The Things We Learn When We're Dead

by Charlie Laidlaw

  As she brushed her teeth, she noticed that small things had changed. The faint scar on her forehead, her one permanent reminder of North Berwick primary school, had disappeared, ironed flat like a shirt’s wrinkle. She searched in vain for her appendectomy scar. All of life’s imperfections had been carefully removed.

  Lorna revisited the book-lined room next door. Close up, the antique furniture was moulded from what seemed to be plastic. No more real were the books on the shelves. They seemed to have been painted onto the wall. A room designed for solace, to please her, to offer a version of home. Then she stood for some time at the observation window, watching a new galaxy and the other giant hull of Heaven. Its array of communications dishes still all faced backwards, small lights flashing in sequence.

  Irene breezed in, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘Feeling a bit cheerier, petal?’

  Lorna nodded.

  ‘Excellent! Actually, most people find being dead quite an easy adjustment. Surprising, really, but that’s generally the way it works.’ Irene poured herself a cup of coffee from a silver pot that Lorna hadn’t noticed before. ‘Actually, sweetie, it’s something that gets pumped into the air supply. Don’t ask me what. Diazepam, or something. Fact is, in Heaven nobody is allowed to be unhappy. Against the rules, Lorna. Fun, fun, fun, that’s what this place is about. Can’t have the dead moping about, can we?’

  Lorna stared at her. ‘Actually, there’s quite a lot I need to know.’

  Irene held up a manicured hand. ‘Let’s not go jumping in, Lorna, there’s a good girl. I guarantee that everything you want to know will become clear. There are no secrets in Heaven, sweetie, I can absolutely promise you that. Look, I know how weird everything must seem at the moment. Not quite the Heaven you were expecting, is it? No, don’t answer that, petal, it’s written all over your face.’ Irene put down her coffee cup, stubbed out her cigarette, and joined Lorna by the observation window.

  ‘I keep having strange thoughts,’ said Lorna. ‘Memories, maybe.’ Joe’s hands, that carpet.

  ‘Only to be expected, petal. You’ve been through quite a trauma, haven’t you? Memory dislocation is only to be expected.’

  Lorna stared out to Heaven’s other hull. Memory dislocation? She had no idea what Irene was talking about.

  ‘So, what do you think of your new home?’

  ‘Big.’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose it is,’ Irene replied, already reaching for a new cigarette and patting her pockets for a lighter, ‘although big is a little vague, don’t you think? Being precise, Heaven comprises two hulls, each one measuring exactly one kilometre in length. At their widest point, each hull is one quarter of a kilometre wide.’

  ‘As I said, big,’ repeated Lorna, seeing only the handiwork of celestial endeavour.

  Irene had lit up and was shrouded again in smoke. Lorna cast an envious eye to the mantelpiece where Irene had deposited her cigarette packet. ‘My first task was to convince you of your demise, Lorna. A task, I think, that is now complete.’ Lorna nodded reluctantly. ‘OK, now that you accept that you’re dead, my job is to help you make sense of this place. To do that, Lorna, it’s best if we take things one step at a time. Oh, and God was asking after you. I told him you were coming along fine.’

  ‘Where am I?’ Lorna asked. Heaven, yes, but a Heaven she couldn’t comprehend. A place of sublime beauty where life’s scars could be erased. ‘Heaven is a spaceship, isn’t it?’

  ‘More precisely, Lorna, a facility.’

  That word again, a rather ugly word that hardly did justice to the impossibly large superstructure beyond the observation window.

  ‘A facility,’ she echoed.

  ‘A facility for the search for extra-terrestrial life. I told you we had to take this one step at a time.’

  Lorna had a sudden urge to laugh. ‘And did you find any?’

  ‘Well,’ said Irene, not smiling, ‘we found you, didn’t we?’

  Holiday

  On the day before they went on holiday to the Norfolk Broads, Lorna’s father was made redundant. Lorna didn’t know this at the time, and wouldn’t have known what such a long and unfamiliar word meant. He’d worked for the same financial institution in Edinburgh as man and boy and, now on the wrong side of fifty, was deemed surplus to requirements. After all those years, he was given the news in a phone call. Him and dozens of others: new technology meant that rationalisations could be made, departments were being downsized, human casualties were inevitable. Redundant: of no use anymore. Although she only found out later, her dad was being replaced by a machine.

