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“Then what is it now?”
“I don’t know. Probably something from the future.”
Reaching out to pick it up, I stopped when he said that. “But I didn’t discover anything with the baseball bat. Definitely not any of that stuff you were saying about man’s immortality: I just brained the caveman with it.”
“Yes, but that’s because I’ve chosen to intervene. There simply isn’t enough time for it to happen in the slow and proper way it should. Mankind is in jeopardy and we must work quickly to avoid a catastrophe. I’ll tell you the end of my story briefly and you will understand.
“When I grasped the extraordinary importance of the Heidelberg Cylinder, I became obsessed with my search and found it again and again the further I looked. But what was I to do with my discovery? Who should I tell and in what context?”
I had to interrupt. “When did you turn into, uh, what you are?”
“Once we’ve learned about the Cylinder, all of us change eventually.”
That made me stand up. “What do you mean? Change how?”
“It varies from person to person. I can’t say how it will affect you.”
I was getting nervous again. “But what about Brooks and Zin Zan? They’re both normal. They’re weird but they’re normal.”
“For now, because both of them are new to the group. But sooner or later they will change and take on new forms. We call it ‘hatching.’ As I said, I can’t tell you what forms either of them will take, but they will definitely metamorphose into something entirely different.”
“Do they know that? Do they know they’re going to change?”
“Of course Mr. Gallatin, and they welcome it.”
“So does that mean now that I know, I’m going to change too?”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t want to change! I like my life.”
“I’m afraid we need you more than you need your life. I want to show you something.”
Before I had a chance to protest, everything changed. In an instant, a blink, half a breath, we went from jungle to paradise.
I’d heard it before but now I know it’s true: paradise is what you want it to be. If you imagine angels with wings and harps sitting on gold clouds, that’s what you’ll see. Perfect gardens where lions dance the cha-cha while beautiful women serve you ice-cold rum? Then that’s what it will be. I didn’t know my paradise until I saw it. The moment I did, I knew this was it-nothing could be better.
An outdoor restaurant in the middle of the countryside somewhere. A few metal tables were set up under four big chestnut trees. The wind was blowing, tossing up the corners of the white tablecloths. The sun shone down through the leaves, flickering beautiful yellow, green and white light across everything.
A bunch of people were sitting at one of the tables having the best time laughing, eating and talking. A black guy was sitting at one end of the table playing a Gibson Hummingbird guitar softly but really well. A woman nearby kept jumping up from her place, hugging him and then sitting back down again.
The different colors and variety of food spread out for them across the table was amazing. All kinds of meats and salads, vegetables piled high, soups, cakes and pies. The breads alone would have kept you busy for days making sandwiches. Once you saw it you couldn’t take your eyes off this-plenty. My mouth started watering. I knew it had to be the greatest food that ever was and to taste any bit of it would bring you to tears.
“Hey Bill, why’re you standing over there like you’re hypnotized? Get your ass over here and say hello.” The man who spoke didn’t just look like my father, it was him. He’d been dead eleven years.
I didn’t move but just assumed Beeflow was nearby so I asked out loud, “Is it real? Is that really my Dad?”
“Yes. Look around the table. You know everyone there.”
It was true. A girl I’d known and liked who’d died in a water skiing accident, my uncle Birmy next to my father, others. I did know everyone at that table. Some better than others but I had known them all-when they were alive. When my father called out my name they looked over and smiled like seeing me was the best thing that had happened to them all day. It made me feel good and gave me the damned creeps at the same time.
“Welcome to Hell, Mr. Gallatin,” Beeflow said.
Why did I already know that? How did I know that’s what he was going to say and it wouldn’t surprise me?
“It’s the most wonderful place in the world because it’s your most wonderful place. Everything is familiar here, you know everyone, the food is gorgeous-”
He was interrupted by the sound of the drowned girl laughing. It was the most beautiful, i
“You see, it’s already begi
“It really is Hell? This is where you go when you’ve been bad?”
“Yes. That’s what Mel Shaveetz was saying to you and why the dog started growling at him. If people knew how marvelous this is, do you think they’d work hard at living? Or at being good, achieving something, working for one another? Too many of them would throw up their hands and just wait to die. Or they would kill themselves for the stupidest reasons just so they could come here earlier than pla
“Everyone’s Hell is this good?”
“Yes it is.”
“Then what’s Heaven like?”
“Infinitely better. But it is extremely hard to get into Heaven, Mr. Gallatin. It is almost impossible.”
“But a person wins either way: Hell is great and Heaven is better.”
“That should make no difference to you when you’re alive. There is a purpose to living that is far more important than ending up comfortably dead.”
“So what is the purpose of living?”
The people at the table seemed to have forgotten I was standing there and had gone back to enjoying their party. Some of them were singing now. The black guy was playing the Lovin’ Spoonful song “Coconut Grove.” Others were eating big fat chicken legs or steaks, slices of pie a la mode. More than anything I wanted to go over and join them. Like a hungry kid, I was itching to be at the table.
“Pay attention, Gallatin! Stop drooling over hamburgers. What I’m telling you is vitally important. People are alive because they have jobs to do. They are meant to improve and broaden the human experience as best they can. The Cylinder is concrete proof of that. After death, mankind comes here if they failed, or to Heaven if they succeeded. But if they knew about this, it would change everything.
“Dangerously few people would work hard, or dream, or love well and with all their hearts. Because no matter how they lived, they get this in the end.
“Mankind’s progress has been slow but steady. But now Satan is attempting to change that. He says there is no more room in Hell and has begun moving the dead back to Earth in greater and greater numbers. Those who have already been sent were told the move wouldn’t be permanent. Life on Earth is made as pleasant as possible for them by allowing them to create their environment.
“God ca
“Why? Why is it happening?”
“Because Mankind no longer accepts the idea of Damnation. He no longer feels he deserves eternal suffering for what he did or did not do on Earth. Guilt has grown obsolete. In the past, people were so afraid of what would happen to them in the afterlife that they created the most frightening scenarios possible. So when they did die, naturally those things happened to them. They brought their worse nightmares along and they came true.