Friday, May 6, 2011
Hell
Stuart found hell, as promised, underneath the city of Cleveland. There was an alley on West 6th street between a pizza place and a cocktail bar, and at the end of it was a scarred grey steel door set into a brick wall. Its paint was chipped around the edges but it was devoid of tags. Stuart felt drawn to it the moment he arrived in the city. With a hefty push he was able to move it. It opened with a simultaneous squeak and grinding sound, as if it wasn’t hung properly in its frame. It crashed back into itself after Stuart let it go, and he shuddered at the noise.
The stairs were a dark charcoal color, worn down in the middle from countless footfalls, and chipped along the edges in places. He reached a landing. There were upturned buckets and ashtrays studded with cigarette butts and stubs of rollies. There was a battered budget love seat, ripped at the seams. A love seat that had given up its innocence years ago in the crossfire of drunken break-room trysts. A lust seat. The place smelled of mildew and stale tobacco smoke. He turned the corner and started down another set of stairs. Scrawled on the wall near the top of the stairs in white paint was a reminder. ‘VALEFOR’, it said on the first line in giant block letters, and below: ‘take out the garbage’. Penned in another hand was second note, a reminder to Valefor that he is a fuckwit.
He continued down the stairway to hell. The walls were increasingly covered in some kind of corrosion-green drippings from above, and he could hear faint rumble and chatter, like a big diesel engine off in the distance.The noise built upon itself in layers, and atop the rumbling chatter he soon heard a manic ringing, like a blacksmith’s convention, and upon that a screaming hiss and an orchestra of metallic clashes and clangs. Still Stuart continued down the charcoal-grey stairs.
The stairs stopped at a narrow hallway lit by smoky candles. A hissing voice from a dark corner called to Stuart.
“Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate!”
He looked around. “What?”
“Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate!”
“… I don’t speak Italian.”
An old man with a pointed beard that came down to his waist stepped out from the shadows. He was bald, with liver spots and smelled curiously of motor oil. “Oh. Too bad.” He made a dismissive waving gesture “I’m just fucking with you anyway.” He gave a good-natured smile, and his cloudy eyes smiled with him. He put out his hand to Stuart. “Prince Vassago, commander of twenty-six legions, declarer of things past and to come, finder of things lost and abandoned and prince of prophesy”
“Stuart. Good to meet you”
“So, Stuart, what brings you to these parts?
“My mother said my dad was down here.” He paused. “And I was getting a little sick of the constant timeshare pitches.”
Vassago smiled. “That’s why I left too a while back. You think it’s bad now, back before God had a kid and settled down it was fucking bedlam. Imagine the most volatile teenage asshole you can think of, and then make him omnipotent. What a dickhead.” He gave the kind of look you might give a fully-functioning adult who had soiled himself. “Well anyway, a bunch of us decided we’d had enough, and you’ve probably heard the rest of the story. Anyway, now we’re here after a couple of relocations. It wasn’t always Cleveland, but we’re treaty-bound to relocate to whatever shithole God dictates. We were under Manchester for a long time. It’s really not as bad here as you’ve probably been led to believe. We just don’t have the PR that God and his people have. I mean, they’ve got churches, the whole Vatican, Mormons, and what do we have? A handful of heavy metal bands in Norway and the glue-huffing teenagers who listen to them. Believe me, they’ll be disappointed if they ever make it here.”
They walked down the hall as they spoke, and soon came upon a rather plain but heavy set of bronze doors. Vassago pulled on one and motioned for Stuart to enter.
The door was situated halfway down a sheer clifflike face. Before them was a cyclopean cavern that stretched for miles in every direction. Smoke settled at the top of the cavern, pierced by the black roots of mighty trees. Below them was a shantytown with countless tiny shacks built from the discarded detritus of Cleveland above. The cavern was dim, lit with an orange cast from garbage fires and torches.
“So,” Vassago gestured to the settlement below “this is Dis. A lot of people actually find it preferable to Cleveland”, and he smiled sadly.
The two began climbing down the carved stone steps to the floor of the cavern.
“How do people end up here?”
“Like you, mostly. It’s a pretty self-selecting group of souls. Those who can’t or won’t deal with all the nonsense up there.” Vassago climbed the stairs like a man with a bad back. “We also get the occasional confused dishwasher from that pizza place.” He flashed a mischievous smile.
“A few get sent here straight off the bat, mostly the types that heaven would find embarrassing to have lounging around up there. Osama Bin Laden got here the other day. You can bet money Mel Gibson’s on the list.”
“So, what about Satan? Is he real?”
Vassago’s brow furrowed. “Satan means adversary, did you know that? Anyway, he’s dead. Has been for about 300 years.” Vassago’s cloudy eyes looked sad for the first time since Stuart had arrived. “He was brilliant; Sharpest organizer I’ve ever met. I think he took it pretty hard when God told him there was no going back, especially after He got on that big forgiveness kick.”
Vassago stopped to catch his breath at the bottom of the steps. “I’m afraid I can’t help you finding your dad, but best of luck, Steve”
“Stuart. What about all that ‘finder of lost things’ stuff you were talking about before? This place is huge, it’s going to take years to find him.”
“Oh, that, that’s just a bunch of bullshit some German demonologist made up about me. Sorry, I didn’t think you were really going to ask me to look for anything. Anyway, good luck.”
Stuart nodded, thanked the demon for his time, and walked down the dirt road.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Good intentions
Static and smooth jazz wafted through the receiver of Stuart’s telephone. Periodically it would pause and his ears would prick up until he realized it was the same recorded message he had already heard a dozen times before. “Thank you for holding. Your call is very important to us. Calls will be answered in the order in which they were received.” He sighed as the alto saxophone continued its crackly solo yet again, and returned to clipping his toenails. A voice came on the line. “Hello and thank you for holding, my name is Baruch. This call may be recorded for quality assurance, how may I help you today?” It took a moment for Stuart to realize his call had connected. After a brief pause, he dropped the toenail clippers on the floor and cleared his throat. “Yes, I was wondering if I could go to hell. I mean, just to visit. You know, to get out of town for the weekend.”
There was a long pause. “Please hold”. The saxophone solo picked up mid-bar and continued on for the next eleven minutes.
“Are you still on the line, sir?”
“Yes”
“Well, I’ve reviewed your inquiry with management, and I’ve been told to inform you that is not one of the services we offer, but do offer comparable trip packages to visit loved ones in the Sudan, Flint, Michigan or Chernobyl, Ukraine, among other places.”
“No, I’ve been to Flint already. Look, I just want to go hell and visit my dad. Just for a day, come on, you’re the Lord Almighty’s people, right? I’m sure you can find a way to make this happen.”
“There isn’t.”
“Is there some other agency you could refer me to? I mean, is hell like North Korea, and you just don’t have any diplomatic relations? What about Dante Alighieri, how did he manage it?”
“He didn’t, sir. Inferno was a work of fiction” The angel’s voice betrayed a hint of divine vexation.
Stuart sighed.
“Will that be all today, sir?”
Stuart said nothing.
“I’m sorry we could not help with your inquiry today, as I said, my name is Baruch, and on behalf of Paradise Timeshare Tours I would like to thank you for calling today. Goodb-”
“Wait. Baruch, right? Put me through to your manager.”
“Please hold the line.” The alto saxophone was scarcely able to play a full bar before his call was transferred.
A new voice spoke into the receiver. It was deep and resonant. “This is Bethor, how can I help you?”
“Hi Bethor. Look, I really need to go to hell, and your customer service guy Baruch says I can’t.”
There was a long, awkward pause. Stuart thought the call had been cut off until he heard the angel on the other end crunching on potato chips.
“That’s ‘angel of customer service’” Bethor said, his mouth full of half-chewed food, “Not ‘guy’. You realize we're genderless, right? Anyway, you want to go where now?”
“Hell. There’s somebody there I really need to see.”
“Oh, that’s easy” Stuart could hear the man’s smile in his voice, and leaned forward to listen, “Just click your heels together three times and say ‘there’s no place like home’”
Stuart said nothing. Bethor erupted into a belly laugh, punctuated with an enormous belch. Stuart pictured him in his mind, his overweight paunch jiggling like gelatin. Stuart had little patience for those who laughed at their own jokes.
“Ok, I’ll tell you what: It’s under Cleveland. You buy a package trip with us to Cleveland for a weekend, you can go do whatever it is you want to do in Hell. Understand that you won’t be covered by your travel insurance while there, and that we assume no responsibility for your well-being as per our terms and conditions.“
“Cleveland? Hell is under Cleveland?”
“God’s honest truth.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Sure will.”
There was a long pause. “Please hold”. The saxophone solo picked up mid-bar and continued on for the next eleven minutes.
“Are you still on the line, sir?”
“Yes”
“Well, I’ve reviewed your inquiry with management, and I’ve been told to inform you that is not one of the services we offer, but do offer comparable trip packages to visit loved ones in the Sudan, Flint, Michigan or Chernobyl, Ukraine, among other places.”