  They drove south in virtual silence, which in itself was odd. Although her father wasn’t normally chatty, her mother wasn’t good with silence. She made up for the both of them with constant monologues about the scenery, the sky, the clouds, other drivers: she didn’t like to give others too much time to think.

  They passed a road accident on the M6 and her mother said nothing.

  There was a sudden downpour, with raindrops the size of golf balls, and still she said nothing.

  They stopped at a dreary service station and ate burgers and chips, which normally her mother would have forbidden. Working in a bakery, she knew how things were prepared and had an understandable distrust of cheap food. But not a word of protest, and she even helped herself to one of Lorna’s chips.

  By the time they reached their destination, pulling up outside the boatyard, Lorna knew that something was wrong. It might not be a big something, but not all was as it should be. They were on holiday, her mother had been looking forward to it for weeks. Not only that, but the sun was shining and they had their very own gin palace to float down the waterways. Her father’s expression, not hers, which had made her mother laugh when the holiday was booked.

  That first night, laughter wasn’t on the menu either.

  They had been going to go out for a meal, but her mother protested at the cost and rushed off to a local supermarket to buy bread and ham. Instead of a first-night feast, they ate sandwiches and an apple while her parents sat on deck and drank wine.

  ‘It’s not the end of the world,’ she heard her dad say. By then she was tucked up in an unfamiliar bed and being soothed to sleep by wavelets against the hull.

  ‘No, but it feels like it. All those bloody years! All that time and effort and loyalty, and what do they do? One fucking phone call, Jack!’

  Despite her eyelids closing, Lorna fought hard to stay awake. This was not the mother she knew. In one short speech, she had used not one but two banned words, one being the worst possible swearword of them all. Something was up.

  She kept listening, but her mother and father had lowered their voices, perhaps fearful of being overheard. Lorna could make out that her dad was making placatory noises, his low voice discernible, but not the words.

  * * *

  Irene was speaking through smoke, and still not smiling. Lorna had the strangest feeling that her thoughts had been stripped bare and Irene was able to read them. Irene lips were curled down, sharp eyes on Lorna’s face.

  ‘A research facility, yes, but you are also in Heaven. Physically and metaphorically, Lorna, you have my word on it. It is, however, a place of spiritual and temporal contradictions. Its realities may at first seem like impossibilities. My task is to help you understand, to help you put yourself together. OK, babe?’

  To petal and sweetie had been added a new term of endearment. Lorna nodded, while Irene dragged on her cigarette.

  ‘You are now in a place where you can wish for almost anything, within reason, and have those wishes granted,’ Irene continued, exhaling. ‘It’s perfectly permissible, by the way. We all have our little fantasies and foibles, don’t we?’ Irene at last smiled and winked. Lorna had no idea what to wish for, except for what she couldn’t have.

  ‘But to understand Heaven as it is, you must also understand that Heaven has always been more than just a place. It’s a concept of veneration, for which we are responsible. As far as we�
�re able, it’s a responsibility we take seriously. You see, Lorna, where you are now is an ideal of perfection for millions and millions of people. To them, the ultimate goal of coming to Heaven is eternal solace, a personal reward for believing in whatever god they chose to believe in.’ Irene crushed out her cigarette, seemingly angry, but about what Lorna couldn’t tell. ‘However, Heaven does exist and, although it’s not what you expected, it continues to play a small part in Earth’s story. It could, perhaps, have played a better part but that, thankfully, is God’s domain. Ours not to reason why, Lorna,’ said Irene, offering her a wan smile and a small clue as to the source of her irritation.

  ‘For you, Heaven now offers all of life’s pleasures, given unconditionally and quite possibly for all eternity. But that doesn’t make it a final resting place, don’t think that for a minute. In time, you will learn that as, no doubt, you will also find out why you were brought here. Everyone who comes to Heaven is here for a reason. Or, perhaps, it will be revealed to you, I can’t say.’

  Lorna listened, stars burning on Heaven’s other celestial hull. Irene had called it a facility, a research facility.

