Iglesia ……………………………………… Episode 21

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous Episode

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Interlude

A long dark tunnel with bright light at the end….faint voices.

Well, no.

A corridor actually. Like a hospital. With a few fluorescent fixtures most of them broken. Colored lines, red, blue, yellow, green, brown…laid down in tape that was peeling at the edges. On worn and ugly linoleum. The ‘voices’…a scratchy speaker out of which was coming a womans voice with an English accent, saying “Please follow the yellow line.” When he looked down, there was a piece of used pink bubble gum on the yellow line.

It may just be a planetary urban legend, but it is said that the number of people alive right now, today…is equal too or greater than the number of ALL people who have lived on the planet in its entire history.

If you believe in reincarnation then, you have to believe that new souls are being made every day now. Lots and lots of n00bs coming on to the planet these days.  Personally, I blame these folks for most of the traffic jams…they haven’t had time to learn how to merge correctly. But most of them seem to be pleasant enough.  Except when you get in a long line at the airport or something. And speaking of lines, just imagine what the lines are like now at the soul processing and assignment office…the reincarnation equivalent of the airport. Imagine trying to keep all that data straight. Or if you like the Christian mythos…with 150,000 people dying everyday, poor St Peter must NEVER get out for a nice round of golf or be able to have a night out with the boys to tie one on.

And if you are a Baptist and believe that only the baptized get into heaven, you must then believe there is just an enormously huge frikkin line to get into hell. Not that that matters because after all, not only would waiting in long lines be part of the inherent ambiance and punishment of hell in any rational thought process, but really, the longer it takes to get in, one would think…the better. I mean, it IS hell and all.

And what about atheists?

But regardless of what tradition of death you subscribe to, no matter what religion you belong to, no matter what your vision of the afterlife……..just imagine the amount of frikkin paperwork involved. The wear and tear on the infrastructure. The lost or misplaced files. The pilfering of office supplies alone must be a huge problem….

He followed the yellow line for what seemed like miles….and found himself looking down at a used piece of pink bubblegum.

He sat down and went to sleep. Fuck it.