Pissville

"..... I was sitting on that bench seat on the back of the bus..and then, this dark young man, I guess it was an Arab, stood up and started shooting people. There were kids on the bus. I had a sculpture in my lap that I was dropping off at my friend's gallery downtown. My car is in the shop, so I decided to take the bus to save cab fare. Here I was with about twenty pounds of bronze sea shells and fern leaves that I had worked up in my shop. He turned to me..I was about three feet away with a cinnabon in one hand and this thing in the other..so I hit him in the face with it. Then he shot me. I could feel the heat from it and then here I am., Like that. This is where I am now. Am I in a coma or am I dead?"
Mike looked down at the book on the table between them. "Neither", he said. "You aren't dead any more than I am or all the billions of people here. You just passed through one existence into another"
He paused, knowing what comes next.
"I can't be dead. What about my cat or my Mom and Dad? What about my job and the kids in my class?"
"I know what you're going through because I had to go through it too. Come along with me and I'll show you around. I'll get you settled. this is your afterlife. There's heaven and hell and the afterlife. They used to call it Hades a long time ago. We have music and art and fun and jobs and all that good stuff only no one gets sick and no one dies."
She looked around, numbly. " Why am I not in Heaven? Why? I'm a good person and I never fucked anybody over"
"Most people don't get into heaven. What religion are you?"
" I'm a Unitarian..."
"So you would be in the same category as me.."unchurched". It's all in the rule book. I was agnostic." He picked up the book and started to look for the section that he first saw when he got here.
"Besides, Heaven is a place where you lose all identity and become a thread in a huge tapestry that hangs in the vast palace of God. Apparently, it's so awesome and pure, that I can't even imagine it. Do you really want to be like that?"
"Not really, no. I just want to be me,"
He reached across the table and held her white, thin hand. "Well, here you are...."

Later that day, she slept on the black leather couch in the office that Florian had the staff bring in. He reviewed files and surfed the internet waiting for closing time. It was Friday before a five day weekend. Florian poked his head in the door. "How is she?" he asked.
"About as well as can be expected. She was pissed off at not being in heaven."
"I know the feeling, but she'll come around. Go ahead and leave early."
"Thanks, I'll finish this file and we'll go home."
Mike looked over at her nestled in the big leather jacket resting her head on his folded up blazer. Her blonde hair looked like wisps of smoke on a night sky the way it fanned across the dark fabric and on to the darker leather of the couch. He could see the curve of her ear peeking out through the strands. He found himself looking over at her more and more and less at the screen of his computer.
A loud knock shocked him out of this awkward doldrum.
"Hey! Mike. Look what I found" Jenny walked in with her new hire, a thirty-ish man with curly black hair and brown eyes under bushy black eyebrows. He was wearing a pink bathrobe with quilted silk lapels, rather awkwardly as he was at least six feet tall with the broad shoulders of a habitual swimmer or stevedore. He glanced around, taking it all in. He seemed to have the air of someone who was just walking through a dream as though being awakened after death by a red haired amazon was a common occourence.
"Horace, this is Mike. has a new hire too.."
"Hello Mike." Mike stood up and they shook hands.
" Looks like you didn't think of everything, at least MINE has SHOES"
Mike looked over the edge of his desk to see Horace wearing fuzzy pink slippers on the ends of his hairy muscular legs.
Jenny Ennyone laughed and looked over at Maggie's curled toes poking out of the end of the jacket.
"We're out. Hope we see you this weekend."
She walked out with Horace in her wake. Mike just sighed. It all seemed such a pain in the ass. He liked his space and never felt comfortable playing the host, but she had nowhere else to go and it was up to him to make sure she got settled.
He shut off his computer,filed his papers, and cleared his desk. He turned back toward Maggie only to see that she was sitting up on the couch and looking up at him.
"Come home with me. We've got a long holiday this weekend...please."
She looked at him, holding the bundled blazer in her lap, considering him, thinking about her situation.
"OK, but I need to get some clothes. I am not walking around like some barefoot flasher."
Mike smiled.