“No, I’ve been to Flint already. Look, I just want to go hell and visit my dad. Just for a day, come on, you’re the Lord Almighty’s people, right? I’m sure you can find a way to make this happen.”
“There isn’t.”
“Is there some other agency you could refer me to? I mean, is hell like North Korea, and you just don’t have any diplomatic relations? What about Dante Alighieri, how did he manage it?”
“He didn’t, sir. Inferno was a work of fiction” The angel’s voice betrayed a hint of divine vexation.
Stuart sighed.
“Will that be all today, sir?”
Stuart said nothing.
“I’m sorry we could not help with your inquiry today, as I said, my name is Baruch, and on behalf of Paradise Timeshare Tours I would like to thank you for calling today. Goodb-”
“Wait. Baruch, right? Put me through to your manager.”
“Please hold the line.” The alto saxophone was scarcely able to play a full bar before his call was transferred.
A new voice spoke into the receiver. It was deep and resonant. “This is Bethor, how can I help you?”
“Hi Bethor. Look, I really need to go to hell, and your customer service guy Baruch says I can’t.”
There was a long, awkward pause. Stuart thought the call had been cut off until he heard the angel on the other end crunching on potato chips.
“That’s ‘angel of customer service’” Bethor said, his mouth full of half-chewed food, “Not ‘guy’. You realize we're genderless, right? Anyway, you want to go where now?”
“Hell. There’s somebody there I really need to see.”
“Oh, that’s easy” Stuart could hear the man’s smile in his voice, and leaned forward to listen, “Just click your heels together three times and say ‘there’s no place like home’”
Stuart said nothing. Bethor erupted into a belly laugh, punctuated with an enormous belch. Stuart pictured him in his mind, his overweight paunch jiggling like gelatin. Stuart had little patience for those who laughed at their own jokes.
“Ok, I’ll tell you what: It’s under Cleveland. You buy a package trip with us to Cleveland for a weekend, you can go do whatever it is you want to do in Hell. Understand that you won’t be covered by your travel insurance while there, and that we assume no responsibility for your well-being as per our terms and conditions.“
“Cleveland? Hell is under Cleveland?”
“God’s honest truth.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Sure will.”
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
The office of post-mortem reunions
The elevator doors slid open and Stuart stepped out into the office of post-mortem reunions. It was a broad, dusty, rectangular hall with row upon row of plastic chairs extending halfway through the room. A stale, cardboard smell permeated the air. At the far end of the room was a line of service windows with numbers displayed above them. Stuart reached for a ticket from a dispenser mounted on a pedestal. He pulled number 267. The numbers above the windows read 33, 31, 32. But if there was one thing Stuart had taken away from limbo, it was the capacity for waiting.
He sat for hours. The hall seemed more cavernous than the building could physically allow, and it multiplied every footfall, every shuffling of paper, every sigh. Stuart had waited in limbo for 157 years, but what, he wondered, did a year mean when you have no seasons, no day and no night. The bus station in limbo was one eternal season of mist. It was, upon reflection, almost merciful; Had he a calendar to mark the days, he might have realized how long the scope of his stay truly was. In the end, the arrival of his bus was a surprise he’d almost forgotten to expect. Heaven was to Stuart to be the other side of the same coin. An endless season of plenty. The songbirds never flew south, the fruit trees always bore fruit, it was abundance as far into time as one could conceive. It occurred to Stuart that the salient difference between purgatory and paradise was the weather.
“Two hundred sixty-seven!” called an angel from the service counter. “Ticket number two hundred sixty-seven!”. Stuart rose to his feet and walked towards the counter. Dust motes floated through shafts of light from the windows high up on the walls, and seemed to part before him. A nameplate on the open service window read "Omniel". The angel stood shuffling papers on the desk and looked up as Stuart approached.
"Have you filled out the R-712 form in triplicate?" asked the angel.
Stuart nodded.
"And provided proof of familial or other close relations to the reunited party and proof of identity?"
"Yes"
The angel perused the stack of paperwork, pausing to stamp violently. It reverberated impressively in the cavernous space. The angel looked up.
"Last four digits of your social security number?"
"2974"
More violent stamping.
"Good, within six to eight business days you will be notified by mail of the status of your application. Have a nice day. Two hundred sixty-eight!"
Two weeks later, Stuart found himself face to face with his mother in a park overlooking a river of milk and honey. Mrs. Macleod was a traditional woman.
"Oh, it's you." She said, her Minnesotan accent chewing on all her vowels "I thought I was going to meet your older brother here.” She gave a happy sigh. “He was such a handsome man, a real catch, don’t you know. I met him right after he’d come back from the war, I was working at the university, and he was so sweet on me when he came to get his registration papers”
“Mom, I don’t have a brother. You’re thinking of dad. Anyway, how have you been?”
“Oh, you know me, I've just been pottering around, I play bridge with a nice group of ladies on Tuesdays, and bingo on Fridays. Nobody ever comes to see me hardly, and your older brother’s in hell so I never see him either..."
Stuart went pale. "He's where?"
"In hell, dear. Something to do with the war, I think."
"Mom, he was an administrative assistant, he never saw combat.”
She paused and reflected on this. “That’s right, isn’t it. I have no idea then!” She shrugged and gave the kind bright-eyed of smile of concession that only the senile can manage.
“Anyway, you’re a nice young man, what’s your name?”
Stuart deflated. He sat down on a park bench, held his head in his hands and sighed deeply.
He sat for hours. The hall seemed more cavernous than the building could physically allow, and it multiplied every footfall, every shuffling of paper, every sigh. Stuart had waited in limbo for 157 years, but what, he wondered, did a year mean when you have no seasons, no day and no night. The bus station in limbo was one eternal season of mist. It was, upon reflection, almost merciful; Had he a calendar to mark the days, he might have realized how long the scope of his stay truly was. In the end, the arrival of his bus was a surprise he’d almost forgotten to expect. Heaven was to Stuart to be the other side of the same coin. An endless season of plenty. The songbirds never flew south, the fruit trees always bore fruit, it was abundance as far into time as one could conceive. It occurred to Stuart that the salient difference between purgatory and paradise was the weather.
“Two hundred sixty-seven!” called an angel from the service counter. “Ticket number two hundred sixty-seven!”. Stuart rose to his feet and walked towards the counter. Dust motes floated through shafts of light from the windows high up on the walls, and seemed to part before him. A nameplate on the open service window read "Omniel". The angel stood shuffling papers on the desk and looked up as Stuart approached.
"Have you filled out the R-712 form in triplicate?" asked the angel.
Stuart nodded.
"And provided proof of familial or other close relations to the reunited party and proof of identity?"
"Yes"
The angel perused the stack of paperwork, pausing to stamp violently. It reverberated impressively in the cavernous space. The angel looked up.
"Last four digits of your social security number?"
"2974"
More violent stamping.
"Good, within six to eight business days you will be notified by mail of the status of your application. Have a nice day. Two hundred sixty-eight!"
Two weeks later, Stuart found himself face to face with his mother in a park overlooking a river of milk and honey. Mrs. Macleod was a traditional woman.
"Oh, it's you." She said, her Minnesotan accent chewing on all her vowels "I thought I was going to meet your older brother here.” She gave a happy sigh. “He was such a handsome man, a real catch, don’t you know. I met him right after he’d come back from the war, I was working at the university, and he was so sweet on me when he came to get his registration papers”
“Mom, I don’t have a brother. You’re thinking of dad. Anyway, how have you been?”
“Oh, you know me, I've just been pottering around, I play bridge with a nice group of ladies on Tuesdays, and bingo on Fridays. Nobody ever comes to see me hardly, and your older brother’s in hell so I never see him either..."
Stuart went pale. "He's where?"
"In hell, dear. Something to do with the war, I think."
"Mom, he was an administrative assistant, he never saw combat.”
She paused and reflected on this. “That’s right, isn’t it. I have no idea then!” She shrugged and gave the kind bright-eyed of smile of concession that only the senile can manage.
“Anyway, you’re a nice young man, what’s your name?”
Stuart deflated. He sat down on a park bench, held his head in his hands and sighed deeply.
Monday, April 25, 2011
The orientation
A roomful of new arrivals filed into a small theater filled with rows of metal folding chairs, and one by one they took their seats. The lights dimmed and a big screen TV hummed to life as the DVD screensaver flicked off. A trumpet sounded and the credits began to roll. Bold, glossy letters appeared with a surround-sound enhanced whoosh on the screen:
"A Metatron production". Fade to black.
"Welcome," said a deep, movie preview announcer voice in the darkness "to the official orientation session for your transition to the hereafter. I'm your host Metatron, spokesbeing for the Lord almighty. You might know me from my work with Moses," an image of a burning bush dissolved onto the screen "or my intercession with Abraham on behalf of Isaac." An image appeared of an old man holding a knife to a young man's throat, his hand stayed by a mighty angel. "Today I'm here to answer some common questions about your transition, and what you might expect in the millennia to come. So sit back and enjoy the show!"
