Hi, I'm FRANCIS ROSENFELD

She couldn't do anything that didn't fit with the generally agreed upon norms of her social circle, so she moved heaven and earth to go back to work. By now she'd already started realizing that the career she had envisioned was never going to happen, but she did the responsible thing, worked hard and kept her dreams to herself.

It was the socially acceptable thing to do, therefore she didn't have to worry about opinions and commentary, and life went on, as usual, with the amendment that the new usual was one without dreams.

At the age of forty the option of giving up in order to avoid confrontation suddenly became unavailable to Rachel and her life didn't allow her to coast anymore.

She had to worry about opinions and commentary, was anxious and mortified of what people would think of her and people enthusiastically obliged, dumping the entire backlog of criticism, disapproval and contempt at her feet. By now they were, yet again, different people, and, for a change, she did have the sense to notice.

It finally dawned on Rachel that living on anxious and mortified in order to appease constantly changing groups of people was a very unhealthy lifestyle and definitely not one she could sustain long term. She realized she had things to contribute to the world and her views mattered.

She took a stern look at her life, kept what she liked and ditched what she didn't, got used to opinions and commentary and published her writing (yes, the one she had carefully stashed in a drawer because she was anxious and mortified of what people would think of her). She started learning things again and cultivated useless but personally rewarding skills. She no longer hesitates to voice her opinion in public and stopped worrying about failure.

“Here,” the angel shoved a stack of papers in her hands. “Fill these out and come back to the desk when you’re done. Next!” he looked to the next applicant.

A line was starting to form and Eileen scurried out of the room, feeling awkward and followed by judgmental looks.

The checklist (that’s what it said at the top of the page) was four pages long and very detailed. The font was unreasonably small and hard to read, and each painfully specific item had a box next to it, to be checked as worthy activity completed.

Eileen had never flaunted the rules. All her life she’d filled her forms and checked her boxes without questioning the reason behind them, so she started from the top on these current ones as well and did her best to answer them truthfully. Half way through the list she started to panic. She’d been through two pages of the questionnaire already and couldn’t check a single box.

‘What on earth did I do with my life?’ she asked herself, suddenly turned insecure by the stack of papers that kept falling out of her lap and drawing everyone’s attention. ‘Isn’t there any place I could do this privately?’

“You can skip form 330 if you find it too challenging,” an assistant angel advised with a condescending smile.

"Just fill in the other form and bring it to the desk. If you have problems reading it someone will be there to assist you."

‘Form 275,’ Eileen mumbled to herself. ‘NET WORTH. Really? They care about this in Heaven? Something is not right here.’

“Excuse me,” she tried to draw the attention of the assistant angel, but the latter was busy with something that looked rather important and signaled towards her with a raised finger to be patient.

She buried her nose back in the forms, trying to make herself look good on paper, despite the alarming scarcity of checked boxes.

"I’m afraid you’ve exhausted your time, ma’m. Can you please follow me?”

‘What is this, the SATs? They’re timing this test? Wait, this is a test?’

“This way, please,” the annoyed assistant said.

“Where are we going?”

“The picture room,” the assistant replied, embarrassed. “It’s for people who have difficulty reading the forms. I’m sorry, I didn’t make the rules.”

‘What’s in the picture room?’ Eileen asked herself, anxious.

“You don’t have to feel ashamed,” the assistant mumbled, looking down,“everybody has a story.”

‘What’s in the picture room?’ Eileen anxiety rose by degrees.

“Here you go,” the assistant let her in. “Please make yourself as comfortable as you can. This can be a taxing process. We record everything, you know. For your personal use, of course.”

Eileen sat on the plush sofa at the center of the room, while a stream of images kept flowing on the walls and ceiling like a river: birthday cakes and wedding pictures, trips and holidays and little frustrating moments, beautiful sunrises and powerful thunderstorms, love and tears, hopes and disappointments and sudden surprises, beloved pets and enjoyable hobbies. Her life flowed before her eyes, not flashing, but slow and enjoyable like a movie you watch over and over because it comforts you.

“Is she still in there?” another angel in charge, who had just arrived at the scene, snapped, irritated. “You’d think one would find it sufficient to waste one’s life once. This one is watching reruns. Could you please call Security, I think she was sent here by mistake.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” the assistant spoke softly, evidently concerned about Eileen’s fate.

“I’m surprised you have to ask,” the first angel retorted, offended. “You’ve seen her in the picture room! She’s not even showing regret, it’s like she’s enjoying this!”

“Did you process her paperwork?”

“No, I voided all her forms, she’s scheduled for transfer.”

“We’re not here to fix them all, are we?” the angel in charge sighed emphatically and signed the transfer form. “Ready for transport.”

Eileen was still watching her movie when they came to take her, and she dragged her feet out of the room for as long as she could without looking like she was trying to make a fuss.

