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Jack's Fables

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There’s still room in Heaven

 

 

The green room was full. Never before had so many people opted for a final interview with God, instead of leaving their future in either heaven or hell to chance.

 

“Your Most Important Ever Decision, more important even than car insurance! Sign up today for a last interview with God. Know where you stand.”

 

However, if God gave you the thumbs down, no pre-Hell counseling was provided. This glaring omission had caused a group of protesters to form outside the green room.

 

It was all too late. Once you had signed the form to have the last interview, and received your biometric confirmation, there was no turning back. That was it. The Death Police came round to your house, whisked you off to London, put you up in the warehouse, and you eventually got to the green room. Jonathan Bwand hosted the proceedings.

 

The media were beside themselves. Strictly Come Dancing, the X Factor, Wars, Famine and Football were all as stale as last month’s bread. Rumours, gossip and speculation had gone beyond fever pitch.

 

The state of the world was such that people were queuing up to ‘check out.’ After centuries of religious brain-washing, the majority were resigned to the fact that the Devil, not God, would be their most likely master after death.

 

The world’s population had become completely polarised. Each group had its leaders, and was vying perpetually for new recruits.

 

The Atheists led by Dick Porskins tried to convince people to forget about the whole ‘final interview’ nonsense. To them it was a scam. It was comparable to people signing up to see Santa again, this time as an adult. The difference being “Santa’s gift” was death, not a cuddly rabbit.

 

The Old Testament, Hell-Fire and Damnation groups were legion. Orifice Roberts was the best known preacher. Everyone who had not joined his Church of Hypocrites was doomed. Membership was now closed. But for the token gesture of leaving your house and estate to his Church, instead of your kids, there was a slim chance of your getting a place in “Hell Lite.” Hell-Lite was kept at a more temperate 50 C, had some seats which could be fought over, and showed old films of your choice rather than endless [literally] repeats of “East Enders.”

 

Most other, less extreme, religious groups despite having millions of members were struggling. They had depended on the post-clog popping scenario of turning left for Hell, right for Heaven being the eternal unknown.

 

They shared with Roberts the view that the idea of an interview with God before you died was blasphemous heresy. Before the “Your Most Important Ever Decision” idea became a reality, many senior members of the production team had perished in aircraft accidents and road crashes. But now it had hijacked the world’s media to become the only show in town, religious money was better spent on more creative ways to stem the tide than paying increasingly expensive hit-men.

 

The green room, the size of 20 football pitches had all human life within its walls.

 

Those for whom life had been mostly a case of survival. Many who had predetermined their own fate by which day of the week they had been born on:

 

Monday's child is fair of face.

Tuesday's child is full of grace.

Wednesday's child is full of woe.

Thursday's child has far to go.

Friday's child is loving and giving.

Saturday's child works hard for a living,

But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day

Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

 

That many church ‘leaders’ had lived lives of infidelity, hypocrisy and fraud, even murder, stealing, child abuse and rape no longer cut it. No-one cared. They were well represented in the green room, but wore tell-tale sunglasses in the most pathetic attempt to disguise their identity.

 

Inspirational figures were there too. For some, the burden of inspiring had taken its toll. They lamented that the whole idea of inspiration, getting others to act, to follow in their footsteps, become even greater than they had been side-tracked into ‘celebrity’ hero-worship.

 

A poet was heard, introducing her counter-punch to the tyranny of blame and division:

 

“Why is it always someone’s fault? The poor are poor because they are lazy, so blame them, or because someone, blame them, exploits them. The rich are rich because they are greedy, so blame them, or because someone, blame them, has subsidised them.

 

We are all responsible and blameless simultaneously. We have all killed in previous incarnations, and have all been killed. We have choices to make.

 

I am the spear that pierces your heart

I am the island on which you starved

I am the wave that sweeps you away

I am the cage that keeps you enslaved

 

I am the harpoon that explodes inside

I am the bones in the caves on the moon

 

I am the pirate who puts you in chains

I am the beast who murders your childhood

I am the flood that kills your neighbours

I am the volcano that destroys your world

I am the guard at the Coliseum

I am the slave in the Egyptian tomb

I am the terracotta army

 

I am the poacher who takes your ivory

I am the native whose race I destroy

I am the camp where you end your days

 

I am your guide when you face all these sorrows

I am the sound that releases the pain

I now witness the peace that surrounds you.”