A montage of nature scenes dissolved one into the next for a moment while an alto saxophone played smooth jazz in the background. Again, the voice of god rumbled forth from the speakers:
"One common question we hear from new arrivals is 'who is the Lord God, anyway?' To answer that question, we're going to take a miraculous trip through the history of creation. As you know, in the beginning, the Lord created the heavens and the firmament, the animals and man." An animation of the earth, water, light, the sun and the stars appearing from the void in succession appeared on the screen. "In those days, the Lord God was swift, vengeful, and jealous." There were images of plagues of locusts destroying crops, floodwaters sweeping away villages, screaming Midianites and the mutilated bodies of their comrades on the battlefield, fire and sulfur raining down on Sodom and Gomorrah and the subsequent charred wreckage of those cities, and finally terrified, wide-eyed frogs falling from the sky. "You might say those days were the spirited, adolescent years of the Lord", the voice of the spokesbeing of the almighty smiled with nostalgia.
"But just a few short millenia later, something changed..." A shot panned around a dimly lit stable and settled on a young couple lit by candlelight sitting on bales of hay. The soft strains of a string quartet wafted through the speakers. "Fatherhood brought the Lord God to a new understanding of life and love, and His wrath was tempered by a newfound tender idealism."
Another montage, this time of water transforming to wine, a multiplication of bread and fish, a worm's-eye view shot of sandals treading atop blue water in slow motion, and finally a boulder rolling away from the mouth of an empty cave.
"But over time, the Lord saw the failure of His socialistic ideals, and set about revising His plan yet again. Part of His revisions included changes to the entitlement programs of the hereafter, with the goal of weaning the souls of the saved off the programs they have become dependent on over the last two thousand years. Part of this orientation is to set straight any misconceptions you might have regarding these entitlements."
The images cut to a photogenic young woman with dark hair and green eyes. She gazed at the camera and with a smile on her face, asked "So, where are the luxuries that we were told about during our time on Earth?" The camera did a slow pan over crystal palaces and roads paved in gold. Metatron answered in his bone-rattling baritone "Those luxuries are still there, but we've repackaged your benefits into our new Paradise Timeshare program. The Lord believes that you are entitled to whatever your heart desires so long as you have the gumption to make it happen." The image on the screen cut to a diverse group of young people laughing over a lobster dinner at sunset and then faded to a young black man in a polo shirt. He looked up from his desk and asked "What about services, like the office of post-mortem reunions? "
The scene cut to a man embracing his grandmother and Metatron's voiceover continued "The Lord and His support staff are in the process of privatizing services such as the office of post-mortem reunions in an effort to increase efficiency for everyone" The smooth jazz continued as the man on the screen and his grandmother re-connected.
Another face appeared on the screen, this time a genial-looking older man who bore a striking resemblance to Ronald Reagan. He smiled and asked "Where will the money come from to create private sector jobs in the hereafter?"
The screen cut to a smart-looking man in a suit walking into a bank. The bank teller cocked her head and flashed a pleasant smile at the man. "The Lord has been hard at work designing, testing, and implementing his new "Take It With You" plan to address this problem. With this exciting new policy, if you have a savings account with a participating bank on Earth, your funds are eligible for transfer to a partner institution here in the afterlife. You can even decide how much, if any, of your funds you would like to leave to your loved ones back on Earth!"
"These are exciting times in the afterlife, and we're excited to have you onboard. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask a customer service representative at the number on the screen"
The lights went up, and the screen went blue. The souls slowly filed out of the theater.
"A Metatron production". Fade to black.
"Welcome," said a deep, movie preview announcer voice in the darkness "to the official orientation session for your transition to the hereafter. I'm your host Metatron, spokesbeing for the Lord almighty. You might know me from my work with Moses," an image of a burning bush dissolved onto the screen "or my intercession with Abraham on behalf of Isaac." An image appeared of an old man holding a knife to a young man's throat, his hand stayed by a mighty angel. "Today I'm here to answer some common questions about your transition, and what you might expect in the millennia to come. So sit back and enjoy the show!"
A montage of nature scenes dissolved one into the next for a moment while an alto saxophone played smooth jazz in the background. Again, the voice of god rumbled forth from the speakers:
"One common question we hear from new arrivals is 'who is the Lord God, anyway?' To answer that question, we're going to take a miraculous trip through the history of creation. As you know, in the beginning, the Lord created the heavens and the firmament, the animals and man." An animation of the earth, water, light, the sun and the stars appearing from the void in succession appeared on the screen. "In those days, the Lord God was swift, vengeful, and jealous." There were images of plagues of locusts destroying crops, floodwaters sweeping away villages, screaming Midianites and the mutilated bodies of their comrades on the battlefield, fire and sulfur raining down on Sodom and Gomorrah and the subsequent charred wreckage of those cities, and finally terrified, wide-eyed frogs falling from the sky. "You might say those days were the spirited, adolescent years of the Lord", the voice of the spokesbeing of the almighty smiled with nostalgia.
"But just a few short millenia later, something changed..." A shot panned around a dimly lit stable and settled on a young couple lit by candlelight sitting on bales of hay. The soft strains of a string quartet wafted through the speakers. "Fatherhood brought the Lord God to a new understanding of life and love, and His wrath was tempered by a newfound tender idealism."
Another montage, this time of water transforming to wine, a multiplication of bread and fish, a worm's-eye view shot of sandals treading atop blue water in slow motion, and finally a boulder rolling away from the mouth of an empty cave.
"But over time, the Lord saw the failure of His socialistic ideals, and set about revising His plan yet again. Part of His revisions included changes to the entitlement programs of the hereafter, with the goal of weaning the souls of the saved off the programs they have become dependent on over the last two thousand years. Part of this orientation is to set straight any misconceptions you might have regarding these entitlements."
The images cut to a photogenic young woman with dark hair and green eyes. She gazed at the camera and with a smile on her face, asked "So, where are the luxuries that we were told about during our time on Earth?" The camera did a slow pan over crystal palaces and roads paved in gold. Metatron answered in his bone-rattling baritone "Those luxuries are still there, but we've repackaged your benefits into our new Paradise Timeshare program. The Lord believes that you are entitled to whatever your heart desires so long as you have the gumption to make it happen." The image on the screen cut to a diverse group of young people laughing over a lobster dinner at sunset and then faded to a young black man in a polo shirt. He looked up from his desk and asked "What about services, like the office of post-mortem reunions? "
The scene cut to a man embracing his grandmother and Metatron's voiceover continued "The Lord and His support staff are in the process of privatizing services such as the office of post-mortem reunions in an effort to increase efficiency for everyone" The smooth jazz continued as the man on the screen and his grandmother re-connected.
Another face appeared on the screen, this time a genial-looking older man who bore a striking resemblance to Ronald Reagan. He smiled and asked "Where will the money come from to create private sector jobs in the hereafter?"
The screen cut to a smart-looking man in a suit walking into a bank. The bank teller cocked her head and flashed a pleasant smile at the man. "The Lord has been hard at work designing, testing, and implementing his new "Take It With You" plan to address this problem. With this exciting new policy, if you have a savings account with a participating bank on Earth, your funds are eligible for transfer to a partner institution here in the afterlife. You can even decide how much, if any, of your funds you would like to leave to your loved ones back on Earth!"
"These are exciting times in the afterlife, and we're excited to have you onboard. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask a customer service representative at the number on the screen"
The lights went up, and the screen went blue. The souls slowly filed out of the theater.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
The prayer processing division
A phone rang. A little red light flashed on the handset. “Prayer processing, how may I direct your call? Thank you, please hold the line until a customer service representative can speak with you.”
It rang again, and the next little red light jumped into action. “Prayer processing, how may I direct your call? Thank you, please hold the line until a customer service representative can speak with you.”
The prayer processing division was situated in the same office park as the department of post-mortem reunions, but on a different floor. Stuart Macleod had stepped out of the elevator on the wrong floor and looked around, disoriented. He looked down and was momentarily jarred by the hypnotic, maddening airport carpet, with its endless, hideous repetitions of mauve flowers on dark blue field. Ever since his arrival in the hereafter Stuart had found himself inexplicably nauseated most of the time, and the shrill tedium of the carpet very nearly drove him to vomit in the recycle bin at his side.
A sour looking Angelic front desk attendant wearing a headset with a boom mic looked up from her crossword puzzle with undisguised disdain, but said nothing. Stuart eyed the recycle bin.
She stared at him. “Can I help you?”. Her falling intonation indicated to him that it was not, indeed, a question.
“Yes, I was looking for the department of post-mortem reunions, but it looks like I’m in the wrong place.” Stuart turned to leave, pressed the button the summon the elevator, and waited awkwardly.
“Actually,” he said, and turned back towards the angel “this is prayer processing?” She looked back up from her crossword puzzle and glared at him. “Yes.”
Stuart felt a surge of confidence welling up from somewhere in his gut. It made his head swim with giddiness. It had been lifetimes since he had felt this way. There wasn’t much need for confidence during the layover in limbo, and like a disused muscle, it had atrophied over the last century and a half.