  ‘In Greek, the original translation of the Kingdom of Heaven was he basileia tou ouranou. It means, literally, the rule of the skies. The Bible places Heaven among the stars or in the region of the clouds that pass along the sky. In the Islamic faith, Heaven is synonymous with the Gardens of Paradise and is a place to which you ascend. In Buddhism, there are several heavens. The Jews call it olam ha-ba, the world to come. But always in the skies or among the stars, Lorna, in a place hidden from mortal eyes.’

  ‘Here, in other words.’

  Irene nodded, wrapped in smoke from a new cigarette. Lorna suddenly experienced a nicotine pang and realised to her dismay that she badly wanted to smoke. ‘Don’t forget, the theological texts of all the main religions were written long before the invention of the electric kettle. Hardly surprising that ancient scholars imagined Heaven to be in the one place they couldn’t see or get to.’

  ‘In the sky,’ said Lorna.

  ‘It made sense, I suppose, because virtually every religion adopted the idea,’ Irene continued, raising both hands, fingers spread, and counting along them. ‘Baha’i, Sikhism, Buddhism, Christianity, Lukumi, Confucianism, Hinduism, Macumba, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Druse, Shinto, Taoism. The list goes on and on, but I won’t bore you with it.’ Irene brushed ash from her dress and shook her head. Behind her head, the observation window, curtains open: a blaze of stars across an empty sky. ‘It was God’s one monumental mistake and one, Lorna, he fervently regrets. Damn fool, he was warned, but didn’t pay attention. All those gods, Lorna, all those different heavens. All those lives lived in the shadow of a personal creator and each believing that they’re right and that they alone will find immortality.’

  Despite its great size, Heaven now seemed too small for all those countless billions of souls. ‘God chooses only a very few, Lorna, and you were one of them.’

  Lorna opened and closed her mouth. ‘But why? Irene, it makes no sense.’ From all the countless bodies of Earth, why pluck a trainee lawyer off an Edinburgh street? Why not someone more deserving?

  Irene paused, phrasing words before speaking them. ‘His really big mistake was to give you faith, petal. For now, we can overlook his other little experiments. It was his one, big inadvertent gift, deeply regretted, but which has been your curse ever since. Still, what’s done cannot be undone, even here.’

  ‘But why am I here?’

  Irene shrugged. ‘I’ve told you, I don’t have the slightest idea.’

  ‘Then can I ask God?’

  ‘Of course.’ Irene abruptly pushed herself upright, motioning Lorna to do likewise. ‘Let’s go and see the geriatric old fool, shall we?’

  Lorna gulped. ‘God?’

  ‘Of course, God,’ replied Irene before adding, ‘but this time, my love, try to keep your clothes on.’

  Irene had mentioned that she’d met him, but in the sweep of revelations, Lorna had let it pass. She would have remembered a physical encounter with a deity. Lorna had assumed that he’d visited her while she’d been asleep, perhaps spreading his arms in a divine blessing at the foot of her bed. Now she was faced with another memory: an old man in a cream tracksuit and strings of beads, his long hair in a ponytail tied with an elastic band.

  Lorna again swallowed uncomfortably, transported back to the antiseptic room in which she’d awoken before finding out she’d died.

  Who the hell are you?

  Her first words to her God, her nightdress around her ankles, and God looking chivalrously at anything but her.

  * * *

  Her parents were up on deck somewhere, sharing a bottle of red wine. Lorna’s mum had been crying, not for the first time that week.

  ‘Lorna, I don’t feel very well.’

  ‘You said that yesterday, Tom.’ And the day before, Lorna thought, not taking her eyes off the TV screen. ‘I’m watching the film. So shut up, will you?’

  ‘But I don’t feel very well.’

  ‘So what do you want me to do about it? Go and tell Mum or something.’

  ‘She’ll just give me disgusting medicine.’

  The rebel X-wings were taking off, streaking towards destiny, the black orb of the Death Star manoeuvring into firing position and charging up its ray gun. Darth Vader strode menacingly across the screen. ‘Medicine is supposed to be disgusting,’ said Lorna.

  ‘Why?’ asked Tom. ‘That’s stupid.’

  ‘Tom! I’m watching the film.’

