Desperate to get the attention of somebody beyond his enclosure, Karl’s throat was sore from yelling. He hollered for hours, hoping someone would hear him and shout back, acknowledging him.
No one answered.
His eyes were burning, tired and dry. He’d long since given up searching for any windows or doors, resigning himself to the fact he was imprisoned, God only knew where.
The slipperiness of the plastic meant he kept sliding off the chairs. There were literally hundreds of them, but not one of them was comfortable for more than three seconds. Swinging his legs up, he tried to lie down across them, but the ridges dug into his back, knees and neck. He returned to the sitting, slipping position and tried to sleep.
Every time he managed to focus and block out the buzzing noises from the lights, the ticket counter whirred into life, dropping forward another number and his attention was broken again.
The cycle of torture continued, for what seemed like forever. And it was forever, 124 eternities, to be precise. Time was very different in that room.
Finally, Karl felt himself drifting off to sleep. The harsh, garish light of the fluorescent tubes receded, replaced by a soft glow.
There, in the dreamy respite, he recognised one of the blonde virgins from earlier. Finally things were starting to get better again. Even the hard plastic felt like it was moulding around his body until it supported him perfectly.
He could hear piped muzak filling the room and strangely, he found it comforting, a perfect lullaby. Involuntarily, he heard himself humming along to the strains of panpipes playing The Girl From Ipanema.
What surprised Karl, even more than the fact he knew the lyrics and was singing along, was that he was really enjoying the muzak. The only times he’d ever felt this good, were after taking a handful of speckled white dove pills and smoking half a bag of skunk.
Normally, Karl’s musical taste didn’t extend any further than drum and bass. However, Karl’s normality was now 124 eternities ago and he was yet to realise how much his life had changed.
His upper body swayed. His face contorted in an open-mouthed look of shear ecstasy.
A dull thud, like the sound of a door slamming, caused the bendy blonde to stop showing off her gymnastic positions and disappear. The melodic music also stopped and Karl was torn from his momentary place of solace, back to ‘the waiting room.’
It seemed the relief had been for the briefest second. And it was quickly receding into obscurity.
Karl kept his eyes closed, trying desperately to cling to the melody and bring the girl back. He’d settle for one now and pick the rest up later. Straining to hear the music, the look of ecstasy was replaced with a look of constipation. Concentrating really hard he could just hear faint strains.
It was futile, he lost grip of the memory and it hurtled away from him.
Suddenly he heard a voice in the distance, asking him a question.
“Good morning, now serving number 137. Can I see your ticket please?”
Karl swung his legs forward and bolted upright, his back rigid. The voice was far from threatening, but after so long alone with only his thoughts, which were limited in their scope, to keep him company, the voice startled him.
Karl opened his eyelids just enough to peep through the gap, suspicious that his mind was playing tricks on him. His eyes told him it wasn’t so.
Standing in front of him was a plainly dressed man, but beyond that general description Karl found it difficult to describe him at all.
The man repeated his question.
“Good morning. Can I see your ticket please?”
The accent was difficult to place, the voice though, was undeniably soothing, comforting.
Karl, however, ignored the man’s request. Instead, he looked, once again around the room.
This isn’t possible; somebody’s seriously trying to fuck with my head, he thought.
Where before he couldn’t see anything, a nothingness extending forever, now stood four, perfectly visible walls, all the way from the ceiling down to the floor, exactly where you’d expect them to be. Running over to the nearest side of the room, he cautiously reached out and touched it. When he slapped it with the palm of his hand, a solid thudding sound resonated around the room.
Things like this don’t just appear unexpectedly in the blink of an eye.
Palms spread out, he pressed his left cheek against the wall, bringing his eye as close to the surface as possible. With the side of his face scraping along the wall, he followed it all the way around, into each of the four corners, back to where he started.
This time, he noticed the door at the front of the room. That certainly hadn’t been there before. He’d felt every square inch of that space looking for one. Marching towards it, he tried the handle, but it was firmly locked.
His feet squeaked on the cracked linoleum floor as he span around once more. The interior was quite clear. A square room, with a two-tone colour scheme, the lower half painted in hospital green, the top a grime coated magnolia.
Whatever this place was, he decided, he was having none of it. Muttering to himself, he approached the man, who was still waiting patiently. I’ve kept to my side of the bargain, done everything that was expected of me, well kind of. What the fuck is this all about? Walls you can’t see, then can, doors that appear out of nowhere. Taking the piss is what they’re doing, making me wait.
