterlife. Here, this time, I am human.

“This has gotta be a mistake, I can’t be dead. I didn’t even finish college!” Yet another complaining child in the sea of those damned to hell. How original. 

“Listen kid, it’s not a mistake. You think we want more people down here? Luci’s getting tired of building new land for the newbies. Go talk to God if you wanna get out of here.”

The demon staring down at him looked intimidating, but his voice seemed bored. He flipped through some pages before clearing his throat. 

“Uh, Ray, right?” Hearing his name... that made this whole thing feel that much more real. All he could do was nod in response, waiting for his punishment. “Alright, well, for your sins of being obnoxious to everyone you meet, you’re designated to go to the eighth circle of hell. Have fun,” the large demon grumbled, snapping his fingers. 

“What, that’s not a-“ before Ray could finish, he felt the floor beneath him disappear, and he watched the bright red of hell merge into nothing but darkness.

It felt like he had been falling for an eternity. When surrounded by silence, left with nothing but his thoughts, time stood still. 

Until he felt his feet touch the ground again. 

“New guy! Hey, welcome to the eighth circle of hell. I’m Calvin, I’ll be your tour guide for today. And for the rest of your afterlife, hah! Pretty great right?” Another demon, shorter than the one he had first met, cold blue eyes and black horns, flowing red robe... this all had to be a dream. 

“Well now, don’t be shy!” Calvin pat him roughly on the back and pushed him forwards to get him to walk. It was only now that Ray took in the scenery. There was only a thin walkway that led over the deep ditch in the ground, which spanned as far as he could see. Looking down over the edge he saw... what? 

“Yeah, right now ol’ Satan’s got us training for the big party coming at the end of the year,” Calvin muttered somewhat annoyedly, waving his hand towards the party happening at the bottom of the hole. “Usually we’ve got a bar and games set up, but you know how it is. His party has to be perfect! Anyways.” With the demon’s hand on his back, he felt a pressure as he was punted down towards the group of people dancing, who simply moved out of the way to let Ray face plant into the glowing dance floor. 

Suddenly, he could hear the music blasting through his ears, and someone leans down to help him up. “Welcome to the party!”

Huh. Maybe being dead wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be.