  ‘Only for about the zillionth time, Lorry.’ Red lorry, yellow lorry. When he was very small, he couldn’t pronounce Lorna. At times of stress, Lorry sometimes re-emerged.

  ‘Anyway, you know how it ends.’

  ‘I’m still watching it, Tom.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s a stupid film.’

  ‘It’s not stupid.’

  ‘It is stupid.’

  ‘Just fuck off, will you!’

  She’d heard her father say that same thing, on the phone, the night before they’d left North Berwick, Mum unusually silent. She’d never heard her father use the dreaded word before, all swearing, profane or otherwise, being strictly taboo. And then, in the space of a day, her mother had used two swear words, including the absolutely-beyond-redemption f-word.

  ‘I’ll tell on you,’ he warned.

  ‘Just do that, see if I care.’

  ‘I will, you know. I’m not joking.’

  ‘Tom, please! I just want to see the end.’

  ‘Mum!’ shouted Tom. ‘I don’t feel well!’

  He got up and headed for the middle section of the boat, the steering area, where their parents were propped up on cushions. She could hear raised voices, her mother laying down the law about something. Her dad was protesting, but without real zeal.

  ‘Oh, and Tom,’ Lorna called after him, her eyes on the small screen. ‘May the Force be with you,’ and ducked a cushion coming the other way.

  * * *

  Irene motioned Lorna to follow her, leading her into a featureless labyrinth of corridors that resembled a budget hotel. Each corridor was lined with doors, all designated with a complex number. Irene explained that the numbers related to which hull they were in, the section of the hull, and the deck level, underlining in Lorna’s mind the similarity between Heaven and a Travelodge, but with better facilities. She had a hard task keeping up with Irene, who knew where she was going and would suddenly stride off down a bisecting corridor without warning. Walls, ceilings, and floors were spotlessly white, making everything two-dimensional and visually confusing. There were no visible markings to indicate what might lie behind each door.

  As they walked, Irene explained that at the moment of Lorna’s death, a DNA and brain-scan had been undertaken and the contents within her cerebral cortex uploaded to Heaven for regeneration. Irene stopped to light a cigarette, reminding Lorna that the cloning of human beings was already technically possibl
e on Earth. ‘So don’t look so surprised, sweetie! All we do is speed up the process by activating cells to grow and multiply at a much faster rate. Memory integration,’ she went on, pacing ahead, ‘is accomplished by chemical and electrical analysis at a cellular level. Once regeneration was complete, we simply downloaded those chemical imprints back into your new brain.’

  Irene stopped to deposit her cigarette into a small white receptacle that had soundlessly and mysteriously slid out from the wall. Lorna, already reeling from the advanced technologies of regeneration, stared at it blankly.

  ‘We call them ashtrays,’ said Irene, and set off again at high speed, Lorna scampering in her wake. ‘In Heaven, Lorna, you will only find things that are either functional or which we find beautiful, or preferably both. As a rule, we don’t value useless or aesthetically displeasing objects. Integrated wall-mounted ashtrays provide a good example of that philosophy.’

  ‘But aren’t cigarettes displeasing objects?’ was all she could think to ask, thinking back to Joe and making love on the floor. Hadn’t she lit a cigarette afterwards? Lorna frowned, still not quite sure whether she smoked or not or if, now being dead, she should start again.

  ‘Well, they may not be very good for you but, as we enjoy both perfect health and eternal life, we have eliminated the paradox between unhealthy living and pleasure. As I said, Lorna, you can enjoy all of life’s foibles and fantasies to your heart’s content. From now on, what you choose to enjoy is entirely your affair.’

  They ascended a broad staircase and emerged into a broader corridor that had observation windows set at intervals down one side. They were now on Heaven’s other flank, with vistas only of distant galaxies set among the empty blackness of space.

  Then she heard voices and a woman’s laugh.

  Rounding a bend, Lorna saw a group of about a dozen people standing and chatting in what looked to be a lounge area. All appeared to be wearing loose-fitting tracksuits in either blue or light green. Apart from the young Sean Connery, Irene, and God, this was Lorna’s first encounter with Heaven’s other inhabitants. As she and Irene approached, the others stopped talking and turned towards them.