Heaven or Hell?
By mallisle
- 1027 reads
"I shouldn't have overtaken that bicycle," said Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone.
"It was on the brow of the hill, wasn't it?" asked the man in a white suit.
"Yes. It was late at night. I was tired. I wasn't concentrating. There was a lorry coming the other way. Are you God?"
"No. I'm an angel."
"Are we dead?" asked Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone.
"No, you're not dead, you're unconscious. You're in the car. The paramedics will be arriving any minute. Your son has been praying for you for 40 years."
"Why?" asked Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone.
"Because he wants you to find Jesus."
"Find Jesus?" asked Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone.
"I have come here, in what may be the final hours of your life, to give you both an opportunity to repent."
"Repent?"
"Reconsider the claims of the gospel. Turn from your sins and turn to God."
"I shouldn't think our sins would be anything much," said Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone. "We wouldn't hurt anyone."
"No, I've never done anything wrong," said Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone.
"Oh, but you have, you see, we all have," said the angel. "An evil thought is as bad as an evil deed. You will have to stand before God and give an account for every careless word you have ever spoken. We have all done wrong."
"We are decent people," said Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone. "We want go to Heaven."
"To go to Heaven in your sins would be painful," said the angel.
"No, no. We are decent people. We've never harmed anyone. We demand to go straight to Heaven."
As Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone said these words they moved along a long, dark tunnel into a bright light, which eventually became a garden. It was full of beautiful fields and trees. It was very beautiful, like a beautiful part of the countryside on a sunny day. Except there was no Sun, everywhere was bathed in a brilliant white light. They walked through the trees until they came to a small group of buildings that looked like a village. A woman in a white robe came out to meet them.
"Hello," she said. "I will show you to your house." She led them into a small hut that had a hole for a front door and a roof of thatched straw. It had a window, two chairs to sit on, and a table.
"Where's the kitchen?" asked Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone.
"You don't need one of those here."
"Where's the bedroom?" asked Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone.
"Nobody goes to sleep here."
"Where's the bathroom?"
"Don't be daft, Ian," said Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone. "Do you really think people need to go to the toilet in Heaven?"
"You can sit here and read your books and listen to the radio." There was a small stereo radio in the corner of the room. It looked like a big metal cube with speakers on the side. The woman turned it on and left Mr. and Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone to listen to the music.
"I don't like this religious music they keep playing," said Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone. After about half an hour the jingle came on the radio.
"Why don't you phone Radio Tabernacle and ask for your favourite song? Call 0800 777 555."
"I've got a mobile phone in my pocket," said Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone, picking up the mobile. "Hey Irene, I can call the radio people." He dialled the number. "Hello."
"Yes. Radio Tabernacle. Ruth speaking."
"Could I request a song?"
"Certainly. What song would you like?"
"Two Minutes to Midnight by Iron Maiden."
"I don't know that one, how does it go?" Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone began to sing.
"The body bags and little rags of children torn in two, duu-duu-duu, and the jellied brains of those who remain to put the finger right on you, duu-duu-duu."
"Eee, how horrible. We don't play songs like that on Radio Tabernacle."
Mr. and Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone went for a walk. They saw a large number of black people walking down to the village.
"The black people are moving in," said Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone. "Down go the property prices."
"Actually," said a white man who was also passing, "we have no money."
"If you have no money, why does anybody go to work?"
"There is no work here."
"What do people do all day?"
"They worship God."
"I wouldn't want to sit on a cloud playing a harp."
"Oh, I love doing that. And if you get tired of playing a harp there's always electric guitars and plenty of keyboards. We've got a really nice choir. All kinds of music, ancient and modern."
"I'm Church of England. What are they doing in our country?" asked Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone.
"What are you doing in their country? In the late 20th century most of the people who became Christians were African. The Church of England went down to 1 million people. If you want to go to Heaven, you'll have to get used to different races."
Mr. and Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone came back to the village. A woman was hugging a black man.
"I wish these people would stop endlessly hugging eachother, it's so yucky." said Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone. Now the same woman came up to him.
"Hello," she said. "Are you new here?"
"Yes, I am, and I don't want to be hugged by a complete stranger. Where can a man get a drink in this village?"
"Go down by the river," said one of the other villagers. "Come with me." The man led them down to the banks of the river which was lined with trees that bore all sorts of multi-coloured fruit.
"Is that all you eat here?" asked Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone.
"Yes."
"Don't you ever get tired of just eating fruit?"
"There are seventy five different varieties of fruit. Some of them taste like chocolates, some of them taste like meat, some of them taste like fish, some of them taste like cheese or vegetables. One never gets tired of fruit." Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone picked a purple fruit and took a big bite.
"It tastes like a rum truffle chocolate," he said.
