Short Story / Heaven:Smart dress No trainers (Analysis)
Robert Mozelewski
I died a few years ago thoroughly expecting to go to heaven having lead a pretty low key and un-prepossessing existence.
Sure enough I climbed a metaphorical stairway to what I assume were the pearly gates. I waited in line, patiently while St Peter sorted out who was on the list. At least that’s what I thought was happening, I later found that ol’ Pete had rather a talent for delegation and was employing two trainee angels who were finding the filing system taxing. I suppose on the up side we had all the time in the after-life to wait.
Whilst standing in the queue I passed the time by talking to an old gentleman who was evidently a victim of Kidney failure, judging by his yellowy coloured skin. I explained that I had been mowed down when I was crossing the road.
The yellow man then said, in no uncertain terms that, heaven is no place for youngsters, though the scenery is nice and there are a few sites to see.
“So you come here often?!‿ I replied. To this day I still believe that this was one of my wittier moments. Evidently his sense of humour had died with him.
A while passed before I reached the front desk, where the two trainees tried to wrestle with my application. Both were teenagers, and both looked like they had died of Acne. A lot of un-necessary fiddling around later, one of them said, apologetically that he had run out of large halos and would have to go to the store room for some more.
I told him I’d wait, but ‘don’t expect a tip.’
-—---—---—---—---—---—---—--
“Pissssst‿
You know, I could be sure that I just heard…
“Pssssst‿
I was right, I did hear something. Over to my right was a shifty looking fellow with a black trilby and a pencil moustache, crouched behind a cloud. He looked like he had been a black market dealer during the war.
With entry not looking immanent I walked across to see what was the matter.
“Listen mate. You don’t wanna do in there… full of old folks. Boring. Follow me, we ain’t got long before one of them goody goodies gets back.‿
I was shocked at this lack of enthusiasm for heaven… it got rave reviews in the bible. “Can’t be that bad‿ I said, “Everyone I’ve spoken to says that it beats hell hands down.‿
“Listen squire… just cus your on the list don’t mean you gotta go in. Does it?‿
The man made a good point. It did seem more like an old people’s home than anything else. It took just one look at the queue to realise that I didn’t want to share my after-life with a bunch of incontinent old dodderers.
Game on…
I was led away through the mist that made up the atmosphere, worried that I might have made a big mistake, before resolving after some time that nothing all that bad could happen… certainly not as bad recent events down on earth.
I voiced this feeling to my new leader, whom I later found to be named Harry, and he poo pooed them in spectacular fashion by saying… and I quote: “Dunno ‘bout that squire… if the guv’nor catches us we’ll be expelled from the after life for eternity.‿ Following this he shrugged as though it was nothing more than an occupational hazard.
Where were we going?
By the time I started paying attention, we must have been somewhere over Manchester, judging that is by the big black cloud adorning the sky.
I don’t especially like to get wet, so you can imagine my distaste when we ploughed straight into the side of it. By ‘it’ of course I mean the cloud. I couldn’t see ahead and I was feeling with my hands, it was like playing blind-man’s-buff on the edge of a cliff. I was scared. I hadn’t absolutely got my head around the fact that I was dead, and therefore couldn’t die again.
At this juncture I feel it prudent, and only fair, to impart to you and indeed all mortals, what clouds feel like. I’m not going to preach to you about a tingly feeling and all that shit. They’re just wet. The real surprise comes underfoot, it doesn’t feel like cotton wool, nope, it feels more like sand but makes a crunch like virgin snow. Weird.
It probably took about three minutes of walking before I stopped feeling the cloud beneath my feet. The wind rampaged through my hair and blew on my naturally red cheeks making them feel numb. This was great, it felt like being back in the English countryside driving a sports car through the lanes. We were plummeting down through the cloud, which from here, looked like the inside of a football. I followed the advice given in all of the best text books and didn’t look down, I didn’t look anywhere, I just closed my eyes, hoping for the best and fearing the worst.
Eventually hitting the ground wasn’t an issue, because I didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t feel a thing in the way that you don’t feel a thing when you have a tattoo done or a tooth removed, in that it hurt a bit but was nothing to cry about. The real problem was motivation to get up, I was so pissed off that there was nothing around, no reason that we had taken such risks, and more infuriating, no reason for my green ‘I Love The World’ T-shirt to be clinging to my torso like a prostitute to her fancy French lingerie. It was uncomfortable (like the lingerie) and I was getting pissed off because I stood a pretty decent chance off being barred from eternal piece for listening to a 1930’s spiv.
