The Next Person You Meet in Heaven(13)

“Why?”

The woman, who keeps smiling, is motioning behind her back, as if pushing the air forward.

“Do you know how lucky you are?” she says.

“I don’t feel lucky,” Annie says.

“You don’t? Well. That’s understandable. Does your arm still hurt? Say, my friend is coming. Can you tell him—and me—about what happened?”

Annie is confused. She sees a man hurrying their way, carrying a large camera on his shoulders. She sees others behind him, running.

“Start with what you remember,” the woman says. “You went to Ruby Pier and—”

Annie steps back. All these people are on the porch, pushing cameras and microphones at her face. Suddenly, she feels a jerk on her shirt. Her mother steps in front of her, pushing Annie back. Annie smells the cigarette smoke on her mother’s clothes.

“Leave us alone!” her mother yells. “I’ll call the police! I swear I will!”

She slams the door shut. She turns her angry face towards Annie.

“What have I told you! Do NOT answer the door! Never! Those people are vultures! Don’t ever do that again! Do you understand me?”

Annie starts to cry. “I’m sorry … I’m sorry …”

Her mother tears up. Annie runs upstairs and slams her bedroom door. This is how it is now. Every day, one of them is crying. Annie hates it. She hates her hand. She hates her bandages. She hates the way people are acting towards her. She hates whatever happened at Ruby Pier, something she can’t even remember.

The next morning, Annie’s mother wakes her up early.

“Come on,” she says, wearing a coat. “We’re leaving.”





The Next Eternity




Annie watched the sky turn to darker shades, gunmetal gray and mocha brown. Her left hand was stinging. The lightness she had experienced on her arrival was gone. She felt less like a child than a student, curious, tentative, as if she were growing up even after she died.

Alone in the desert, she saw a small pile in the distance, the only thing on an otherwise barren landscape. She used her two hands to pull herself through the sand.

When the pile drew close, Annie blinked to confirm what she was seeing: there, neatly stacked, were her feet, legs, arms, neck, and torso.

Her body in pieces.

What is going on? she thought. She tried to pull closer, but she suddenly could not. The sand wisped through her fingers like cotton candy. She looked around. A choking loneliness began to rise. Annie had felt this way often in the years after the accident, isolated, cast out, unable to do things. But why feel it here? Wasn’t heaven supposed to be the end of such pain?

She remained still for what felt like a long time, until a distinct noise came from the flat quiet. It amplified rapidly, unrecognizable at first, then very recognizable.

It can’t be, Annie thought. A dog bark? Yes. Then another. Then a cacophony of howls and yelps.

Annie turned to see the sand kicking up and small dust clouds to her left and right. Quickly, an army of canines—every breed and size—encircled her, barking excitedly, grabbing at her body pieces and tossing them into the air.

Annie put her hands to her ears. “Stop it!” she screamed. Her voice was deeper than it had been with Sameer, but it had no effect on the animals. They growled and yipped and whipped up sand everywhere.

A brown Labrador dangled one of Annie’s feet in its jowls. “No!” Annie screamed, tugging it free. “That’s mine!” An Afghan hound, with long stringy fur, raced past with her other foot. “Give it!” she yelled, wrestling it loose.

Suddenly, as if on cue, the dogs packed together and raced to the horizon, taking the rest of Annie’s body with them.

“No, wait!” she heard herself yell.

The dogs looked back, as if urging her to follow. Annie scanned the otherwise barren desert. Whatever was out there had to provide more answers than this. She placed her two loose feet in front of her. She willed herself up until it felt as if she were standing.

“Come on,” she said to herself.

And she began to run.





The Second Person Annie Meets in Heaven




Over the centuries, man has created countless depictions of the hereafter; few, if any, show the departed soul alone. Despite the ways we isolate ourselves on earth, in our final bliss, we are always with someone: the Lord, Jesus, saints, angels, loved ones. A solitary afterlife seems unimaginably grim.

Perhaps this is why Annie chased the dog pack through heaven, without knowing where it might take her. She followed the animals up a sharp incline, over a ridge, and down into a valley. The sky above her shifted again, from mustard to plum to forest green. These colors, and all the firmament’s colors since her arrival, reflected the emotions of her life on earth, replaying as that life was replayed. But Annie could not know this.

Instead, she continued her pursuit until the dogs broke from their pack and spread like spokes of a wheel. The ground split into a checkerboard of small green lawns, each with a door of various design, wood, metal, painted, stained, some modern, some ancient, some rectangular, some rounded at the top. The dogs sat obediently, one outside each entrance, as if waiting for someone to come through.

“Annie,” a breathy voice said. “At last.”