“What is it that you do here, exactly?” His newly-rediscovered boldness seethed and boiled over. He even cracked a smile for a moment.
The angel of the Lord was not impressed. “I put people on hold” she said, simply.
Stuart’s brow furrowed. “You what?”
“People call in with their prayers. They want the Green Bay Packers to win the Superbowl, they want their lotto tickets to win, they want their grandmothers to come out of the hospital OK. Now think for a minute exactly how many people on Earth pray on any given day. How many people are there on the planet now, seven billion?”
Stuart nodded in assent.
“Listen, they all pray on a daily basis, even the atheists. And we’re drastically underfunded. Consequently, our backlog is so bad we don’t get a chance to even review their requests until they’re seventy years into their layover in limbo. Why do you think the Mariners have never won a World Series? It’s not like we don’t want to help, but there are procedures that we have to follow. So my job is to put people on hold. They call, I put them in the queue.”
Stuart’s newly-rediscovered confidence quietly stepped out the back door.
“Is that why my ex-girlfriend Amanda Christiansen married that Brent Braddock guy? I mean, I prayed for her to come back to me every day for like, three months at least…” he trailed off, and held his palm over his face. “Could you look it up? I mean, can you do that?”
She sighed sharply. “Your name?”
“Stuart James Mcleod”
“Last four digits of your social security number?”
“2974”
She waited as the search results appeared on her console. Finally, without looking at him, she said “Well, as it turns out, your requests were denied. Not until twenty three years after your passed, which is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. This system is broken, and if I had the funding for a couple of administrative assistants we could crank these out in half the time it takes now, but yeah, denied, I’m sorry to say”
Stuart felt his throat tighten. “But, why?”, he croaked.
“Well, it’s pretty nepotistic, if you don’t have an in with the board of directors, you might as well panhandle on the corner for funding”.
The phone rang. A little red light flashed on the handset. The angel answered, “Prayer processing, how may I direct your call? Thank you, please hold the line until a customer service representative can speak with you.”
The elevator bell chimed and the doors slid open.
It rang again, and the next little red light jumped into action. “Prayer processing, how may I direct your call? Thank you, please hold the line until a customer service representative can speak with you.”
The prayer processing division was situated in the same office park as the department of post-mortem reunions, but on a different floor. Stuart Macleod had stepped out of the elevator on the wrong floor and looked around, disoriented. He looked down and was momentarily jarred by the hypnotic, maddening airport carpet, with its endless, hideous repetitions of mauve flowers on dark blue field. Ever since his arrival in the hereafter Stuart had found himself inexplicably nauseated most of the time, and the shrill tedium of the carpet very nearly drove him to vomit in the recycle bin at his side.
A sour looking Angelic front desk attendant wearing a headset with a boom mic looked up from her crossword puzzle with undisguised disdain, but said nothing. Stuart eyed the recycle bin.
She stared at him. “Can I help you?”. Her falling intonation indicated to him that it was not, indeed, a question.
“Yes, I was looking for the department of post-mortem reunions, but it looks like I’m in the wrong place.” Stuart turned to leave, pressed the button the summon the elevator, and waited awkwardly.
“Actually,” he said, and turned back towards the angel “this is prayer processing?” She looked back up from her crossword puzzle and glared at him. “Yes.”
Stuart felt a surge of confidence welling up from somewhere in his gut. It made his head swim with giddiness. It had been lifetimes since he had felt this way. There wasn’t much need for confidence during the layover in limbo, and like a disused muscle, it had atrophied over the last century and a half.
“What is it that you do here, exactly?” His newly-rediscovered boldness seethed and boiled over. He even cracked a smile for a moment.
The angel of the Lord was not impressed. “I put people on hold” she said, simply.
Stuart’s brow furrowed. “You what?”
“People call in with their prayers. They want the Green Bay Packers to win the Superbowl, they want their lotto tickets to win, they want their grandmothers to come out of the hospital OK. Now think for a minute exactly how many people on Earth pray on any given day. How many people are there on the planet now, seven billion?”
Stuart nodded in assent.
“Listen, they all pray on a daily basis, even the atheists. And we’re drastically underfunded. Consequently, our backlog is so bad we don’t get a chance to even review their requests until they’re seventy years into their layover in limbo. Why do you think the Mariners have never won a World Series? It’s not like we don’t want to help, but there are procedures that we have to follow. So my job is to put people on hold. They call, I put them in the queue.”
Stuart’s newly-rediscovered confidence quietly stepped out the back door.
“Is that why my ex-girlfriend Amanda Christiansen married that Brent Braddock guy? I mean, I prayed for her to come back to me every day for like, three months at least…” he trailed off, and held his palm over his face. “Could you look it up? I mean, can you do that?”
She sighed sharply. “Your name?”
“Stuart James Mcleod”
“Last four digits of your social security number?”
“2974”
She waited as the search results appeared on her console. Finally, without looking at him, she said “Well, as it turns out, your requests were denied. Not until twenty three years after your passed, which is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. This system is broken, and if I had the funding for a couple of administrative assistants we could crank these out in half the time it takes now, but yeah, denied, I’m sorry to say”
Stuart felt his throat tighten. “But, why?”, he croaked.
“Well, it’s pretty nepotistic, if you don’t have an in with the board of directors, you might as well panhandle on the corner for funding”.
The phone rang. A little red light flashed on the handset. The angel answered, “Prayer processing, how may I direct your call? Thank you, please hold the line until a customer service representative can speak with you.”
The elevator bell chimed and the doors slid open.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
The house of the Lord
"Ok everybody, come this way please..." A slightly pudgy cherub motioned for the orientation group to follow him down a concrete, tree lined pathway. "Right, so I'm going to be your guide today, my name is Harachel, and I'm going to show you around your new quarters in the house of the Lord. Ok, so did everyone get their paperwork? You should have received a big envelope like this one with your paperwork in it." he held aloft a fat white document envelope and waved it above the onlookers. "Don't worry about filling it out now, there will be time to do that after the tour. Ok, this way please!"
The angel continued down the path towards a towering building. As he walked, Harachel looked over his shoulder at the group of new arrivals. “So, how are you all settling in?”
The souls looked at each other in quiet confusion, their tongues gone un-excercised for years, sometimes for centuries during their stay at the bus station at Limbo.
Undeterred, Harachel continued: "Right, so, as I'm sure many of you know, if you've arrived here after your time on Earth, the lord is contractually obligated as per the conditions laid out in the book of John, chapter fourteen, verse two, to provide you with lodging and board in His House with Many Rooms. So, to that end, we have provided this place for you all to live forever and ever in his glory, amen. All of your basic needs, such as food, indoor plumbing and basic cable TV service are included, and there are shared bathrooms on the west wing of each floor. Also, all residents have use of the laundry facilities and game room on the first floor. It includes a foosball table and a full sized pool table and there are bi-weekly pool tournaments held there on the first and third Tuesday of every month. Talk with Urim at the front desk for sign up details."
They drew closer to the building. It was immensely tall, piercing through the cloud cover and throwing a cyclopean shadow over the ground below. It was made of pale blonde bricks and bristled with air conditioning units and fire escape ladders. It had an institutional feel about it, the kind of place you'd expect to have checked tile floors scuffed from millions of footsteps and crude graffiti etched into the walls. the grass was patchy and brown. A tattered old orange couch sat off to the side of a playground.
"So, there is a kitchenette included with each unit, but we do have regularly scheduled meals in the cafeteria, you'll find that just off the common room I told you about before on the first floor. There you can come and partake of the blessings of the Lord, and don’t forget about pizza Fridays and brunch on the weekends until 12:30. Otherwise, there’s usually a selection of cold sandwiches, pasta dishes, and a lovely salad bar"
They stopped in front of the building. It swallowed up their peripheral vision in its magnitude.
"Now, once you get settled in, you may want to head over to the office of post-mortem reunions, that's not part of this tour, but it's in that building over there," the angel gestured towards a nondescript brick building down the street, "it's a pretty popular destination for the newly-arrived here."
"Well, let's go get you all your room assignments!", chirped Harachel, and he led the souls through a set of double doors. They squeaked as they opened. The group proceeded into the reception area of the house of the Lord.
There was a small lobby with a pair of potted plants bookending an old blue sofa that faced the doors. It was the kind of sofa that women instinctively knew to avoid and dogs found themselves unable to resist. There was nothing outwardly wrong with it, but it had an untrustworthy air. To the right of the sofa was a bank of vending machines serving cold drinks, packaged snacks, and instant coffee.
"Everybody, this is Urim," Harachel gestured towards a taciturn angel seated in a service window in the middle of a wall of locked mail boxes. "you'll be seeing a lot of Urim here, he runs the day to day administration of the house of the Lord with many rooms." Urim sat hunched over a stack of mail and gave a cursory glance over the rims of his glasses at the assembled crowd and gave a short grunt of acknowledgment before returning to the task at hand.