"Yes, they are quite tasty."
"I need a drink." The man gave Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone a goblet, which he used to scoop some water out of the river. He then drank it.
"This tastes like, mmm, I don't know, maybe a kind of minty lemonade. Try a little bit, Irene." He handed the goblet to his wife.
"Yes, it's nice, a kind of lemonade with a hint of mint ice cream."
"Have you got anything alcoholic?" asked Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone. The villager looked shocked.
"Is there anywhere I can buy, I mean get, some new clothes?" asked Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone. "I'm tired of wearing these white robes, and I would love a nice pair of boots or a pretty jacket."
"No, there isn't. We all wear white robes all the time, we never really think about it," said the villager.
When Mr. and Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone got back to the hut they saw a newspaper that had been left on the table while they had been out. Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone picked it up and read it aloud.
"Good News for Modern Man," he read. "Edition 132,492. Why are there so many editions?"
"Good News for Modern Man was the title of a Bible that came out in the 1970s," said a neighbour, who happened to be standing nearby. "Here, every day's newspaper is a new edition of the Bible. There's so much to learn and you've got so long to learn it. Have a look at the article on page 22, Understanding God's Righteousness, that contains some interesting new insights." Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone flicked through the paper. There were all sorts of articles about various aspects of Heaven and religion. How did God make the flowers on the top of a mountain that colour? 45 things you can do to please God every day. Reflections on some of the latest choirs and worship bands. Music you can play on your harp. Selwyn Hughes' eight page pull out on sacrificial atonement. He put the newspaper down.
"Well Ian, what do you think?" asked Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone.
"I think I'd rather be in Hell."
"It's not our kind of place, is it?" At that moment the hut and the village disappeared. All Mr. and Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone could see was the man in the white suit.
"You weren't actually in Heaven," he said. "You're in a hospital, you're both on life support. Your son is still praying for you. I just gave you a vision of Heaven, so that you could understand what Heaven would be like."
"We hated it," said Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone.
"It is possible for you to be changed. I could set you free from your hatred of black people."
"Hatred?" exclaimed Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone. "We don't hate black people. We don't wish them any harm."
"No," said Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone, "we just wish they were somewhere else."
"I could set you free from your addiction to violent rock music and alcohol."
"Oh, Ian, you've got far worse sins than I've got, haven't you?" said Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone.
"And I could set you free from your addiction to clothes shopping."
"You think that's a sin?"
"Love of money is the root of all evil. Anything in your life that means more to you than God is idolatory." Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone screamed.
"Well, if that's the case I should think that hardly anyone goes to Heaven."
"That's probably true," said the man in the white suit.
"Look," said Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone, "I've got nothing against religious people, I don't wish them any harm, but religion is boring. It's just really, really boring. Cameras are exciting. And so are cars and motorbikes, so is racing round and round a rally track, so is getting drunk, so are rock songs with bloodthirsty, murderous lyrics, so is pornography."
"Ian, I didn't know you looked at pornography. I didn't know you did that."
"Being unfaithful to your wife on your computer," said the man in the white suit.
"If I'd known that I'd have thrown his computer out of the window."
"We've all done wrong, haven't we Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone?"
"Yes, we have," she shrieked, "and it's fun - fun, fun, fun! We are homosapiens. We like doing wrong. We like clothes and cars and beer and computers and rock music and money and being selfish, totally selfish. And we hate religion and churches and multi racial caring communities where people walk around hugging black people, where people live on seventy five different varieties of fruit and drink water from the river which isn't even alcoholic."
"What's Hell like?" asked Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone. "Is it any less terrifying?"
"I think the answer to that is no," said the man in the white suit. "Whatever Hell is like, it will be even more terrifying."
"Send us to Heaven," said Mrs. Wouldnthurtanyone. "I suppose we could get used to it, even just put up with it. Better than Hell."
"You have to repent. You have to turn from your sins and believe in God with all your heart."
"Never," shouted Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone at the top of his voice. "Never in a million years." The man in the white suit disappeared.
In the hospital their son was still sitting in a chair near the two beds. The alarm sounded, and doctors and nurses came running from everywhere, to see if they could resuscitate Mr. Wouldnthurtanyone. A young female nurse opened a wooden case that was full of hypodermic syringes and drugs.
"Apparent systole," said the doctor. "There's nothing we can do." He looked at their son. "I'm afraid we're going to have to turn the machine off."
"That's all right," said the son. A few minutes later the alarm on mother's machine started ringing. Their son knew enough about medicine to be able to recognise the flat line of mother's heartbeat. There would be no possibility of resuscitation.
"She is clinically dead," said the doctor.
"I know. Turn the machine off," said their son. "But what's that terrified look on her face?"
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