What Now?

“Get up John.”
“John, get up.” repeated a rough voice through the darkness.

John sat up and rubbed his eyes then stretched out his back.  The last thing he remembers was crossing the street before everything went black.  John felt like he had just woken up from a nap when he realized he was sitting in the middle of the street; he quickly got to his feet and jogged back to the sidewalk.  Then he looked around to see if anyone saw him. 

“Hey John, ‘bout time you got out of the street.” said a short black man who was standing on the sidewalk. 

John turned to face the man and for a brief second, he felt like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  Still rattled, John suddenly realized this man knew his name even though he was sure they had never met. 
“How do you know my name?”  He asked.  Then he slowly looked the stranger over to make sure he did not know who he was.  He was short and skinny, bald, and probably around 35 years old.  “I don’t think we’ve met before, have we?”

“No we have not met before, but I do know your name.  After all, I’m here for you.”

John returned a puzzled look.  He’d never meet this man before and now he was late for work.  This guy was not here to meet him, how could he be.

“John I…never mind.”  The stranger shook his head.  “Look over there.”  The black man stated, pointing towards a crowd of people.

John turned back towards the street to see quite a scene 20 feet down from where he stood.  A group of people were in a circle in the middle of the road and traffic was stopped.  Suddenly a police car and ambulance screeched to a halt near the crowd.  He was still confused, and wasn’t sure what this stranger was getting at.
“It’s a group of people, big deal.  Listen, I don’t know you and now I’m late.  Excuse me.”  John turned to leave but was stopped when the stranger put his hand on John’s shoulder.

“Now I get it.” The stranger said with a smile.  “You don’t know what happened, do you?”  The man sighed and gave an amused look towards John.  “Come on, follow me.” requested the stranger.

John looked into his brown eyes and did not feel threatened by the stranger; in fact he felt a strange sense of ease that calmed his nervous energy.  John was also intrigued as to what the man was talking about so he decided five minutes could be spared to satisfy his curiosity.  He turned and followed him towards the commotion down the street.

“Go ahead John, have a look.”

John walked out into the street to see what was happening.  He felt a little weird going into the street for the simple reason of gawking at an accident scene, but he pressed on towards the crowd of people anyway.  He worked his way to the front of the group of people and looked at a car with a banged in front end. 
Then he saw it.  John stumbled out of the crowd and fell to the ground, no one noticed.

“Remember crossing the street do ya?” the stranger asked with a smile on his face.  “Don’t have to be worried about being late for work now, do ya?” he asked again.

“Hold on.  What the hell is going on and who are you?”  John asked.

“The happenin’ parts easy.  You’re dead John.  See the big dent in the car, that’s from you.  As for me, I’m you guide, for now anyway.  My name is Gabriel.”  The man held out his hand to John.

“What do you mean dead?  I need to get to work.” John quickly turned away and began to walk away from the scene.  He took a few steps and turned back towards the stranger who had all of a sudden appeared directly in front of him.  “After all I’m here talking to you, aren’t I?  I can’t be dead.” 

Just then a fire truck came down a side street towards the scene and as it neared the corner where John stood, Gabriel pushed him out in front of the truck. 

“WHAT THE HELL!”  He screamed as the truck bore down on him.  There was nowhere to go.  Then the truck passed through him as though he was not there; John grabbed at his heart and fell to the ground from the scare.   

“Now do ya believe me?” he asked.  “Make some noise, go ahead act like an idiot.  No one will notice because they can’t hear or see you.  Okay then, let’s try this again.  THAT CAR KNOCKED THE LIFE OUT OF YOU!”  Gabriel repeated, emphasizing every word as he spoke.  “LITERALLY!” 

John sat up, laughing after he noticed he was sitting in the middle of the street again.  He couldn’t handle what he was being told, but after seeing his own lifeless body he guessed there was not much to argue about. 
“So now what?” he asked, looking up at Gabriel.

“I escort you to judgment.”

“Judgment?” John asked, not sure what he heard.  “What do you mean by judgment?”