Harachel picked up a sheet of paper off the desk at which Urim was working, and cleared his throat. "I'm going to read your names off this list in alphabetical order, followed by your room number... Adams? Aaron Adams? Room 926473289, you have three roommates, I actually did their orientation sessions too, say hello to them for me! Here are your keys, front door and room door”, and with that, he waved the soul off down the hallway towards the elevators. “Alright, next we have... Another Adams! Alexis Adams? There you are, your assignment is room 7453522892, and your keys."
And one by one, the angel of the lord recited the names of the saved, and unto them distributed their door keys and a welcome bag of promotional swag, including several buy one, get one half-off coupons for locally available goods and services.
The angel continued down the path towards a towering building. As he walked, Harachel looked over his shoulder at the group of new arrivals. “So, how are you all settling in?”
The souls looked at each other in quiet confusion, their tongues gone un-excercised for years, sometimes for centuries during their stay at the bus station at Limbo.
Undeterred, Harachel continued: "Right, so, as I'm sure many of you know, if you've arrived here after your time on Earth, the lord is contractually obligated as per the conditions laid out in the book of John, chapter fourteen, verse two, to provide you with lodging and board in His House with Many Rooms. So, to that end, we have provided this place for you all to live forever and ever in his glory, amen. All of your basic needs, such as food, indoor plumbing and basic cable TV service are included, and there are shared bathrooms on the west wing of each floor. Also, all residents have use of the laundry facilities and game room on the first floor. It includes a foosball table and a full sized pool table and there are bi-weekly pool tournaments held there on the first and third Tuesday of every month. Talk with Urim at the front desk for sign up details."
They drew closer to the building. It was immensely tall, piercing through the cloud cover and throwing a cyclopean shadow over the ground below. It was made of pale blonde bricks and bristled with air conditioning units and fire escape ladders. It had an institutional feel about it, the kind of place you'd expect to have checked tile floors scuffed from millions of footsteps and crude graffiti etched into the walls. the grass was patchy and brown. A tattered old orange couch sat off to the side of a playground.
"So, there is a kitchenette included with each unit, but we do have regularly scheduled meals in the cafeteria, you'll find that just off the common room I told you about before on the first floor. There you can come and partake of the blessings of the Lord, and don’t forget about pizza Fridays and brunch on the weekends until 12:30. Otherwise, there’s usually a selection of cold sandwiches, pasta dishes, and a lovely salad bar"
They stopped in front of the building. It swallowed up their peripheral vision in its magnitude.
"Now, once you get settled in, you may want to head over to the office of post-mortem reunions, that's not part of this tour, but it's in that building over there," the angel gestured towards a nondescript brick building down the street, "it's a pretty popular destination for the newly-arrived here."
"Well, let's go get you all your room assignments!", chirped Harachel, and he led the souls through a set of double doors. They squeaked as they opened. The group proceeded into the reception area of the house of the Lord.
There was a small lobby with a pair of potted plants bookending an old blue sofa that faced the doors. It was the kind of sofa that women instinctively knew to avoid and dogs found themselves unable to resist. There was nothing outwardly wrong with it, but it had an untrustworthy air. To the right of the sofa was a bank of vending machines serving cold drinks, packaged snacks, and instant coffee.
"Everybody, this is Urim," Harachel gestured towards a taciturn angel seated in a service window in the middle of a wall of locked mail boxes. "you'll be seeing a lot of Urim here, he runs the day to day administration of the house of the Lord with many rooms." Urim sat hunched over a stack of mail and gave a cursory glance over the rims of his glasses at the assembled crowd and gave a short grunt of acknowledgment before returning to the task at hand.
Harachel picked up a sheet of paper off the desk at which Urim was working, and cleared his throat. "I'm going to read your names off this list in alphabetical order, followed by your room number... Adams? Aaron Adams? Room 926473289, you have three roommates, I actually did their orientation sessions too, say hello to them for me! Here are your keys, front door and room door”, and with that, he waved the soul off down the hallway towards the elevators. “Alright, next we have... Another Adams! Alexis Adams? There you are, your assignment is room 7453522892, and your keys."
And one by one, the angel of the lord recited the names of the saved, and unto them distributed their door keys and a welcome bag of promotional swag, including several buy one, get one half-off coupons for locally available goods and services.
Monday, April 18, 2011
A host of Angels
“Ok folks, now I know you’ve had a long ride here and I’m sure you can’t wait to dive in to all the amenities that Heaven has to offer, but before we can let you do that we ask that you attend this little information session. Now don’t worry, I know what you’re probably thinking. You’re probably thinking ‘We were promised eternal glory in the house of the lord, rivers of milk and honey, the whole package. Why should we have to sit through this information seminar?’. Well folks, I promise I won’t take one more minute of your eternal time here than is absolutely necessary. My name, by the way, is Gazardiel, I’m the Angel of new beginnings, and I hope to guide you through your new beginning here in paradise eternal. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, we’ll have some light refreshment available for you shortly, and after the presentation there will be cake.
An ambiguously-gendered celestial being with the great brown wings of an eagle entered the room from a side door with a carafe of coffee in his right hand, and a bowl of popcorn in his left, which he placed on a long brown folding table next to a bowl of non-dairy creamer packs and a box a sugar cubes. Gazardiel cleared his throat. “That’s our summer intern Tariel, I don’t know how we ever got by here without him, he can clear a paper tray jam like nobody’s business, and you wouldn’t believe the cappuccinos he can pull. Everybody, let’s give Tariel a quick hand!”.
At once, a divinely ordained round of awkward applause went up among the twenty souls seated on metal folding chairs. Tariel flashed an unsure smile and with a quick wave, darted back out the door. “Ok, great, feel free to grab some coffee or popcorn at any point during the presentation. And now, let’s get started, ok?” Gazardiel flashed a smile at the attendees and picked up a small remote control from the lectern in front of him. “Ok, great, now, let’s see here…” He fumbled with the remote until a slide came up with a series of photos depicting life in a Paradise Timeshare. There was a woman sunbathing on a beach, sipping a fruity umbrella drink, a middle-aged man in bicycling spandex and stylish wraparound sunglasses riding in a race, an attractive thirty-something couple on a yacht at sunset, and an elderly couple enjoying a meal of lobster in a lavish restaurant. At the head of the frame, in a plain, 36-point sans-serif font, read the words “Flexibility. Luxury. Paradise”.
Gazardiel took a moment to gaze at the slide in self-satisfaction. “Ok folks, how many of you have been to a timeshare information session before, show of hands please?”. Five hands went up, meekly. “Five, ok, so not so many of you. How many of you are familiar with the concept of a timeshare resort? All of you? Great! Well, heck, I’m glad we’re all on the same page here!” Gazardiel laughed a hollow salesman laugh. The kind of laugh that’s made to let you know that you should have found that funny, like kids writing “LOL” in their text messages.
“Ok, so you may already be familiar with some of the benefits associated with timeshare units, great…” He looked down at the remote and clicked the “next” button. A new slide entitled “Why a timeshare in Paradise?” scrolled in from left to right. Gazardiel produced a laser pointer from the lectern and pointed at a big bulleted item, ‘affordable terms’. “Ok, so a lot of you are probably thinking ‘Gazardiel, how can I afford a beautiful timeshare in Paradise? After all, you can’t take it with you, right?’. He laughed at his own joke as the red dot twitched and skittered along the silver screen. “Well, we have some fantastic offers starting at zero down and only 7.54 percent annual interest for qualifying buyers! And this is for a fully-furnished condo, people. Not only that, but,” he paused to hit the ‘next’ button and waited as the former slide dissolved to make way for the third, entitled ‘internal exchanges’. “That’s right, we have a network of condos that you can reserve. Who here likes skiing? Show of hands?”. Several hands arose. “Ok, great, I have good news for you: We have a timeshare to satisfy you. I guarantee it. I love this company, and let me tell you something: I’m not only the marketing director here, I’m also a timeshare owner myself. I know what you’re thinking: ‘Gazardiel, how can you afford a luxurious timeshare on the salary of an Angel of the Second Sphere?’ I get no employee discounts, people. These timeshares are affordable. They’re value for money, it’s that simple. And you can afford one too!”. The angel smiled and pressed the ‘next’ button.
A new slide swirled up onto the screen, entitled “Timeshare: A sound investment”. “Ok, so a timeshare, what it gives you financially is the benefits of owning real estate. That’s right, it’s like owning property - But without the headaches! Not only that, but you can rent out your usage time if you’d like, or even sell it at a later date. Why would you rent a hotel room when you could buy the resort, am I right? We’re talking real, fractional ownership here. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about what a hassle their summer homes in Tahoe turned out to be when their pipes burst in the winter, or they came back in the spring only to find a tree had fallen on their house while they were away, and I really feel for those people, but let me tell you something: If they’d gone with a timeshare instead, they wouldn’t have had to worry about any of those things. That’s peace of mind, people. And you can’t put a price on that”.
His words rang out with a well-rehearsed air, and the seated souls glanced at each other furtively.
