No Wings, Halo on Request - Chapter 1

Now, I realise that most stories start at the beginning but, you see, that is a real problem for me. Not because I like to be complicated, or artistic, or clever, or confusing, but simply because I’m not really certain where this tale really begins. Some days I think it was the day I died, other days I think it was the moment I was conceived and, on the harder days, I’m still not sure I have really reached the beginning of my journey.

You have to understand, I did not even know I was on a journey. I had never really considered it, to be truthful. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe, or anything. I was just too busy. However, as it transpires, I was on something of a voyage. You will understand what I mean one day. As I have discovered, we are all on our journeys. Some are longer than others, though. Mine appears to be one of the epic ones: I had totted up an impressive ‘life points’ tally.

I have answered many questions, however, which I suppose you could call progress. Many of you will have considered the same things, perhaps fleetingly, or maybe even to match the most profound depths of the greatest philosophers. I was never one for considering life’s conundrums or solving the mysteries of the universe, but I didn’t need to be. Time provided me with the answers to just about everything. Not everything, of course, I hasten to add. I might be dead, but I am still human. If you were to give me all the answers to my every wondering, I would cease to have a purpose. Just like you. We all need questions to function, alive or dead.

Before we get started, though, I should quell one particular myth, although I am really not supposed to. But I will anyway. Death does not hurt. Not a bit. Now, I know many people suffer horribly before they die, but the actual death part is surprisingly pleasant. I didn’t even know I had passed on, such was the sudden nature of my own, until I reached the sky and realised how warm and comfortable I was. I wasn’t flying, so much as floating on a bubble of tranquillity. I was slow to realise, I will admit, and that can’t possibly be the same for everyone who experiences it, but I can only tell you what happened to me. When you die you realise one irrefutable truth: you were never afraid of dying, only afraid of not being truly alive.

It is, though, a strange feeling to realise you are dead. I was far too high up to see what had happened, but I knew that there was only one plausible explanation for how I was rising through the clouds. It’s not as numb as you might think it would be. The sun is beating down and keeping you from freezing, but the worry does start to set in quite quickly. Because, you see, once you pass through the azure, you are in outer space and, as we all know, there is no air there. It turns out, however, that once you are dead, you can breathe in space. Well, you think you can, but I shall explain that later.

The next thing that struck me was the fact I was not going to see Marlene or the kids again. Now that did upset me a lot. I would have liked the opportunity to say goodbye. These days, of course, I know better than to worry about such things, but you don’t realise that when you’re new to this. It is really quite disturbing. They do their best to ease you into death, but I guess there isn’t much they can do. At the end of the day, I was floating through space, breathing and crying about being taken away from everyone I loved. There’s probably no easy way to acclimatise someone to that.

The interesting part of it, now that I understand how it all works, is that they can transport you there instantly, yet they choose to float you there. Apparently, they like for people to slowly come to terms with what is happening, so that their emotional state is calmer when they meet their Admissions Officer, because unstable mental states can cause big problems, even when it involves dead people. I have heard of some people taking weeks to get to us.

Another point I should make at this juncture is that, although I refer to them as ‘people’ that is, of course, not exactly what they are. It’s just easier that way, so you can understand. Perhaps ‘soul’ would be a better word to describe it, but ‘people’ is more tangible and the mind can assimilate it. As I have found out, this place revolves around what a person’s mind can cope with. I don’t even know exactly what we are or what this place is because, apparently, the restrictions of my human mind could not cope with the reality. So it must be weird, because I am quite enlightened by now. But we, as a race, have boundaries within our minds that we cannot control and, if they are crossed, we simply go insane. So they make it plausible for us: they even have fake wind, because we cannot feel comfortable when there is no wind outside at all. It’s just too strange for us after a lifetime of being used to it. It’s like the breathing in space. I wasn’t breathing; there was no air and I was dead; so my lungs did not even need the oxygen, but I have spent a lifetime breathing, so my brain can’t just stop now. So they let me think I’m breathing. I still do it, even now.

This whole place is just like that, though. It isn’t real, that much I must stress. They have created it for us to stop us going crazy if faced with the reality which, I’m told, is simply a black void. A human mind could never understand the concept of living in an endless, black void, so they made us a ‘heaven’ to keep the madness at bay. I say Heaven, because that’s what you all call it down there, but that’s not it’s real name. I don’t know what the real name is, though. They tell me that our anatomy doesn’t have the capability to actually say the real name. The only creatures that could say it are some insects, bats, whales and dolphins, so I’m told. Something to do with clicks and sonic-speech, but I didn’t pry too much. After a while, you just learn to accept these things.

So, Heaven, as we shall call it, is a very basic place, created for the parameters of ours minds. The humans all dwell on the beach, which stretches out endlessly, with infinite huts continuing on well beyond the horizon. Inland; which it isn’t, of course, but we shall call it that; are jungles, deserts, lakes and even barren, icy lands, although I have never been to any of them. This is for the animals, not for the humans, but some people choose to live there. They don’t oppose it; they just ask you to be careful. I’m told the ocean and the beach never end. They carry on for eternity which, again, is a problem to really understand. I was going to test it once, not long after I got here, but decided against it. If they say it goes on forever, then it goes on forever.

Anyway, I digress too easily. So, I shall start at the point when I saw the gap. I was floating, much less miserable now and just wondering if I would ever stop, when I noticed a gap in the stars. It looked like someone had taken a knife and slashed down the canvas of space itself, so I had no idea what was going to happen next. But the gap got larger and larger until I was right upon it. There was nothing the other side; just impenetrable blackness; and when I entered all the stars vanished. Still, there was a light in the distance that was getting bigger and brighter, so I wasn’t too concerned at this point. I figured it was the Pearly Gates, or another star maybe. I expected to see angels and harpsichords, clouds and God. What I hadn’t expected was what was actually there.