Squaring up to him, Karl jabbed a finger at the suited man’s chest, angered that he had, quite literally, been kept waiting forever.
The moment, however, Karl’s finger touched the waistcoat, he was surprised how his thoughts of landing a punch, were replaced with complete wonder over the softness of the material, quite unlike anything he’d ever felt before.
The anger turned to more of a childish strop.
“Listen you. What the hell is this place? Just what the fuck is going on? I want to see the manager or something.”
Karl didn’t notice the grey-haired man grimace at the use of the f-word or the H-word. In response, to Karl’s aggression he just stood there serene and unmoved. Venting his frustration further, Karl ploughed on with the abuse.
“I’ve been here FOREVER! And-where-are-my-virgins? You better not try and fob me off with any old slappers. I was PROMISED VIRGINS!”
The man held up a hand to placate and silence the agitated Karl. Surprisingly it worked. Removing a white handkerchief from his top pocket, he wiped away a few globs of phlegm which, during Karl’s rant, had landed on his face. Unperturbed by the younger man’s hostility he spoke as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“We’re very sorry about the delay. There seems to have been a little bit of a, hmmm, how would you say… Cock Up?” He paused, mulling over the phrase, checking if that was indeed the correct expression. Happy that it was, he continued, “Cock Up… at the processing centre.”
“Processing centre? What do you mean processing centre? Where am I?” replied Karl, a little pissed off by how calm this man was. “Look mate, I demand to see your manager.” He added pompously.
Even Karl, who wasn’t known for his intellectual prowess, was beginning to suspect something had gone very, very wrong.
“All will be explained,” said the man trying to reassure a very angry Karl, “but first, may I see your ticket please?”
The mention of the word ticket, seemed to hit a nerve.
“Ticket!” Karl screamed, “DO YOU SEE ANY-BLOODY-ONE ELSE IN THIS ROOM?”
“Erm, no.” The man conceded. “I can see your point. It’s just rules are rules. We’ve had a bit of a problem with, er…” He stopped short of finishing the sentence and before continuing, he lent in closer to Karl’s ear and in a hushed, conspiratorial tone said, “ref-u-gees.” Snapping upright again as if he’d made his point he added, “You know how it is these days, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork!” Not that he was complaining.
Karl was teetering on the edge of insanity and rather than question or argue anymore, he started to look for the ticket he’d screwed up and thrown on the floor, approximately 134 eternities ago. He found it relatively quickly and it was in quite good nick, considering its age. After flattening out the creases, Karl handed it to the man. Holding it between the thumb and forefinger of both hands he inspected it thoroughly, checking the number on the ticket, against the display on the wall, at least three times, until he was satisfied.
Karl let out an impatient sigh of stale breath.
“Good, good,” said the man cheerfully. “Everything seems to be in order.”
Attaching the ticket to another slip of paper, he walked over to the door and opened it. It didn’t appear to be locked after all.
The moment the door opened, the room was flooded in, what might be described as celestial light, although Karl, not believing in such things, didn’t see it as that and thought it was just an awesome light show, second only, in his opinion, to a rave he went to at Alexandra Palace in London. Karl was just thinking how wicked the lasers were when white smoke started to pour into the room. Now Karl was in complete awe, the smoke effect was much better than at any club he’d been to; it was just like clouds.
The light gradually dimmed and the cloud-like smoke appeared to carry a giant of a person. At first Karl wasn’t sure if it was a woman or a man, just an incredible presence.
Not one to express any emotion, other than anger, Karl was surprised, that despite the intimidating bulk and confusion over its gender, he was overwhelmed with love and affection, dare he call it worship, for this being.
The smoke cleared, revealing the full form, which included an impressive cleavage. The being was definitely female.
Karl felt incredibly emotional and an uncontrollable desire to run towards Her and fall into Her protective and very ample bosom and cry out ‘mummy’ overwhelmed him.
As irrepressible as these feelings of love and admiration were for this robust looking woman, there was also something about Her, that made him very cautious and nervous. Taking a few steps back into the room, he moved away from the door.
When he could muster enough courage to look Her directly in the face, he was quite bewildered by what he saw. Looking back at him was a striking resemblance to everybody he had ever seen in his life. As he looked closer, he realised Her face was actually morphing from one person to another. Unable to help himself, his eyes widened and his mouth dropped gormlessly open.
Staring back at him was the face of his mother, his step-father, the next door neighbour, the kid from down the road that delivered the paper, Terry Wogan, the milkman, Kylie Minogue, Rolf Harris… Seamlessly it changed from one face to another. As such, he found it impossible to pinpoint exactly what She looked like, because She looked like everybody; literally. The effect was mesmerising, hypnotic even.