The final slide animated itself into place. It read ‘Paradise timeshare: Peace of mind, ultimate luxury, affordability. Sign up today!’ “So, Tariel is going to be coming in with cake, as promised, as well as some forms for you all to fill out, and after that, a host of Angels will stop by to answer any questions you might have about Paradise Timeshares. Again, my name is Gazardiel, Angel of the Second Sphere, Hashmallim, and Director of Marketing, you’ll find my card included in the paperwork that Tariel will be giving you. You’ve been a great audience, I hope to see you all soon at one of our many resorts!”
And the Angel of the Lord left for lunch.
An ambiguously-gendered celestial being with the great brown wings of an eagle entered the room from a side door with a carafe of coffee in his right hand, and a bowl of popcorn in his left, which he placed on a long brown folding table next to a bowl of non-dairy creamer packs and a box a sugar cubes. Gazardiel cleared his throat. “That’s our summer intern Tariel, I don’t know how we ever got by here without him, he can clear a paper tray jam like nobody’s business, and you wouldn’t believe the cappuccinos he can pull. Everybody, let’s give Tariel a quick hand!”.
At once, a divinely ordained round of awkward applause went up among the twenty souls seated on metal folding chairs. Tariel flashed an unsure smile and with a quick wave, darted back out the door. “Ok, great, feel free to grab some coffee or popcorn at any point during the presentation. And now, let’s get started, ok?” Gazardiel flashed a smile at the attendees and picked up a small remote control from the lectern in front of him. “Ok, great, now, let’s see here…” He fumbled with the remote until a slide came up with a series of photos depicting life in a Paradise Timeshare. There was a woman sunbathing on a beach, sipping a fruity umbrella drink, a middle-aged man in bicycling spandex and stylish wraparound sunglasses riding in a race, an attractive thirty-something couple on a yacht at sunset, and an elderly couple enjoying a meal of lobster in a lavish restaurant. At the head of the frame, in a plain, 36-point sans-serif font, read the words “Flexibility. Luxury. Paradise”.
Gazardiel took a moment to gaze at the slide in self-satisfaction. “Ok folks, how many of you have been to a timeshare information session before, show of hands please?”. Five hands went up, meekly. “Five, ok, so not so many of you. How many of you are familiar with the concept of a timeshare resort? All of you? Great! Well, heck, I’m glad we’re all on the same page here!” Gazardiel laughed a hollow salesman laugh. The kind of laugh that’s made to let you know that you should have found that funny, like kids writing “LOL” in their text messages.
“Ok, so you may already be familiar with some of the benefits associated with timeshare units, great…” He looked down at the remote and clicked the “next” button. A new slide entitled “Why a timeshare in Paradise?” scrolled in from left to right. Gazardiel produced a laser pointer from the lectern and pointed at a big bulleted item, ‘affordable terms’. “Ok, so a lot of you are probably thinking ‘Gazardiel, how can I afford a beautiful timeshare in Paradise? After all, you can’t take it with you, right?’. He laughed at his own joke as the red dot twitched and skittered along the silver screen. “Well, we have some fantastic offers starting at zero down and only 7.54 percent annual interest for qualifying buyers! And this is for a fully-furnished condo, people. Not only that, but,” he paused to hit the ‘next’ button and waited as the former slide dissolved to make way for the third, entitled ‘internal exchanges’. “That’s right, we have a network of condos that you can reserve. Who here likes skiing? Show of hands?”. Several hands arose. “Ok, great, I have good news for you: We have a timeshare to satisfy you. I guarantee it. I love this company, and let me tell you something: I’m not only the marketing director here, I’m also a timeshare owner myself. I know what you’re thinking: ‘Gazardiel, how can you afford a luxurious timeshare on the salary of an Angel of the Second Sphere?’ I get no employee discounts, people. These timeshares are affordable. They’re value for money, it’s that simple. And you can afford one too!”. The angel smiled and pressed the ‘next’ button.
A new slide swirled up onto the screen, entitled “Timeshare: A sound investment”. “Ok, so a timeshare, what it gives you financially is the benefits of owning real estate. That’s right, it’s like owning property - But without the headaches! Not only that, but you can rent out your usage time if you’d like, or even sell it at a later date. Why would you rent a hotel room when you could buy the resort, am I right? We’re talking real, fractional ownership here. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about what a hassle their summer homes in Tahoe turned out to be when their pipes burst in the winter, or they came back in the spring only to find a tree had fallen on their house while they were away, and I really feel for those people, but let me tell you something: If they’d gone with a timeshare instead, they wouldn’t have had to worry about any of those things. That’s peace of mind, people. And you can’t put a price on that”.
His words rang out with a well-rehearsed air, and the seated souls glanced at each other furtively.
The final slide animated itself into place. It read ‘Paradise timeshare: Peace of mind, ultimate luxury, affordability. Sign up today!’ “So, Tariel is going to be coming in with cake, as promised, as well as some forms for you all to fill out, and after that, a host of Angels will stop by to answer any questions you might have about Paradise Timeshares. Again, my name is Gazardiel, Angel of the Second Sphere, Hashmallim, and Director of Marketing, you’ll find my card included in the paperwork that Tariel will be giving you. You’ve been a great audience, I hope to see you all soon at one of our many resorts!”
And the Angel of the Lord left for lunch.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Stuart at the bus station
Stuart McLeod woke with a start to the sound of a bus’s air brakes engaging with a sharp sigh followed by a tiny squeak as the door opened. He had been dozing with his mouth agape, and became conscious of a stream of dried drool down from the left corner of his mouth. His eyes darted around to see if any of the other passengers were watching, and he hastily tried to wipe away the dried spittle with his hand.
The bus’s PA system crackled to life. A buzzy voice conveyed over antiquated speakers announced their arrival. “Well folks, we’ve arrived at our destination. Be sure to check the departures board for information on your connection, and feel free to avail yourself to the amenities in the station. On behalf of all of our staff, we hope you have a pleasant layover. Have a nice day now, folks”. Groggy passengers stretched their limbs and looked out the tinted windows of the aging bus. They had parked in a diagonal parking bay underneath a corrugated metal overhang supported by utilitarian-looking posts with rust spots showing through the paint. Beyond the station Stuart could see nothing through a dense cloud of fog that extended in every direction.
The same primal compulsion to escape small, crowded places that drives people to undo their safety belt buckles the second their airplane hits the ground fell upon the passengers of the bus. Soon everyone was standing or at least stooping in anticipation of exiting the bus. The passengers murmured flurries of “Go ahead”s and “No, no, after you”s up and down the aisle as their jockeyed for position to get out of their seats. Finally, it was Stuart’s turn. His cross-aisle-rival was an old woman with thinning hair who offered no resistance to Stuart’s edging into the aisle. Slowly they tottered down the aisle towards the door, as there is no graceful way for one to walk down the aisle of a bus, especially in a group of several dozen other escapees.
As Stuart exited the bus, the bus driver smiled and directed him towards a set of faded blue double doors propped open with little wooden wedges. “In there please, that’s the waiting room. Have a pleasant stay, and thanks again everybody!”As he walked closer to the doors he could see that the walls were yellowed from decades of cigarette smoke and the floor was covered in the universal institutional checked tile pattern that you might find in a school cafeteria or, well, a bus station. Row after row of wooden bench seats occupied the center of the room, upon which countless travelers dozed, sat and patiently passed the time. From the outside, the station appeared to take up about half a block’s worth of space, but curiously, to Stuart’s eyes, it seemed much, much bigger. He scanned the room looking for the departures board, and fixed his eyes on a small cheap plastic sign with interchangeable letters. It read “Next Departure:”, with the adjacent space left vacant.
He walked between rows of benches with passengers sprawled out, using jackets as pillows and blocking out the harsh, buzzing fluorescent light with hoods pulled tight over their heads. On the far side of the room was a small snack and toiletry window with a flickering neon sign that read “Station Store” in red cursive letters. Seated behind the counter was a bored-looking, overweight woman sitting on a battered navy blue office chair. She leaned with her chin on her right hand, eyes fixed on the flickering television in the corner of the stall. It was the weather channel. A genial-looking man with a carefully groomed brown mustache and a laser-straight part down the left side of his hair announced the extended forecast for the week.
“Well, it’s looking like more of the same, folks, we’re gonna have heavy fog all through the week with temperatures hovering right around 55 degrees. And now here’s our exclusive doppler radar forecast of the week’s weather. As you can see, this big green patch is the cloudy weather we’ve been having, and now I’m going to fast-forward through the week so you can kind of get a feel for how this system is going to behave. The time stamp in the bottom left hand corner of the screen gave the only indication that anything had changed. The entire screen was enveloped in a uniform green. “And there you have it, folks, have yourselves a great weekend, I’m Steve Schneider, signing off!” He gave a weatherman smile, all full of Botox and insincerity and then signed off.