“Not like I’m suing for a debt judgment John.  THE judgment.”  Gabriel answered anxiously.  The worst part of his job was convincing people they actually just died, but he did it as best he could.  His compassion, however, was disappearing the longer he did it.
“I’ll explain on the way, lets go.”

John stood up and dusted himself off.  “Alright Gabriel, alright, I’m comin’.  I might as well, either I’m dreaming or I’m dead so I might as well play along.”  John took a few steps and then it hit him.  His name was Gabriel.

“So John, what’s your fir…..”

“Gabriel!  Your name’s Gabriel.  Are you THE Gabriel?  I mean the one from the bible and Mary and…that one.  Is that you?”  John asked, genuinely excited.

Gabriel could not help himself, he burst out laughing.  “Gabriel, as in the archangel?  Shit no.  You think that guy comes down here to ferry dead people to judgment?  Ha, ha, ha.  Thanks, but no, that’s not me.  No, that guy’s either on his couch, doing a job for God, or on the golf course.  Me, the archangel Gabriel.  That’s rich John, nice one.”  Gabriel wiped away the tears from his eyes.  He was laughing harder than he had in a long time.  He walked a little bit farther, shaking his head as he went.

John was a little embarrassed after the reaction he got from his guide.  “Sorry.  I didn’t mean to….”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, you not the first to ask that question.  Thanks, I needed that.  Anyway, we got a long way to go.”  Gabriel picked up the pace as the walked into an alley a block away from John’s dead body.

“Alright, so who are you exactly and why are you here with me?”  John asked as he jogged to catch up.  Then he noticed that the sun appeared high in the sky even though it was still well before noon.

“My name is Gabriel Johnson.  I died a while back; this country was still an English colony when I bit it.  So what’s that, a hundred and fifty years or so?”

“Try almost 250 years or so.”  John answered.  “It’s 2003 now Gabriel.”

“No way.  Shit, it’s been a while.  You stop paying attention to time after a while.  Anyway, I died from the flu and I went on the same trip you’re on now, except my guide was a woman, and man was she gorgeous.  I didn’t believe a word she was telling me.  I just followed her because I was hopping to get lucky.  Anyway, I think it was something like 1755 or something.”  He seemed to look up and contemplate everything for a minute, like he was recalling fond memories.  “Like I said, you forget after a while.  Anyway I went to judgment, did a few things, now I escort dead people.  Sounds like fun huh?”

“Okay, what’s judgment anyway?  Is that when St. Peter lets you in heaven or something?”

“St. Peter?”  Gabriel started to break into laughter again.  “St. Peter, pearly gates, big book of names on a podium, angels with halos and all?  Is that what you think it is?” Gabriel asked with a broad smile.

“Isn’t it?”  John returned

“No, God no, it’s not nearly as sexy as that.  Basically it’s more like you walk into an office, take a number, sit and wait.  Then whoever sees you will review your life with you, make a few notes on a pad and send it up.  After a few minutes they let you know what choices you have, if any.  You could go to heaven, purgatory, back to earth, or any number of other things.”

“Choices?”  John thought it was interesting that you had choices after dying.  Then a thought popped into his head.  “What about hell?”

“Good news for you that I’m here.  If you were on your way to hell you’d be there already.  Since I’m here the worst that you can get is purgatory.”  Gabriel replied as he waited for a car to go by before crossing the street.

“I’m guessing we don’t need to wait for cars Gabriel.”  John sarcastically said after him.  Then he realized the road they were crossing was not in the city.  In fact the city was nowhere to be seen.  After stopping for a second he turned and had to jog in order to catch up with his guide, he took a look around as he neared Gabriel.

“I know, but I like to act like I’m alive sometimes.  Anyway, so I went to judgment and it comes back that I have to sit in purgatory for a while and work.”  Gabriel continued.

“What’s purgatory?”  John asked.  “I mean, I think I know what it is, but what is it like?”