Unaware of his own reaction, Karl’s face also changed in response to what he was seeing. Deep furrows appeared between his eyes as he struggled to recall where he’d seen a certain face before. Then, his eyebrows would shoot up in amazement, eyes wide-open, when the image changed into someone off the telly.
Surprised by how incredibly emotional he felt and worried that he might start blubbing in front of these two strangers, he cast his gaze away from Her face.
Far from being the most perceptive person in the world, or any other place, for that matter, Karl somehow knew this really wasn’t somebody he should annoy.
From a rare occasion when his mother had bothered parenting him, he knew it was rude to stare, ‘What the bleeding heck you gawping at, you ugly little git?’ she’d screamed, giving him a clip around the ear.
As much as he tried to focus on something else, like the floor, or rolling a bogey between his thumb and forefinger, he found his gaze involuntarily drawn back to the constantly metamorphosing face.
It was starting to make him feel a bit queasy.
So, instead he looked at Her hands. That however was worse, for when he saw them, he gasped. At first, he thought She was wearing baseball gloves, such were the size of Her hands, but She wasn’t. At the end of each impressive finger, he noticed meticulously manicured nails – fingernails the size of garden trowels, but beautifully painted all the same.
Depicted across them was the entire planetary system. On the pinkie of the left hand was the sun and looking closer, he saw the image was actually moving – a raging inferno. He couldn’t identify the next two planets; the first just looked like a rock, whilst the next one looked similar to the sun, but smaller. It was the third planet that really caught his attention and even an astrological philistine, such as Karl, knew what it was. Gently rotating, with wispy clouds whirling over the deep, blue oceans and rust coloured land mass, was Earth. The World was on Her nose-picking, index finger.
Noticing Karl looking at her nails, She smiled, pleased they were getting the attention they deserved. Holding Her hands out, She showed off each nail, one by one, obviously very proud. However, when She got to the pinkie on her right hand, She became quite upset. Relative to the others, the planet was miniscule and dull.
“Of course, according to the,” She paused to make quotation marks in the air, “‘Experts,’ this one shouldn’t really be here. Apparently it’s not a proper planet, only a mere dwarf and who am I to argue? When I have a free moment, I’ll get it replaced with an asteroid belt, or something.”
When She spoke, Karl felt like he was seeing Her voice, touching and smelling it, far more intense than just hearing. She certainly had his undivided attention. However, She seemed to bore of him quickly and in midsentence drifted off somewhere else, Her eyes glazing over.
In the ensuing silence, Karl looked past Her colossal hands to take in Her thick, muscular forearms and was surprised to see a tattoo on each broad surface. Tilting his head surreptitiously to the side, so he could get a better look, he saw the tattoos were actually very simple. He had a similar one on his own arm, next to the one that reminded him of his name. Written in fancy script were the words Mum and Dad, one on each forearm.
Moments passed with Her staring vacantly off into space. Then all of a sudden, as if the important, unseen business She was attending to was concluded, Her gaze settled back on Karl. Startled by Her unexpected movements he thought he was about to be told off for something. His body went rigid with fear.
Clearing Her throat, She glanced down. Karl followed Her gaze and was surprised to see a clipboard on Her lap. He could have sworn blind it wasn’t there a second ago, but then he couldn’t be so sure, he didn’t even remember Her sitting down.
“Karl,” She paused for dramatic effect, “Welcome to Heaven.”
Upon hearing the words Heaven, the man, who had been so adamant about checking Karl’s ticket, inflated his chest, stood tall and beamed with pride.
Karl, however, was not so impressed. He hated sandal-wearing, goody-two-shoe Bible bashers and despite recent events, any mention of religion and the likes pissed him right off.
“You what?” Karl sneered, looking around.
If these two were in with the namby pamby crowd, he didn’t have so much to fear, after all.
“You’re having a laugh. Winding me up, aint ya? This, this, this…” He struggled to find the words. “This is one of those candid camera things init?”
It was the only possible explanation he could come up with.
Now convinced this might be a windup, being broadcast on the BBC, he decided not to mention the virgins again. Cupping his hands to his mouth he called out, addressing the hidden cameras, somewhere beyond the walls.
“Oi, Beadle, you tosser. Nice one! Had me going there for a bit.”
Impassive, She didn’t say anything, just gave him a look, which mothers everywhere would give anything to possess. It silenced Karl immediately and he knew there would be no bearded saviour.