“What the fuck is this?‿ I said in a pseudo menacing voice; “There better some damn good explanation or I’ll…‿
I tailed off pathetically.
“What ya gonna do? Kill me?‿ He laughed raucously, then said; “Easy now squire, I just tryin’ do you a favour that’s all.‿
Further dialogue didn’t seem necessary. This man was clearly mad. Just my luck to find a dead man with a gift for practical jokes.
With nothing better to do, I turned my attention to his shoes. He was wearing black leather with a pair of spats. The soles must have been leather as well. This is a pretty obvious assumption, but, I got confirmation from the noise that his feet made as he walked slowly away from me. The gentle tapping that sounded rather like a seal clapping it’s flippers together. The noise sounded like it evaporated upon reaching my ears, making the cloud feel like a padded cell. Maybe it was, maybe I was alive and just insane. It wasn’t. I wasn’t.
Baffled, I watched this man smartly hitch his trousers up a little over his knees, as he bent down and started knocking on the ground like I used to knock on doors.
Something went-on, as a hatch appeared to open and, Harry began descend. Like a sheep I got-up and followed with so many questions on my tongue, that I had trouble organising them into an orderly single-file queue.
He had disappeared now, and I was at the top of a set of stairs that were covered in a red twill fabric, which made them strangely inviting. I walked down to the bottom, and turned right as the ground flattened out. There I was confronted by a large brown door. I knocked on it, which seemed like the appropriate cause of action at the time, and I’m very glad I did.
A large, and very seductive pair of brown eyes opened the door, obviously not on their own but attached to a person. I was stumped. I mumbled some incoherent bullshit about needing to find this little man, about yay high, with a… and a hat and a… Some how she understood. Harry appeared. “Wondered how long it would take for you to get here! Take him out back and put some dry clothes on him, but be gentle with ‘im eh violet?!‿
Before I had taken everything in I was pushed into a room that looked like a dressing room from the Moulin Rouge.
“Oakey dokey shnookems, lets get this wet shoit off you before you catch cold.‿ She said in a broad New York accent. She could have come direct from ‘Bugsy Malone’, but I still let her take my top and trousers off. I’m not gonna pretend that I didn’t enjoy it. I did. Though I had slightly shrunk in front of Violet-if you know what I mean.
Fresh with new clothes, I was pushed out into the hallway looking like I was going to make someone an offer they couldn’t refuse. I followed the woman, who looked like she had been carved out of Adam’s rib, to another door that was the same as the one before.
As it was opened, what was gradually revealed, was a speak-easy. There was mahogany everywhere, a jazz trio with no waiters only a free-for-all, help-yourself bar. I tried to gain some kind of explanation from someone, but nothing was forthcoming. So, I sat at a table, with a scotch and pondered my next move (which turned out to be to pour another scotch).
Some time later I was approached by Harry again. He was apologetic in tone now, and his bolshy east-end accent had mellowed a little.
He talked for a long time about things I couldn’t comprehend and/or didn’t care about. Nevertheless, the long and short of it was, in a nutshell, that this was a break away version of heaven that was formed by the dead that love life. It was kind of a speak-easy arrangement that had to remain secret from God so he didn’t close it down. Apparently he could be parochial like that. He said that God didn’t notice the odd person go missing because with so many people dying, the odd one could slip through the net.
Pep-talk finished I was aloud to start enjoying myself.
There were girls, scantily clad in flamingo pink suits, shaking their bottom in time with Glenn Miller. This wouldn’t normally be a bad thing, but this was not a normal time. I was dead, in a speak-easy, surrounded by spivs and drinking scotch. Oh yeah, and there was a sizable possibility of me being banished from the afterlife. Stunning.
I had to turn away from one nicely toned bottom that was positioned less than a yard away from my face, not because I didn’t like the bottom in question. It was like when you’ve been out on the town, rat-arsed, the next morning you probably would struggle to face a pint of lager. It’s not the lager’s fault, it’s the same lager that you’ve always liked… it’s you who doesn’t want it. I like bottoms… some of my finest memories of Earth involve them.
I wasn’t in the mood. I was in A mood just not THE mood. Death was proving difficult at the moment.