 

One of the most persistent rumours was that after God had given them the thumbs down, some had actually escaped. It had become an urban myth, like Elvis Presley still being alive. Of course, one variation on the rumour was that the Devil had opened the gates, knowing those escaping were his [eventually] anyway, just to spite God.

 

The pre-Hell counsellors had split from the Euthanasia group. Before and after the split, both factions thought it was no good going to Hell feeling bad about it.

 

No group that offered any credible explanation about what was probable after death was given air time.

 

Until Your Most Important Ever Decision, death was a complete mystery. But even with Your Most Important Ever Decision [YMIED] it still was. But you got to meet God before you stepped through the curtain.

 

God’s identity was a secret known only to a select few. Revealing the secret condemned you to er, …death.

 

Tired with years of speculation as to who God was, the public had been entertained by eternal discussions about the very nature of God. In other words, God might not be Billy Connolly, Brian Blessed or Ian McKellen, but something even more powerful and potentially even more famous.

 

The last ‘person’ you saw ‘on earth’ was Jonathan Bwand. At first, the host of Your Most Important Ever Decision was Sir Stiff Pilchard but he had been removed after complaints about his singing and not being impartial.

 

Bwand was only like his TV persona when on camera. He was the most envied person in the world. The majority of the population could not be persuaded that he didn’t take backhanders from the numerous groups of smug ‘holier than thou’ zealots in the green room.

 

God’s reputation as being above corruption had been created carefully and defended vigorously. But most still believed Bwand could ‘put a good word’ in the Creator’s ear. After all, if looking down your nose at ‘sinners’ all your life resulted in a trip to Full-on Hell, the Church of All Smuggers was finished. A few grand spent bribing Bwand could clinch the perception that the Smuggers was your guaranteed route to eternal bliss. And if a few waywards did end up in the wrong place, Bwand could be relied on to keep it quiet.

 

Behind the scenes, the production team of YMIED spent most of their days in fear. Fear of assassination, of being found out, of God’s identity being revealed.

 

But, over in a parallel universe, the ‘truth’ was out…

 

When you had decided to check out, properly, from at least one level of knowing, after taking in the magnificence of the ‘other side’ what followed was a life review.

 

The interview by God was a review of our own life. Not only did we review our own lives from our perspective, but through the eyes of those we had hurt, upset, betrayed.

 

Like me, I would know what it is like to be ridiculed, bullied, criticised, manipulated, let down, and satirised through dozens of stories. I would know true forgiveness, once I had stepped fully into the shoes of the other person.

 

Having reviewed our lives, we would plan our next incarnation very carefully. We would ensure lessons we have yet to learn would be learned ‘next time.’

 

Many in this universe already knew this, and others were getting glimpses.

 

YMIED was the most popular show on earth, not because of its ‘winning formula’, Bwand’s charisma, the spiritual bankruptcy of so many religions, a billion-pound marketing budget or even the terminal state of the planet, but because of one thing.

 

The idea of meeting God, even if it was Jeffrey Archer, filled people with joy. The joy of being alive began to return to parts of the world it had long abandoned.

 

The media circus had highlighted the fact that God was neither a table-thumping despot, nor a mysterious ethereal conscience watching our sexual and personal habits from behind a cloud.

 

God could actually be a friend, a mate. And as s/he could be anyone’s mate, anyone could be redeemed. Yes, it became a total knowing that everyone in the world had a part to play in the universe’s evolution.

 

Jeffrey Archer had been secretly filmed, and the ‘truth’ had emerged. He had told those leaving his ‘office’ after the ‘interview’:

 

“Hell exists only for those who deny themselves of a loving, joyous life. Hell is not real. Heaven is boundless. You’ve missed a trick coming here too soon. There’s always room in Heaven, and you don’t need to die to find it.”

 

God bless you. He has me.”

 

Jack Stewart, December 2008. Thank you for reading my stories. Enjoy the rest of your lives.

 

 

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