“You’re telling me that this…, this shithole of a room is… Heaven?”
“Yeah, it is,” She confirmed, mimicking his accent and looking around the room rather dismissively. Then with a sweeping motion of Her hand, gestured, “well, to be precise, this is your Heaven.”
The colour drained from Karl’s face. Things were starting to make sense and he was slowly realising his situation was rather more serious than he first thought.
Frantically, he tried to remember everything from the few times he’d gone to Sunday school.
The next time he spoke, his voice was childlike, almost inaudible.
“So, what like, I really am dead? But, what about Angels, floaty, fluffy clouds, grapes and all that stuff?” Too embarrassed to spell it out, especially to a woman, he continued a little more cautiously, “I was promised other stuff as well, you know… Listen is there somebody else, like higher up, I can talk to?”
If he’d been concentrating he would have spotted the tiniest glint appear in Her eyes when he uttered those last words.
“Oh, the first part – fluffy clouds, being fed grapes for all eternity and all that – could have been yours, had you so believed. Although, to be honest, I think that particular vision is so passé. But the problem, er…” She stopped midsentence and glanced at the clipboard again. It seemed She’d forgotten his name. On cue, the ticket checker stepped forward. “It’s Karl,” he prompted, in a whisper.
“Karl! Yes that’s it. Thank you. But the problem is, Karl, you didn’t believe. You didn’t believe in much, did you? Now, how do you think that makes little old Me feel?”
“It would help if I knew who the Hell you are?” blurted out an increasingly pissed-off Karl. What was it with these two, couldn’t they give a straightforward answer?
The ticket checker man grimaced when Karl mentioned the Hell word and was about to say something, when She beat him to it. Leaning forward, She wagged Her finger and gently admonished Karl.
“Tut tut. Language.”
Turning towards him, She addressed the man. Even sitting, She was significantly taller and had to look down.
“Jehoel, my dear Seraphim, how rude of you. Didn’t you do the introductions? What have I told you? Manners maketh an Angel.”
A scowl crossed Jehoel’s usually passive face. He wasn’t happy about being told off in front of a new arrival, especially someone as disagreeable as Karl. Being very sensitive, he hated it when She told him off, he was, after all meant to be Her number one angel. He took a few steps back, to make sure She couldn’t see his face, glared at Karl, then stuck his tongue out. Jehoel made a mental note to get his own back properly at a later date.
Looking up at her, with puppy dog eyes, he explained, “Sorry Goddy, he really didn’t give me a chance. He was very angry when I arrived, complaining about the long wait, being uncomfortable, wanting to know where his vir…”
“Goddy?” interrupted Karl, laughing out loud, “What kind of a name is that?”
Mocking Her, was a mistake. Shooting him a look that could’ve quite literally have killed, she bellowed, “YOU CAN CALL ME GOD.”
Emboldened by Karl’s telling off, Jehoel chipped in, “Yes, yes and to you, I’m Seraphim Angel Jehoel!”
“God?” replied Karl, petrified, but genuinely confused. “But isn’t God a man?”
Two mistakes in quick succession.
Jehoel’s eyes widened in fear. Running to the far end of the room he made a dash for safety. Although, relatively new to the position of Head of Security, Pearly Gates Division, a promotion he gained after scoring the highest in the 64AD, Angel Proficiency Test, Jehoel was only too well aware of the consequences of upsetting Her, especially anything related to Her gender.
Of all the 978,996,582,779 people that Jehoel and his predecessors had ‘processed’, only four, so far, had realised, prior to check-in, that God was a woman.
It’s a man’s world, but it really would be nothing without a woman.
Needless to say, it was a huge bone of contention which had started with the publication of that first unauthorised autobiography. When The Old Testament was published, God couldn’t hide Her disappointment that they’d portrayed as Her as male.
It was a ridiculous suggestion; did they really think God could have managed to achieve so much without the ability to multitask. A male God, would have spent too much time standing back with his tongue half out, admiring his handy work, scratching his balls.
When the second autobiography, The New Testament, repeated the same hurtful error, She’d nearly given up completely. Only with the love and support of some of Her closest angels was She able to continue.