“Purgatory is kind of like being a janitor for heaven.  After a while they come back and give you a choice of what you want to do.  Go into heaven, help people here on earth, be reincarnated, or stay where you are.  I wanted to be able to go back and forth between here and heaven, so I choose to be a guardian for the dead.  I get to meet interesting people and the scenery always changes.  The only pain in the ass is convincing people they’re actually dead and then trying to console those that get over emotional.  Other than that I enjoy it.”  Gabriel smiled while he talked.

“So what’s in it for you?”

“I enjoy what I do.  We only call it a job so people who just kicked it will be able to relate.  Why do you ask?”  Gabriel asked, knowing what was coming.

“Well you get paid for a job, so I guess you get something back, right?”

“First of all man invented the idea of money, power, and all that crap.  None of that garbage matters after you die.  I don’t get paid or get anything that resembles compensation, I help people.  It’s that easy.”

John felt he offended Gabriel so he quickly changed the subject.  “So people get reincarnated huh?”  John asked, interested in the possibilities. 

“Sure they do.  I mean if they want to, but be careful what you ask for, God has a twisted sense of humor when it comes to reincarnation. That’s especially true if you haven’t been the best person in the world.  See, with reincarnation you don’t get to choose who to be or where you’re born.  It’s either yes or no, the rest is up to God.”

“How bad is his sense of humor?”  John Asked.

“He can be pretty bad, for instance, when Puntious Pilot died he shows up in heaven, right?  Well, besides being the guy who let the Jews crucify Jesus he was a pretty ruthless S.O.B.  Anyway, God lets him sit in purgatory for something like eighteen or nineteen hundred years, something like that.  Well, Pilot decided he wanted to be reincarnated so God decides to show him what it was like to be on the other end of things.  So Pilot gets his wish and God sends him back as a Polish Jew during World War II.”  Gabriel was snickering at his story as he finished it.

John found his story amusing and laughed along with Gabriel as he finished it.  “Okay, here’s one.  You mention the Jews, so who’s right?”

“What do you mean?” asked a puzzled Gabriel.

“Who’s right?  You know, Catholics, Jews, Lutherans, who’s right?”

“Everyone has the right idea, but no one has any clue on how to truly find the meaning of religion.  You see, the Catholics care about money first, booze second, God third, and the clergy is half full of jack-asses and criminals.  That’s one reason God decided to let girls start helping out as altar servers, he figured the priests would leave them alone.”  Gabriel explained.

“You’re full of shit.”

“Wish I was.  Then there are the Jews.  They’re too proud to admit they fucked up when the killed Jesus, so they pretend he didn’t matter much by calling him a profit.  Oh, and they like money more than anyone else.  The Lutherans and Protestants can’t decide who they want to believe so they just go by a different name.  Islam is actually pretty close and they believe in what they preach more than anyone else.  But they pray way too much and think everyone else is evil.  Their problem is that they take things a little too literal and then they blow themselves up, go figure.  Their religion is actually the most grounded of them all, but the problem is they aren’t.  Buddhists and Hindus have their issues too, as well as the rest of them. Most of the time we just sit back and laugh at everyone.  The funny thing is that most people on earth agree on almost everything.  The problem is that not everyone speaks the same language so everyone thinks everyone else is talkin’ bad about them.  If everyone would just shut up and listen things would be much easier.”

    “Un-fucking real, it’s all a bunch of crap.”  John said, somewhat taken aback by Gabriel’s explanation.

“Not all of it.  The problem is that people let other things cloud their minds.  Don’t worry, everyone lets it happen.  And I mean everyone; even the Pope gets more upset if he’s missing his rings than if he’s missing mass.”
         
“So how is it that different religions believe in the same thing?  I mean, Buddhists believe in a fat guy, Hindus believe in a caste system and then there are weirdos like the Druids.  So how are they the same?” asked John. 

“Alright, I’ll give you an example or two.  Catholics believe Jesus finally accepted his fate on Holy Thursday while praying in a garden under an olive tree.  He always knew he was the Son of God, but he still didn’t want to die.  So, you could say he became enlightened that night under a tree, agreed?”  Gabriel asked.

“Agreed.” John nodded as he answered.

