You know how when you first grasp the meaning of life and become aware of death as a child you spend the first few moments in perpetual dread and there's this nagging feeling like nothing matters if in the end you'll die. And your parents gather you unto themselves and your father sits you on his lap and explains that death is far from beautiful but it's necessary, and he lists off the top of his head why death isn't that bad a thing.
"If people didn't die, we'd be so many we won't have food." And it suddenly makes sense, as if his words were hands parting the curtain to shed light into your life. And you grasp this and hold on to this.
"And besides, you'll live a long rich life and die in your bed from a deep sleep." Your mother opined and it suddenly feels like a heavy weight has been lifted and you become aware of the dread that had been latched onto your back, weighty and silent. Your fear of death stems from your inability to know how you'll die, and it suddenly all makes sense.
This was the same for me, this understanding and acceptance of death forged from the words spoken by those who raised me. And I latched on to this childlike wonder up until the day I died a gruesome death.
I was electrocuted by my wife. I was in the tub taking a bath and she just walked in and threw a toaster into the water. Electricity running through your body brings with it the unmistakable smell of roasting flesh, and to make matters worse my wife made sure to finish the job with a kitchen knife once she realized the toaster really hadn't done its job.
I woke up in a place of blinding light, rolling clouds moved overhead and seemed near to the touch. I was naked, being that I'd died naked and before me a man stood, bathed in golden light. He looked not a day over thirty and his beard was rich and dark and the robes he wore had a glittering substance across the seams.
"Hello, you have died and it is time you embark on the next part of your existence." The man said.
"How did I die?" I asked because for some reason all I could remember was pain.
"You were electrocuted then stabbed." The man said, his voice like smooth velvet.
"But." And then the immensity of what had happened finally dawned on me. I had had plans, have children with my wife, see them grow up together, grow old together. Then as was promised, there, at the end of the line I would rest my head one last time and death will be ushered in through sleep and I will gently pass on into that sweet night.
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That was how it was suppose to be, but suddenly I'm electrocuted and stabbed? What fairness is there in that? What even is the basis of life if it can be taken from you so easily? I sat down, didn't even notice I was sitting on a Pavement made of gold. I bent my neck, lowered my head and wept.
"Cry not because you have come to a place of eternal rest, your pain and suffering has reached an end and now you shall be made witness to glory." The man said.
"Ah shut the fuck up." I said. I'm not a gentle weeper, I curse, a lot. Rage gets the better part of me as if crying is a despicable thing that I've been forced into.
"Beg your pardon?" The man asked, he seemed genuinely puzzled to be addressed so.
"I said shut the fuck up, I need to think."
"Look, dude." The guy said. "My job is simple. People appear here, I guide them to paradise. It's a simple task but it's necessary in the grand scheme of things. People die all the time meaning my job has no end. I'd prefer if once in a while people cut me some slack."
"Then you should just do as you're told and shut the fuck up, you aren't helping with your talk about glory. Do I look like I'm in the mood for any glory? I just got electrocuted and stabbed! By my wife! I married that murderer." I said, basically frothing at the mouth.
"Huh, you think you have it rough? This guy passed through here several hundred years back. From Mesopotamia, his wife tied him to bed in his sleep and forced his mouth open then she poured coals of burning charcoal down his mouth." The man said.
"You think that would do what for me? Make me feel better? 'Hey look, some dude from Mesopotamia had it far worse than you.' How's that suppose to make me feel better?" I was getting very worked up because all that I'd thought my life to be suddenly wasn't and now I had to experience eternal rest by force? "I want to be resurrected." I concluded.
"Sadly, resurrection isn't something we do anymore. Was a big thing two thousand years ago but it causes religions to sprout out of nowhere so we stopped doing it." The man said.
"I need to go see my wife, I need to ask her why." I also wanted to live different. Travel more, see new people and places, venture into things man kind has no inkling of and experience the things few men have known.
"She probably despised you." The man said.
"Are you an angel?"
"Why yes I am."
"Angels aren't very intelligent are they?"
"Because we normally say the obvious thing?"
"Well," I stared at him. "Yes."
"Come now, a new life is awaiting you, full of unexpected—"
"I don't want a new life damn it. I want the old one where I eat potato crisps on the couch and watch TV while the missus prepares supper in the kitchen. Just me and the game and maybe a can of beer if I'm in the mood to be sloggy. I want that back."
"I guess that's why she killed you."
"Because I'm a couch potato?"
"Because as she prepared supper for you, she suddenly realized she was trapped with a man who didn't value her neither did she want to be valued by him. All the work she did was for nothing, there were no returns."
"She kept me alive damn it."
"And now she's killed you."
"Yes Captain Obvious." I said. A moment of silence ensued, "What's this then about a new life?" I really wanted my old one but maybe a new one wasn't such a bad thing.
"Here in paradise we only have one rule. 'Thou Shan't pleasure thyself' Other than that everything else is allowed except sin of course." As the Angel spoke I let out a wail that I should have voiced when my wife was killing me.
