Polite Fictions 2.0: The Afterlife

Welcome to the first entry in the second round of Polite Fictions.  This time we're doing things a little differently.  Every writer contributes a self-contained entry based around a theme, which for this round is the afterlife.

***

Call me Bill. I am in a factory. We make Heaven here. I run the press that stamps the Luminescent Blades of Grass into shape. The ore, the stuff – whatever it is – bundles down the line and I hit the button that activates the press. Each stamp makes five Luminescent Blades, which I inspect for errors.

There is never an error. I wave it on and the Luminescent Blades are conveyed to Luis, who arranges them in a Floating Clod. These are bound for fields that hover high in the sky, I guess. Somehow every Clod looks a little different when Luis is done with it. If I'm honest, I'll admit that I want Luis' job. A little stab of envy goes through me when I see how well Luis has arranged the Blades into one of his Clods, and I know that this sentiment is being logged and added onto my time on the line.

That was the first thing I realized: that you're not just working off your sins from your time on Earth. You have to work off your sins on the line. A Manager explained it to me on my first quarterly review. Quarter of what? I thought, but I didn't say it out loud. Then I realized it didn't matter whether I screamed it over the PA system or whispered into to the perfect fold of a Blade as I bent down to inspect it. The sentiment is logged and marked against my time on the line. Besides, I should be more sympathetic. The Manager is stuck on the line just like me.

I think.

We do not eat or sleep on the line. But our bodies ache. My back is wrecked and my heels feel as if I've been stepping on needles. When there were questions to ask the Manager, I asked him: Why do our bodies ache here? What's the point? The Manager gave me a pat on the shoulder and explained: that's the sign of your unwillingness to let go and embrace change. You're clinging to your old life. Once you let go of that life, your pain will disappear.

I forgot my old life long ago. I cling to nothing, but the aching endures. I lean in and inspect a Blade, hoping against hope to find some imperfection in the vein, the shading, the way it seems to react with a palpable, glittering joy at simply being perceived. Perfect as always. I wave it down the line to Luis.

I've only seen the world outside the factory once, when they brought us here. We were in something like a truck, and the back was covered in a heavy tarp. The van was dark, but I could make out a dozen or so like me, silent, faces and shoulders in darkness. None of us knew what to say, so we said nothing.

As the truck slowed, the tarp flapped open, and I leaned forward to see what my arm of Heaven looked like. I put my eye to the crack and saw a factory, busy with movement. And more factories, farther and farther into the distance, beyond even the horizon, because as my eyes took it in I realized there was no horizon here, just more and more distance, and all of it visible, so much so that it seemed that it seemed to curve up and over me, receding into a waving curtain and then a pattern, and farther and smaller still until it became the texture of all things. The landscape of factories was woven into everything here: the Blades of Grass, the Floating Clod, the clever hands of Luis, my aching back, the kind smile of my Manager.

When I think of that moment I spend a little longer on my Blades. I wonder where the Heaven we make is ending up, and what feet fly across its fields.

Comments

[TwoBusy]

Love - no; LOVE - those last seven words. Makes the sense of longing palpable, glittering.

[Jett]

I never even *thought* about writing this subject from the perspective of hell.

...because that what this reads like to me, you narrating from a brand of personal hell: Discontent, mindless repetition, longing.

And you did it so beautifully, Aidan.

[sweetsalty kate]

Absolutely knocked back. This is so beautiful and yearny and just perfect.

[daysgoby]

Wow.

[mongoliangirl]

This makes me feel like saying thank you to every single person who ever helped me when I was positive I could no longer be helped. Thank you...beautiful post.

[ms picket to you]

I rarely get shivers from things I can't see. I did now.

And I don't think this is hell: i think it's life. Which is after life.

Wow.

[ms picket to you]

Wait, just read it again. And again.

I get the hell thing now.

I still think it's gorgeous.

[Whit]

What feet fly across its fields.

Awesome.