I remember hitting the floor and being a bit grossed out because the carpet never seemed to get cleaned properly, Tom saying, “someone call 911” and then…that was it for a few minutes.
Suddenly I’m on a beach somewhere and the sun’s shining and I can hear what sounds like old Gypsy Kings playing over loudspeakers.
The place looks really familiar, but I can’t place it.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a middle aged guy in a yellow Hawaiian shirt and khaki cargo pants coming towards me.
He waves at me and I wave back.
“So, you’re here,” he says with what sounds like a cross between an announcement and pride.
“Yeah,” I say, “Wherever here is…”
“Umm,” he says,” It’s…you know…Heaven…Just like you asked for.”
“Heaven?”
“Yeah, you know,” he says, “The eternal hereafter.”
“Is a tropical resort?”
“Well,” he says, “Obviously it’s different for everyone. This is your idea of heaven.”
“OK,” I say, dubious and still processing it.
“No, but….you said this was your idea of Heaven.”
“Whe…when did I say that?”
“January 25th, 1986…You were back from Christmas Break at Alabama State and Alison Talbot asked you how was your vacation and you said, quote “It was heaven…I wish I could stay there forever….unquote.”
He made a gesture to indicate where we were.
“So, here you go,” he said.
“I didn’t mean it literally….It was a figure of speech.”
“Aww shit,” the guy said, “Seriously?”
“It was hyperbole…I mean I had a great time and all, but here for ETERNITY?”
“Yeah, that’s what we took that statement to mean.”
“We?”
“You know….the sub-angels? The people who arrange the afterlife accommodations?”
“I mean,” I say, “ I appreciate the obvious effort that went into this, but…Can I choose where I can spend the rest of my lif…afterlife? There are a lot of places I’d love to spend eternity.”
“Wow, umm,” the guy said, “ That’s a big logistical thing that I’m not really qualified to answer one way or the other…I mean….where else would you want to go?”
“Uhhh…Grad School in London 1991 was good…The year I was articling for Porter and Levitt was pretty good….New Orleans 1999…I mean N’awlins pre-Katrina? That’d be sweet, am I right? . To be honest, hard to pick one time I’d want to live in eternally. I mean, the whole fun of them was that they were transient, I knew they were just chapters in my life, so carpe diem and all that right? It’d lose all the fun if I knew I had forever to ‘enjoy’ it.”
“You know what?” the guy said, “ I’ll talk to management and see what we can do about an upgrade.”