Stuart cleared his throat. The woman didn’t budge. “Excuse me, ma’am?”, he meekly asked. Without moving a muscle, she shifted her gaze towards him, looked him up and down, and returned her eyes to the flickering TV screen and the intrigues and dramas of the weather channel. “I was just wondering if I could get something to eat?” Stuart said again. She drummed her manicured nails on the counter in annoyance, and Stuart’s heart began to race uncontrollably. Like a hibernating bear waking up in the spring, she lumberingly rolled her chair to the counter. She sighed heavily and spat out a “What?” at Stuart. He was transfixed, caught in her disgusted gaze, unable to say anything. “You want something?”. “Yeah, yes, I mean, I do…”, Stuart stammered. He momentarily broke from her basilisk stare to survey the goods on the shelves behind the counter. Low-sodium Saltine crackers, bottled water with the name of some south Pacific island where Japanese tourists go to play golf and relax, plain instant oatmeal in a cup, those baked potato chips that taste like cardboard, and low-fat, low-sugar generic cookies in a packet.
“I’ll take a pack of the cookies, please”. She sighed and shot a flabby arm on at the shelf, grasping a plastic cylindrical packet of the cookies. “Three seventy-five” she ordered, and he counted out exact change as quickly as possible, not wishing to annoy the woman any longer. She took the money and then lumbered back from the counter so as to get a clearer view of the TV.
He sat down on one of the ubiquitous wooden benches and unwrapped the cellophane package, which revealed ten dry, crumbly cookies with miniature chocolate chips. He bit into one and it collapsed under the pressure of his molars fractally, until it was reduced to a cookie-dust that coated his tongue, absorbing his saliva, rendering a cookie-paste that he forced down his throat joylessly. The water with the Pacific island logo tempted him, but his fear of the counter-lady’s passive-aggressive wrath stopped him from going back to the snack counter.
Next to an old Ms. Pac-Man arcade machine with an “out of order” sign taped on the screen sat a utilitarian brochure rack in a dusty corner. The brochures called out to him, with their vivid blues and greens, and he walked over to pick one up. “Come visit Paradise!” the brochure said, in bold type that arced over a brilliant sun. The cover of the brochure featured a photo of a clear blue sky over a heavenly eighteen-hole golf course and resort. He opened it up and read the following text:
Had enough of waiting around in limbo? Come take the vacation of an afterlifetime in Paradise! We offer endless amenities to souls of all persuasions, from nightly fireworks and parades for the kids (or just the young at heart!), to rivers of milk and honey for the more traditional-minded soul, and of course our world-famous choirs of singing angels! So what are you waiting for? There is direct bus service from Limbo to take you here with no fussing around with transfers along the way! Talk to your ticketing agent today!
Stuart’s eyes went wide and he sank back into the bench. He was dead. He was dead and in his soul was in purgatory. He stood up on shaky legs and headed towards the ticketing counter. There was a line (there is always a line for the ticketing counter, even in the afterlife), and after an indeterminate amount of time (it just occurred to him that all the clocks on the wall never seemed to move past 11:15, which, as everyone knows, is the least stimulating time of day), he reached the ticket window. It was a plexiglass sheet with holes drilled in the middle and a gap to pass money and tickets back and forth at the bottom. A woman with heavy-rimmed glasses, loud gold earrings and a fire-engine red cardigan tapped busily at a coffee-stained keyboard. “Excuse me, I just saw this brochure, and I was wondering if I could book a ticket to Paradise” he said. She turned to him, eyeing him up over the tops of her glasses. “Name?”
“McLeod. Stuart James McLeod”
“Last four digits of your social security number?”
“2974”
“Mr. McLeod, has anyone asked you to pack something in your bag for them, or has anyone put anything in your bag without your knowledge?”
“How would I know if it was without my knowledge?”
She glared at him. “Just a yes or no, there are people waiting behind you”
“No, then”
“… Well, Mr McLeod, it appears your reservation is already set. You’re scheduled to depart in one hundred fifty-seven years, four months and 16 days. Here’s your boarding pass”
She passed him a long ticket of thick card stock, like an airline ticket, with his name, departure location (Limbo), arrival information (Paradise) and estimated duration of the journey (22 hours, 30 minutes). The reverse side of the ticket detailed the list of prohibited items and activities on the bus (no alcohol, no weapons, no smoking, no talking to the driver while the vehicle is in motion and passengers are strictly forbidden from tampering with the lavatory smoke detector).
Stuart sat down on a bench and waited.
The bus’s PA system crackled to life. A buzzy voice conveyed over antiquated speakers announced their arrival. “Well folks, we’ve arrived at our destination. Be sure to check the departures board for information on your connection, and feel free to avail yourself to the amenities in the station. On behalf of all of our staff, we hope you have a pleasant layover. Have a nice day now, folks”. Groggy passengers stretched their limbs and looked out the tinted windows of the aging bus. They had parked in a diagonal parking bay underneath a corrugated metal overhang supported by utilitarian-looking posts with rust spots showing through the paint. Beyond the station Stuart could see nothing through a dense cloud of fog that extended in every direction.
The same primal compulsion to escape small, crowded places that drives people to undo their safety belt buckles the second their airplane hits the ground fell upon the passengers of the bus. Soon everyone was standing or at least stooping in anticipation of exiting the bus. The passengers murmured flurries of “Go ahead”s and “No, no, after you”s up and down the aisle as their jockeyed for position to get out of their seats. Finally, it was Stuart’s turn. His cross-aisle-rival was an old woman with thinning hair who offered no resistance to Stuart’s edging into the aisle. Slowly they tottered down the aisle towards the door, as there is no graceful way for one to walk down the aisle of a bus, especially in a group of several dozen other escapees.
As Stuart exited the bus, the bus driver smiled and directed him towards a set of faded blue double doors propped open with little wooden wedges. “In there please, that’s the waiting room. Have a pleasant stay, and thanks again everybody!”As he walked closer to the doors he could see that the walls were yellowed from decades of cigarette smoke and the floor was covered in the universal institutional checked tile pattern that you might find in a school cafeteria or, well, a bus station. Row after row of wooden bench seats occupied the center of the room, upon which countless travelers dozed, sat and patiently passed the time. From the outside, the station appeared to take up about half a block’s worth of space, but curiously, to Stuart’s eyes, it seemed much, much bigger. He scanned the room looking for the departures board, and fixed his eyes on a small cheap plastic sign with interchangeable letters. It read “Next Departure:”, with the adjacent space left vacant.
He walked between rows of benches with passengers sprawled out, using jackets as pillows and blocking out the harsh, buzzing fluorescent light with hoods pulled tight over their heads. On the far side of the room was a small snack and toiletry window with a flickering neon sign that read “Station Store” in red cursive letters. Seated behind the counter was a bored-looking, overweight woman sitting on a battered navy blue office chair. She leaned with her chin on her right hand, eyes fixed on the flickering television in the corner of the stall. It was the weather channel. A genial-looking man with a carefully groomed brown mustache and a laser-straight part down the left side of his hair announced the extended forecast for the week.
“Well, it’s looking like more of the same, folks, we’re gonna have heavy fog all through the week with temperatures hovering right around 55 degrees. And now here’s our exclusive doppler radar forecast of the week’s weather. As you can see, this big green patch is the cloudy weather we’ve been having, and now I’m going to fast-forward through the week so you can kind of get a feel for how this system is going to behave. The time stamp in the bottom left hand corner of the screen gave the only indication that anything had changed. The entire screen was enveloped in a uniform green. “And there you have it, folks, have yourselves a great weekend, I’m Steve Schneider, signing off!” He gave a weatherman smile, all full of Botox and insincerity and then signed off.
Stuart cleared his throat. The woman didn’t budge. “Excuse me, ma’am?”, he meekly asked. Without moving a muscle, she shifted her gaze towards him, looked him up and down, and returned her eyes to the flickering TV screen and the intrigues and dramas of the weather channel. “I was just wondering if I could get something to eat?” Stuart said again. She drummed her manicured nails on the counter in annoyance, and Stuart’s heart began to race uncontrollably. Like a hibernating bear waking up in the spring, she lumberingly rolled her chair to the counter. She sighed heavily and spat out a “What?” at Stuart. He was transfixed, caught in her disgusted gaze, unable to say anything. “You want something?”. “Yeah, yes, I mean, I do…”, Stuart stammered. He momentarily broke from her basilisk stare to survey the goods on the shelves behind the counter. Low-sodium Saltine crackers, bottled water with the name of some south Pacific island where Japanese tourists go to play golf and relax, plain instant oatmeal in a cup, those baked potato chips that taste like cardboard, and low-fat, low-sugar generic cookies in a packet.
“I’ll take a pack of the cookies, please”. She sighed and shot a flabby arm on at the shelf, grasping a plastic cylindrical packet of the cookies. “Three seventy-five” she ordered, and he counted out exact change as quickly as possible, not wishing to annoy the woman any longer. She took the money and then lumbered back from the counter so as to get a clearer view of the TV.
He sat down on one of the ubiquitous wooden benches and unwrapped the cellophane package, which revealed ten dry, crumbly cookies with miniature chocolate chips. He bit into one and it collapsed under the pressure of his molars fractally, until it was reduced to a cookie-dust that coated his tongue, absorbing his saliva, rendering a cookie-paste that he forced down his throat joylessly. The water with the Pacific island logo tempted him, but his fear of the counter-lady’s passive-aggressive wrath stopped him from going back to the snack counter.
