After Dark

Eileen O’Shaughnessy showed up at the gate and the responsible angel in charge stared her down, unconvinced. He scanned her aura and pointed her towards a door that said WASTED LIVES for processing.

“But I didn’t waste my life!” Eileen protested, bewildered.

“That’s for the officials to decide, ma’m, not me,” the angel commented distracted, already looking away to signal she had exhausted the time he was willing to spend with her.

“But I didn’t waste my life,” she whispered to herself, while another angel, in charge of processing, waved her to come in.

“Did you fill out your forms?”

‘Forms?’ she thought. ‘There are forms?’

“Of course,” the angel frowned impatiently. “Forms 330 and 275, didn’t anybody notify you?”

‘Notify me when? I just arrived.’

“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.

“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.”

Photo by Krzysztof Kowalik on Unsplash