Manners
Gladys Walker ascended to heaven in her eight-first year to find the place not at all to her satisfaction. Glancing critically over the field of serrated clouds upon which a manna market had been erected, she collared the next person who jostled past her.
‘Einstein?’ she barked.
‘That is I,’ he replied candidly, for in heaven no untruths may be told.
‘This is not what I had in mind when I pictured eternity. Is this all there is?’
‘All there is? What more could you wish for? Any flavour you care to imagine and it may be found here!’ He swept his hand across the teeming plain and gazed in wonder.
‘And beyond the market?’
Einstein’s eyebrows rose up like a pair of ambushed seagulls. ‘Madam, once you’ve tasted our manna, the question of beyond ceases to exist.’
‘Yes well! I’d like to have a word with God all the same. If you could point me in the right direction!’
‘Not possible I’m afraid. He’s indisposed. Indefinitely.’
‘How so?’
‘Depression or some such. He just doesn’t believe in himself anymore.’
‘Well then, Jesus?’
‘Blackholing in Andromeda I believe.’
‘St. Peter?’
‘Otherwise engaged. Problem at the entrance. Went to ask about letting some thieves in, came back to find the gate missing.’
‘Outrageous. This is not the heaven I imagined!’
‘Ah! Heaven, madam, is a problematic concept. By what standard do you take measure? It’s rather a question of relativity.’
And with that, Einstein disappeared greedily into the munching masses.
Geoff Mills is a Midlands based writer and teacher. He is currently in the final year of his PhD in creative writing at Birmingham University and teaches on the script writing module at Worcester University. www.geoff-mills.com @geoffmills7