“Good.  Now, Buddhists believe that Siddhartha Gautama, who was a prince that eventually became Buddha, attained enlightened after sitting under a fig tree.  Sound familiar?  Next, as for your weirdos, the Druids.  They worship according to the phases of the moon and the seasons.  Ever notice how the two most important holidays in the Christian faith, Christmas and Easter, fall eerily close to the Winter and Spring Solstice?”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay John, focus.  The shortest day of the year falls on December 22 or something like that.  Therefore, after that, days get increasing longer and it’s known as the Winter Solstice.  Funny how the birth of Jesus is right around the time that the Druids celebrated as the day Earth emerges from the darkness of the shortest day of the year.  In addition to that, Easter so happens to fall on or around the Spring Solstice, the time when the Earth blooms to life, flowers open and the weather clears.  Druids celebrated that time as the time when Earth is being reborn.  Funny, don’t you think, how the Christians picked the same time to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.”   

“I never thought of it like that.  I mean, I kind of knew what everything was but I never took the time to put two and two together.  Everyone is a frickin’ copycat.”  John ran his fingers through his hair as he spoke, surprised and the obvious nature of what Gabriel just told him.  John just shook his head in disbelief.  On one hand, this could be the weirdest dream he’s ever had, on the other he’s actually dead; in which case he’s still no less confused.  John came out of his trance and noticed he didn’t recognize anything around him.

“So where are we?  I’ve never been here before.”  John asked as he looked out at the wilderness before him.  There was not a place within a hundred miles of the city with mountains, which John found himself admiring as he walked.  They stood in front of the most beautiful place John had ever seen.  Wilderness, snow capped mountains, and wildlife ran every where.

“Good question.  Hell if I know, this is your afterlife, not mine.”

Now John was even more confused.  “You mean you don’t know either?  I thought you were a guide, someone to help me get to heaven or wherever the hell I’m going.” 
“I am, but we can’t actually get there until you fully accept your fate.  You obviously haven’t yet or we wouldn’t be here, in the middle of nowhere.”  Gabriel looked around trying to figure out for himself they were.  “Right now we’re just talking.”  Gabriel returned.

“Oh, now it’s up to…….”

“Italy, maybe.  It’s beautiful though isn’t it?”  Gabriel interrupted.

“Huh?”

“Italy.  Maybe we’re in Italy or maybe South Dakota.  It actually looks a lot like Alaska.  I’ve been there a few times but who knows.  Anyway, anything else, or can we get going already.  I’ve got to pick up some old chump in Dublin before I go home.”  Gabriel asked, looking at his watch.

“Are you kidding me?  You guys schedule this stuff?”

“Only the obvious ones are scheduled.  Accidents like your take precedence because it takes a while to convince you bone heads that you’re actually dead, but the easy ones are scheduled.  This old guy is in his 80’s and had been on his deathbed for a few months.  He knows he’s dying so as long as I pick him up some time today that’s fine, but the sooner the better, I’m tired.  People like you, no offence, take a while to convince.  Your type tires me out pretty quick.  I mean we’ve been walking for what, an hour or so?”

“I’m so sorry my death is keeping you from something.”  John replied sarcastically.

“Don’t worry about it; we’re on our way now.”

Just then John felt the ground fall out from under him and he felt like he was rising up into the clouds.  After a few minutes he looked down and saw the mountains fade away behind the clouds which were then quickly erased by a gray sky.  After a few minutes the ride stopped and John felt like he had reached his floor in an elevator.

“Alright buddy, have a nice afterlife.”  Gabriel put his hand out for John who slowly shook hands before letting go.

“What?  You’re leaving me here?”

“Sure am.  Just go through that door and the rest is easy.  Good luck John, maybe I’ll see ya around.”  Almost instantly Gabriel disappeared into thin air.

John turned around to find a door that was not there a second earlier.  “Oh well, here we go.”  He said as he walked through the door that was designed to look like a gate.  He snickered at the little sign above the door the read

“Here are the pearly gates, welcome to heaven,
please have a seat and we will be with you shortly.”