“This way,” another assistant angel showed her to her vehicle.

“Where are we going?” she asked, anxiously.

“Don’t worry about it, ma’m,” the angel responded. “It won’t take long.”

The vehicle stopped at the end of an alley covered in white gravel and shaded by oak trees, hundreds of years old, arching gracefully overhead and leading to an imposing gate she could barely see in the dark, revealed only now and then by the glow of the stars.

The gravel gleamed too in their scant light, as if dusted in silver.

Eileen looked back at the angel, who smiled and encouraged her to follow the path to the gate.

She could feel her heart beating in her neck and in her ears; she was overwhelmed by this physical sensation, which in any logical context should have been impossible now.

When she reached the gate she was surprised by how big it really was, and figured she must have walked that silver path for a very long time, without realizing it.

One of the panes was slightly ajar, and she gently pushed it open, just enough to squeeze through it into a garden whose fragrance dripped from every branch, filling the night air with a divine scent of honeysuckle, jasmine and magnolias.

“Welcome home, Eileen,” a voice from nowhere resonated, sounding like it was really close, but she couldn’t see any being it could have belonged to.

“Where am I?” she asked, unsettled by the fact she was expecting an answer out of thin air.

“You don’t know?” the voice chuckled kindly. “This is Heaven.”

“So, then…the other place…”

“Oh, that was the waiting room,” the voice explained. “They’re really big on paperwork there. Did you complete your mission and values statement?”

“No,” she replied thoughtfully. “They took away my forms after I failed the portion about my net worth, I only had time to go through the first half.”

“Yeah, well, it seems it still took you too long. If I knew you’d arrive at night I would have put up some lighting for you.”

"What's going on here?" Mrs. Davenport approached, graceful as usual, her elaborately coiffed hair sleeked back and stepping lightly on her heels."Are you guys still debating?" she smiled and weaved her way through the group to get to the other side.

"Make sure you're not late for class," her sweet admonishment lingered behind her, shifting the students' focus away from the box for a second. The youngsters watched her go, then returned to the bone of contention.

"I'm telling you there are eleven", insisted a very fair skinned boy whose hair and eyebrows were almost as light as his complexion.

"And how would you know?" the tall girl clamored with a shrill tone in her voice that made several people shudder.

"I just know", the boy insisted, looking down with great conviction, loathed to engage the girl in yet another fight.

She delighted in conflict and seldom needed a reason to start another argument.

"Does anybody actually know what they are talking about?" she dared the audience, hoping that somebody would take the challenge. Nobody was eager to pick up the gauntlet, except, again, for the little guy who was still munching. He seemed to have an endless supply of snacks squirreled away in his pockets, supply he relied on to calm his jitters. He eyed the box with longing eyes, unwrapped another tootsie roll, preoccupied, then interrupted the conversation, speaking with his mouth full.

"I think he's right, there are eleven", he concurred without offering any explanation for his opinion.

They all looked at the box again, trying to assess the contents by volume. The tall girl puffed dismissively at his comment, eager to move on to her own estimation.

The bell rang and everybody rushed to the next period, concerned not to be late and forgetting all about the box for a while. Forty five minutes later the discussion resumed. Groups formed, contradicting each other, each more certain than the next and ardently defending their convictions.

The tall girl tried to drag the little guy into a heated argument, her efforts thwarted by a small but very noisy bag of pretzels.

'Where does he get them', she thought, irate, staring him down and waiting for the munching to subside. When the bag was finished, to her dismay, a chocolate cookie appeared to take its place. She gave up on the challenge of showing the little chipmunk what a real debate looked like, it didn't seem to be worth her trouble.

"You are not going to lunch?" a friend asked the skinny guy who shrugged and shook his head, too absorbed in the conversation scene to miss ten minutes.

His friend waited for a few moments and then left. The argument expanded and rose above their heads like the air of an overheated room; just when the tension was about to burst the bell rang again and they all went to class.

"So why are we wasting our time with this again?" the fair skinned boy asked, another hour later.

"Don't you want to know how many there are?" the tall girl asked.

"No, not really, who cares?" he retorted with non-dissimulated boredom.

"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about, it's people like you who care for nothing but themselves who are the problem", the tall girl took the opportunity to be offended and ran with it.

Mr. Schneider, the science teacher, approached the group, opened the box, took a doughnut, closed it right back and left.

"I think there were ten", the skinny guy said, mad at himself for not paying attention.

"Nine", the tall girl screeched.

"I tell you there were ten", he insisted.

"Did you count them?" asked the girl, aggressively getting in his face.

"Did you?" he countered, standing his ground.

The box defied them from the table, light gray inanimate object that it was, impervious to opinion, inquisitiveness and frustration.