Next to an old Ms. Pac-Man arcade machine with an “out of order” sign taped on the screen sat a utilitarian brochure rack in a dusty corner. The brochures called out to him, with their vivid blues and greens, and he walked over to pick one up. “Come visit Paradise!” the brochure said, in bold type that arced over a brilliant sun. The cover of the brochure featured a photo of a clear blue sky over a heavenly eighteen-hole golf course and resort. He opened it up and read the following text:
Had enough of waiting around in limbo? Come take the vacation of an afterlifetime in Paradise! We offer endless amenities to souls of all persuasions, from nightly fireworks and parades for the kids (or just the young at heart!), to rivers of milk and honey for the more traditional-minded soul, and of course our world-famous choirs of singing angels! So what are you waiting for? There is direct bus service from Limbo to take you here with no fussing around with transfers along the way! Talk to your ticketing agent today!
Stuart’s eyes went wide and he sank back into the bench. He was dead. He was dead and in his soul was in purgatory. He stood up on shaky legs and headed towards the ticketing counter. There was a line (there is always a line for the ticketing counter, even in the afterlife), and after an indeterminate amount of time (it just occurred to him that all the clocks on the wall never seemed to move past 11:15, which, as everyone knows, is the least stimulating time of day), he reached the ticket window. It was a plexiglass sheet with holes drilled in the middle and a gap to pass money and tickets back and forth at the bottom. A woman with heavy-rimmed glasses, loud gold earrings and a fire-engine red cardigan tapped busily at a coffee-stained keyboard. “Excuse me, I just saw this brochure, and I was wondering if I could book a ticket to Paradise” he said. She turned to him, eyeing him up over the tops of her glasses. “Name?”
“McLeod. Stuart James McLeod”
“Last four digits of your social security number?”
“2974”
“Mr. McLeod, has anyone asked you to pack something in your bag for them, or has anyone put anything in your bag without your knowledge?”
“How would I know if it was without my knowledge?”
She glared at him. “Just a yes or no, there are people waiting behind you”
“No, then”
“… Well, Mr McLeod, it appears your reservation is already set. You’re scheduled to depart in one hundred fifty-seven years, four months and 16 days. Here’s your boarding pass”
She passed him a long ticket of thick card stock, like an airline ticket, with his name, departure location (Limbo), arrival information (Paradise) and estimated duration of the journey (22 hours, 30 minutes). The reverse side of the ticket detailed the list of prohibited items and activities on the bus (no alcohol, no weapons, no smoking, no talking to the driver while the vehicle is in motion and passengers are strictly forbidden from tampering with the lavatory smoke detector).
Stuart sat down on a bench and waited.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Pac Man Life
Without a doubt, the hardest-hit area of life after Japan is ego. The great thing about teaching English in Japan is that no matter who you are, you have instant rockstar status as a foreigner. Provided that you aren’t Chinese or Korean.“I’m from America” no longer cuts it as a pickup line.
And so the quarterlife crisis, that existential quandry that you managed to avoid dealing with by moving to Japan, you discover is still hanging around. Every day, you come home from work, and there’s your quarterlife crisis hanging out on the couch, hogging the remote, adding Wayans brothers movies to the front of your Netflix queue, drinking your beer, listening to crappy nu-metal and not showering regularly. Increasingly he even shows up at your work, just to mock you for painting houses with a B.A. in Humanities and Social Sciences.
You reflect that perhaps you brought it all on yourself by majoring in LInguistics, a field that most people don’t know exists, and that most of the others think is synonymous with translation. At least you got a couple years abroad out of the deal though, right?
The problem with college is that it doesn’t prepare you for life. Not in the sense that you’re never really going to use trigonometry in your daily routine, but in the sense that in school, every few months, you have your finals, a new semester or quarter begins, and the whole cycle begins again. It’s like finishing a level in Super Mario Brothers. Hell, you even have points in college. No, the reason college doesn’t prepare students for life in the real world is not because of irrelevance. It’s because life is not Super Mario Brothers. It’s Pac Man. It’s Tetris. It’s Pong. You might finish the level, but there’s no princess, and it all just gets faster, more difficult, and increasingly manic as you progress. Until you die.
There’s a freeware game that I came across the other day, it’s called Passage. It reminds me of those old 8-bit NES games. You have a five-minute time limit, within which you can do whatever you want. You are a little pixilated guy with blue eyes and blond hair. You can walk around a little world in any direction you want. The right hand side of the screen stretches off and blurs into the horizon. You meet a little pixilated woman, and she begins to follow you around. The little pixilated timer in the corner keeps counting up to five minutes, and you begin to notice the little pixilated couple getting older. Eventually, your pixilated blond hair disappears altogether, and the woman in replaced with a little pixilated grave marker. All of a sudden you realize that no longer is the right hand side that stretches on into pixelated, blurry 8-bit promise, but the left hand side, what you’ve already crossed over. And by the time you’ve put the whole metaphor together, your little nameless pixilated guy has been replaced by his own little grave marker. No power-ups, no giant, fire-breathing lizards, no flame throwers or assault rifles, just life in 8-bit technicolor glory, and a reminder that the clock is still ticking along, regardless of what you decide to do with that time.
It’s a lot of pressure, living in a Pac Man world.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Broken Down
"You know rattle snakes, right?", I asked.
"Yes, why?"
I paused to set the shutter speed and turn the focus ring on my camera lens. "This is great. Evolution in action, you're gonna love it. So," I paused, and depressed the little silver shutter button on my camera "I read that farmers shot so many rattlesnakes, that now, a lot of them don't have rattles. Turned out to be a bad evolutionary strategy in light of the invention of shotguns. Now, they just sneak up on you and bite". "Oh my god", she said, looking around her feet, "do they have them here?". "Sure do. Don't worry, they're big, you'll see 'em coming", I said, squinting in the morning sun through the viewfinder and snapping off a couple more photos. Ken looked over and interjected, in between swigs of beer. "You shouldn't worry about 'em though, if you get medical attention, you'll be fine. Unless it's a baby. They don't know when to stop biting, they just go crazy, and you're dead before you know it". The dregs of his beer swirled around the bottom of the bottle, and he pulled a joint out of a pocket in his jacket sleeve.
I never used to understand what prophets and wise men ever saw in the desert, but when you see it with your own eyes, you witness something transcendent. It is a steadily pulverizing, withering landscape. The desert produced the three major monotheistic religions of the world, and I don't think it's coincidence. Like a monolithic, vengeful God, there is no escape, no place to hide from the scorching sun during the day, or the freezing cold at night. The only thing like it in the world is the ocean. I'm pretty sure if there was ever a people who lived amongst the waves of the ocean, they would dream up something like the god of Abraham. Except it might be more temperamental.
Tunnels of unseen desert creatures collapsed under our sneakers as we walked further into the desert, sending us stumbling and throwing up little clouds of dust in our wake. I wondered exactly whose homes we kept inadvertantly destroying, and how long it would take to build them again. In the desert, everything seems closer than it is. With nothing but creosote bushes, desert shrubs and the occasional joshua tree, distance doesn't really register. What you perceive seems to be largely based on where you stand on the optimism-pessimism spectrum. The train tracks off in the distance might take an hour to walk to. Or it might take two. But it didn’t much matter either way. When your bus is broken down indefinitely on the side of the road, time doesn't register much either. So here we all were, two dozen of us, getting to know each other in the desert and passing time as best we could. Drinking, smoking, throwing a frisbee, or just inventing our own pastimes.
Another traveling with our group, a goateed former Mormon flanked by two Czech girls walked towards us from the directtion of the tracks. As they approached, he waved, and we stopped. "We just got back from the tracks, take a look at these.” He pulled out a half dozen barely recognizable coins from his pocket. They reflected little distorted ovals in his dark sunglasses “I put all the change in my pockets on the tracks. Look, I tried to make this one sandwich into the other".
We passed the ex-coins around the five of us. A former nickel landed in my palm; Thomas Jefferson's face was warped and flattened, and an imprint of Lincoln's profile intruded into the back of his head. "That's awesome", I said; and I meant it. I turned the mangled disc over in my palm, admiring the handiwork of the locomotive. Monticello was completely leveled. "That's probably the most productive thing anybody's done here today". I meant that too.
My earliest memories of the desert come from driving across the state to visit the relatives during summer vacation. I remember the rolling, dusty hills covered in muted grey-green bushes, and I was awed, every single time, by the cliffs and gorges. The way you could see the time marked so clearly on the cliff faces in the erosion patterns left an impression on me. It was like God was playing with an open hand for a change. It's such a vivid depiction of the passing of glacially slow, powerful events, that you're forced to consider what geologic time really is, and where you stand in it. It becomes increasingly difficult to justify your own feelings of self-importance, but pretty soon you forget about all of that stuff anyway. You realize we’re all just tourists passing through this world. Sitting around, doing what we do, and waiting around for our ride out.
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