Terminus

Eddie Soulston was dying. He had cancer, but the cancer had savaged his body's immune system, so he had pretty much everything else as well. He was a trainee medic's dream.

He was dying, and he knew that when he died that would be it, farewell world, farewell universe. There was no god, no afterlife, when he died he'd be a big treat for the worms and a freed up bed in the hospital and that was all.

Death was coming, he could feel it in his bones, his blood, his urine. He was wearing his ultimate pjamas, sleeping on his final sheets, he'd coughed his last cough, farted his last fart. This was it. Death was upon him.

Except it wasn't. He felt himself rise from his body, drifting along a long corridor, before finding himself in an enormous terminus. All around him were people, rushing this way and that way, it was all a blur.

At last he saw someone with a clipboard, who alone among all the chaos and confusion, was stock still, as if waiting to help.

"Excuse me," he said. "I appear to have died. This isn't heaven is it?"

"No, this is The Terminus. I'm Doreen, one of the guides. I'm here to help you find The Way."

"The Terminus? What's that?"

"It's where you pass through on the way to heaven. Tell me which religion you belong to and I'll point you in the right direction."

"Well, none. I'm an atheist. I never believed in all this afterlife nonsense."

"I see. Well, you were wrong. As you can see you have survived into the afterlife. However, as you have no relevant beliefs, you will need to meet one of our Spiritual Guides to help you find a path you wish to take."

"Can't I just go to heaven with everyone else?"
"But which heaven? You need to find your spiritual direction so you know where to go. Were your family religious at all?"

"Well I was raised as a Catholic."

Good."

"So I know for a fact that's all horseshit."

"Ah." The woman glanced at her clipboard. "Mary's free, she's one of our best Guides, she'll be able to advise you."

The Terminus remained a blur of people, technically just souls, but as just a soul himself, Eddie recognised them as his equals.  His soul travelled in the direction in which he'd been pointed and he found himself in an office, sat opposite another woman, who although she lacked a clipboard, nevertheless spoke in clipboard speak.

"Hello Eddie," she said with a smile. "You were an atheist I understand, and now you've nowhere to go. I'm here to help you reflect, to find a belief system that will enable you to leave The Terminus and go to your desiny.

"Why can't I just go where everyone else goes. To heaven, or whatever."

"Because people don't go to the same place. Their destiny depends on their beliefs. There's a different heaven for every one of us I always say."

"How can it depend what belief system I choose? Surely what happens to your soul is a fact, it can't change depending on what I want to believe. Either there's one god, or a hundred, I go to eternal bliss, or return as a camel. There can't be millions of contradictory systems operating concurrently."

"The universe is not as straightforward as it seems through the eyes of science. It is perfectly possible for conflicting beliefs to be true, I see it every minute of every day. But until you believe you can't move on. Your beliefs will make the next stage possible."

"Shall I tell you what I believe then."

"Please do."

"What I believe is that this is all shit."

"Pardon?"

"This is all bollocks. It can't be true. I'm dead, a fucking corpse, there's no no possibility of me living on, entering the next world. It's physically and logically impossible. It's just a crock of shit."

There was a pause. Mary looked at the papers on her desk, as if her next lines were written there, or perhaps being written there as she watched. Eventually she spoke.

"Well done."

"Well done?"

"You've passed the test. This isn't real, you see, it's all a dream. A test you set yourself."

"A test?"

"To check you are ready to die, that you wouldn't cling desperately to false hopes as death approached. You always believed you were above that, and now you've proved it."

"So what happens now?"

"The dream ends."

And as the dream ended, so did Eddie Soulston's life. But that's okay, he was ready.