I got up from my seat and strolled around the room as cooly as I could. I settled at the bar and leant up against it with my legs slightly crossed and my hand on my hip. I looked ever so slightly camp.
A couple of fellows were walking behind me, and eventually rested at a table not far away. They didn’t have a drink, but they looked like the kind of blokes who were in desperate need of one. Not that a scotch and soda would help them grow the necks that they were sadly missing.
Staring is rude, so I looked away and focused on a little bit of damp that was setting up camp in the top corner of the room.
I glanced around, and the neck-less tea totals were still staring at me, but by this time I was joined by a clean shaven young man.
He wasn’t a particularly prepossessing sort of chap, medium height, medium build, medium shirt that should have been a large judging by how it wrapped itself around his torso. He had blue eyes that didn’t seem to go with his matted black hair. Probably because he was wearing a very average wig.
I reasoned pretty quickly that nobody dies of baldness, so I asked him the obvious question. How had he died.
“It’s a long story really, erm… well… erm… I feel down a mountain. That’s it, I fell down a mountain.”
I complimented him on what a bloody good effort it was to get up the mountain in the first place. But he didn’t seem quite so impressed with his achievement, understandably so, being dead and all.
There was an awkward pause as we both fidgeted, trying to find something great to say. Then I had it, this would get the party started.
“Anyway, I didn’t catch the name?”
“That’s cause I didn’t throw it at you”
What a smart-arse. Funny though… now for a witty retort.
“I’m not surprised. If you did that wig that your wearing might fall off!”
He didn’t laugh, or even pretend to laugh. He just looked extremely embarrassed. I felt a little sorry for him, but also felt that he was a bit immature.. For, if you can’t laugh in death when can you.
Back to awkward pauses we were, until I felt a heavy hand rest itself on my shoulder. I turned around to see, much to my surprise, that one neckless tea-total was right behind me. He looked mean in the kind of way that only a man who had battering rammed into heaven could look. However it was with airily, polite tones that he spoke.
(SO FAR UN-FINISHED)
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This is an excellent piece. I like the idea of a heavenly speak-easy in the after life. If it does exist I hope to find you there because I will looking for it. This was a very amusing and well written piece. I like how it unraveled throughout the entire piece. It didn’t just let everyone know what was going on in the beginning. Every word I read made me want to continue on to the next. Every paragraph a stepping stone guiding me closer to the end.
I enjoyed how many possibilities are left open in this. Will God ever find out about it…a part of me still wants to say that the speak-easy is ran by Satan. If God does find out then what will he do to it? I also am intrigued about the mountain climber and who this neck less person is and what role they are going to play.
More importantly I just want to continue reading this persons adventures through the afterlife. With your obvious imagination and writing skills I can expect it to be a humorous and slightly odd one. You have my attention and I anxiously await further contributions to this piece.
Kudos.
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Funny and engaging story. I want to read more and find out what happens. I think that stories about being dead lend themselves to comedy. Not sure why. They just do. So you have lots of material to work with and the possibilities are endless.
Not to be nit-picky, because I realize that this is a work in progess, but here are some grammatical, stylistic suggestions:
- Is there a reason why Kidney and Acne are capitalized? Maybe it’s intentional, capitalizing causes of death. Just make sure that you stay consistent and capitalize every cause of death you come across.
- The use (or over-use) of puctuation marks is a bit distracting. As in ?. One question mark will do. There are several spots where you use more than one question mark. The convention seems to be that sticking to one is plenty.
- In a couple of spots you have a period followed by a question mark. I would eliminate some of these question marks, because it doesn’t seem like these are questions. Such as:...expelled from the after life for eternity.? – no need for the ?
- Quotation marks are another one of my pet peeves. You start out by using them to indicate that someone is speaking, but then you don’t close the quotation. So it isn’t clear where the person stops speaking and commentary begins.
- The sentence beginning with “I followed the advice…” seems to be a run-on. I would put a period after “down.” Then a period or a semi-colon after “anywhere.”
- ”... it’s flippers together,” should be “its.”
Found few typos:
- in ”... you don’t wanna do in there.” – I think you meant “go”. Not “do”.
- “just cus your” – should be you’re.
- “wig that your” – should be you’re.
- “I was aloud to start” – should be “allowed.”
Mechanics aside, the most important thing in a story is the storytelling and you got that down!
This is a very amusing and generally well done piece. It just needs a little cleaning up, smoothing out and light edition.
I would like to read the piece when it is final
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