It was nearly all so different. However, three thousand two hundred years ago, the male dominated publishing industry was on the brink of financial disaster. Print runs of the latest cookbooks about Unleavened Bread and 1001 Recipes with Berries & Beans remained unsold on the shelves. The public’s preference was moving away from reading. Not even self-help books on How to Tame Slaves and A Body Like Hercules in One Moon Cycle could entice the masses away from the Amphitheatres, where the latest reality shows were being viewed, back into the bookstores. The industry was in desperate need of a big story, a number one bestseller. It was fortunate timing, when a very original manuscript titled, Pentateuch, arrived at Papyrus, the leading publisher in Mesopotamia.
Written by the young, budding author Moses, Pentateuch told the story of how the world was created. The artist’s narrative was, to those in the know, surprisingly accurate. He had got it right too and portrayed God as a woman.
The Editors at Papyrus Publishing were spellbound and captivated by the strength of the fable. They were however concerned with two major elements. The first issue was the portrayal of God as loving and forgiving and with a wonderful sense of humour. Better, they thought, if the ‘God’ character was vengeful, striking fear into the hearts of people, or better still, threatened them with eternal damnation. After all, tales of plagues and wanton destruction sold so much better. It was a much stronger character, they agreed, thinking of all the marketing tie-ins.
The other issue they had was with God being a female, it just wasn’t believable. Women made babies and bathed in asses’ milk, they didn’t go around making planets and stuff.
The changes were made and a few more chapters added and after the focus group struggled with pronouncing Pentateuch, they changed the name to The Old Testament and the rest, as they say, is history.
God’s annoyance wasn’t just limited to those male-chauvinistic publishers; damn that fatso, Michael Angelo as well. He’d done even further damage by painting all those silly pictures of God as a grey bearded old man. All the angels, sympathising with God, thought he lacked imagination and should have gone and got a proper job.
Needless to say, Karl had hit a nerve. People before him, who had muttered the words, but I thought God was a man, soon discovered that it was possible, even in Heaven, to experience pain.
The row of chairs on which he was sitting, hurtled back across the floor and slammed against the wall. It all happened so fast, Karl didn’t have time to react, beyond a gapping mouth and a stunned look on his face.
Jehoel on the other hand, who had taken an immediate disliking to Karl, the moment the new arrival had used one of those vulgar, worldly words, was rather excited by Karl’s faux pas and wondered what punishment She might serve. Might be in for some fireworks, he thought, seeing that smiting is fashionable again.
Karl was lifted from his chair and pinned against the wall. He looked like he feared for his life, a strange thing for the departed to feel.
Damn philistine, thought Jehoel, reading his expression perfectly, doesn’t he realise it’s a little late to worry about losing his life?
With him still against the wall, God walked over to Karl. Halfway up the surface, he was now eye to eye with Her. Leaning in close to Karl’s face and in a quiet, almost whisper of a voice, She simply said, “Carla?”
It was only a name, but the dejected look on Karl’s face was immediate and showed the comment had really hit its mark.
Sticks and stones? Depends on the names and on who’s calling them. If you finally get to meet God and She starts mocking you, it’s really got to hurt.
Just as quickly everything was forgiven. Not one to hold a grudge, She’d made her point, God’s features softened till they radiated love once more. The row of seats returned to their original position and Karl was gently placed down upon them. When She spoke again, Her voice was all sweetness and light.
“Fair’s fair though Karl, I must apologise for the delay. Seems there’s been a little bit of confusion. We’ve been trying to work it out, but nobody’s really quite sure why you have been delivered to Heaven. By all accounts…” God and Jehoel turned to face each other and mimicked being really scared, chewing their fingertips and knocking their knees together, “you should have gone to The Other Place.’” After their laughter subsided She added, “Who knows what’s going on here?”
Karl, who really didn’t have the sense to know when to keep quiet, braved a comment. “What you’re saying is, you’re God and you don’t know?”
“Oh, goodness Me no. I subcontracted out Life Review and Heaven and Hell placements, a long time ago. One has to move with the times and try to be more efficient. My assistants keep telling me not to worry about the small details. Get snowed down with it all, I do.”
God glimpsed at Her watch before continuing.
“Seems we’ve got a few moments to spare, so tell you what, seeing as I can detect a teensy wincey note of disappointment with your own circumstances, and as a way of an apology for the wait and appalling decor, please, let us show you some of the other Heavens. Just so you know that all that, do untoward others as you would want them to do to you malarkey isn’t a load of rubbish and does have a purpose, in the end.”
As soon as She finished speaking, lights started flashing and the sound of a drum roll could be heard. Smoke filled the room and the temperature dropped. A deep voice, impersonating a game show announcer boomed around the room.
“Karl Bates. This is your afterlife. Let’s show you what you could have had.”
Alex Ford 
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