she replied.
‘So I keep getting told.’
Desperate to engage her in conversation, I continued to make small talk. She was mysterious and evasive in her answering, as when I enquired if she was married or dating; she half-smiled and ignored me. I repeated my question. This time she was more forthright in her answer. She told me to mind my business, and with no half-smile. An agency man myself, to be confronted by this hard-to-get attitude was something new. The Golden Angel Jacquetta sat opposite me in a chair, which as per the last one, just appeared. For a fleeting moment, ever so briefly, I thought I might have weakened her rock-solid defences and in doing so, dealt her harsh ‘don’t-mess-with-me attitude’, a lesson. But, it was not to be. Once she had rearranged the food and drinks on the tray, she stood up and, without a word, floated back in the direction she had come.
‘Will I see you again?’ I called out. But, she didn’t hear me, as she didn’t respond.
I was tempted to scream out, ‘Can you take off your top?’ But given she didn’t hear my previous question, I doubt she would have heard this one. Hence I sat, and wondered, imagined if you like, what it would be like. We men are prone to do at times, you know. My wondering only stopped when my thoughts were interrupted by someone instructing me to remove my seat belt and stand upright. I would automatically float out of the tunnel. I did as instructed and bang, I hit a wall with one heck of a thump.
The same voice apologetically said, ‘Bugger! Sorry about that!’
I picked myself up to discover I was standing near a gate, a small, grey gate, which was part of a grey wall. In days long past, the wall and the gate might have been white, but not now. All of it needed a decent scrub. The wall stretched upwards and length-ways. I couldn’t figure out where it finished or even started. No way in this world, or any other, these could be the Pearly Gates. If they were, there was nothing pearly about them.
‘Are you all right?’ enquired the Golden Angel Jacquetta, who reappeared near me. ‘We need to get the tunnel ejection process fixed, and the pilot is new.’
I nodded in agreement.
‘Ring the bell and someone will come and escort you inside,’ she said.
‘Can you escort me inside?’ I asked hopefully.
‘No, I can’t,’ she replied, ever so politely.
‘Any chance of your phone number then?’ I asked, ever so hopefully.
‘No, not really, none,’ she answered, and she floated towards another gateway located under a neon flashing sign that read: ‘Accepted and Approved Residents Only’.
‘Perhaps we can catch up for a drink sometime?’ I asked, being really hopeful now.
‘One day, perhaps,’ replied the Golden Angel Jacquetta, without turning back.
Ahh, hope is restored.
‘Are you serious?’ I hollered after her.
‘Yes, yes, perhaps one day, maybe, who knows, if I’m not busy, I’ll see,’ she answered impatiently over her shoulder.
‘No, not that,’ I yelled. ‘The drinking bit! I can drink up here?’
The Golden Angel Jacquetta turned, gave me a short, piercing stare, didn’t answer me, turned again and floated through her gateway with a shake of her head.
Roger popped up and frightened the living crapper out of me. He was carrying a sign and a hammer. He commenced to bang the sign into the edge of the cloud. The sign faced towards the grey wall and read, ‘Steep Drop ’. Whoa now; I was standing on a cloud! A freaking cloud! You cannot bang anything into a cloud, can you?
‘Rog, old chap, another question if I may. What are we standing on? It looks as if it’s a cloud, but it can’t be, can it?’
Roger replied, ‘Yep, sure is. But fear not, everything belonging to Heaven has a silver lining, otherwise Heaven and those who live up here would fall right through the clouds.’
I agreed – it made sense.
‘The tunnel will disappear soon; stay away from the edge; it’s one heck of a drop.’
Roger reminded me to ring the bell on the gate as he bid me farewell. He then disappeared through the same entrance as the Golden Angel Jacquetta. Again, I was alone. Why is it when you die, you keep finding yourself alone? Given nothing was happening on the outskirts of Heaven, I went to seek out the inskirts. I found the button on the gate and pushed the bell whilst reading the sign beside it: ‘At times, it can be busy up here. Therefore, on thy busiest days, please ringeth the belleth and waiteth thou turneth.’
Fuck that, I thought as I rang the bell again. It’s not busy.
A voice on the other side answered my summoning bell. ‘Who is it? Who is the impatient one?’
What a stupid question to ask. I’ve been killed by my parents, left hanging and scared witless in a place called the Waiting Zone, sent up a tunnel by a hamburger-loving Spirit Guide, ignored by a Golden Angel, spat out into a wall and now some knob on the other side of the wall wanted to know who I was!
I replied, ‘You should know who I am. You’re God!’
The voice replied, ‘Idiot. No wonder you’re dead! I’m not God, I’m John the Baptist.’
I noticed a spy hole in the gate, at chest height. I bent down and squinted though it. I couldn’t identify an eye belonging to the voice on the other side, yet I could hear him talking to others.
‘Where are you?’ I asked.
‘Right here,’ John the Baptist answered.
‘Where, I can’t see you through this thing. Stand up straight, will you?’
The dirty grey gates opened inwards and allowed the sound of laughter to escape. A person wearing Ray Bans and a sheet similar to mine approached me. The dude was short, seriously short; he had a potbelly and his wild crop of hair looked as if it was trying to escape from his head. Behind him stood two huge angels dressed in spooky black sheets and helmets. Dead set, these blokes must have seen lots of milk, popping whatever and pumping all sorts of heavy weights to get to their size. They nodded at me and I returned the nod, noting nodding must be the universal form of greeting. Beyond them was a long cloud, going on forever by the looks. Its colour was the same as the wall and the gate.
One of the big lumps commented, ‘Top joke that – about standing up. He was!’
The other lump said, ‘Yeh, John Boy’s so short, for exercise he crawls underneath snake’s bellies.’
‘Enough!’ interrupted John the Baptist angrily.
He motioned to me to enter with a wave of his hand. The moment I took a step to walk through the opened gates, I was stopped; not stopped by the short one or the big boys, but by an invisible force. I could not move a fibre, let alone a muscle. Motionless, locked in place, unable to move, I heard a long beep.
‘You can move now,’ said John the Baptist.
The angels nodded at me again, said goodbye to John the Baptist, spread their enormous wings and flew off. Those two big boys were Guardian Angels; part of God’s Police Force. Had I not been baptised in a Baptist church, an alarm would have sounded – a series of short beeps, instead of one long beep. Look out if that happens. The Steroid Heads will immediately grab you, take you back out the gates and throw you over the edge of the cloud with the silver lining. A straight free-fall to Hell. This is one of a number of security checks to ensure whoever comes through the gates is the real deal, a verified Baptist. It is also a check on the Spirit Guides to make sure they get things right in the Waiting Zone with the checklist.
John the Baptist approached me with a wine cask under one arm and two glasses in his hands. Embossed on his sheet were the words, ‘John the Gate Keeper’. Later I learned most people have the word ‘Heavenite’ embossed