After Life

"Go to hell," she told me.

We never married. Fortunately, it couldn't have ended much better, those being the last words spoken in our relationship. She walked away having made her peace. I remained emotionally unscathed. The fact is, I don't believe in hell. There isn't one to speak of. On that note, there isn't a heaven, either. It's all still in the making, but waiting to be undone. True, what I've postulated is based solely on personal theorizing, but I deem it to be true and have for most of my life. This is the story of heaven, hell, and the Man who tried to make them.

In the beginning. . .

God wanted living things to play with. We all do. That's why people own dogs and house plants. He planned carefully and devised a method to cook up some humans. Using the Universe (the only thing more omnipresent than God Himself) as His eternal canvass, God made elements to make matter, to make space dust, to make planets and suns, to make solar systems, to make the Earth, to make amoebas and dinosaurs, finally resulting in man.

I need to back up a bit. Somewhere between dust and planets, God made heaven. It was a glorious holding chamber for all things not living, furnished with tennis courts, waterfalls, spiced rum, and everything else He had yet to create for His living planet-to-be-named-later. A work of true artistry, God thought. More accurately, it was true chemistry. God was (and still is) a chemist—a damn good one, at that. Sadly, however, as most science projects go, the first experiment was a failure. Heaven broke.

"God!" He yelled, taking His own name in vain. He yelled so loudly that a Big Bang erupted from the nothing He'd built, sending the dust and matter into motion. Before He could stop it, everything happened. Planets, suns, solar systems, Earth, amoebas, dinosaurs, and man. Beyond His will we were here, but with nowhere to go when we were done.

With no other recourse, God had to end it all so He could start over with a new heaven. I find this admirable. How upsetting would it be to know God is a quitter? A holy holocaust was out of the question. This is God, after all, and murder is a sin. So instead He made man intelligent. He gave him the tools and the mental capacity to bring it all down, with the eventual goal of wiping the slate clean.

And so the slow destruction to reconstruction process began. God cracked his knuckles. . .

And then lifted man up so he could Fall. Adam and Eve, His first play things, ate some fruit that was planted for them, but it was wrong to do so. Now man had sin.

And then His only Son was nailed to a lower-case t because the neighbors didn't like him. This upset God, but at least the plan was working.

And then man declined. The ages were so dark that no one made progress or drew pictures worth saving.

And then He brewed a disease that plagued the knights and farmers and peasants of olde. It killed many men, but the Earth kept turning.

And then God gave man gunpowder so he could blow up all the people he didn't like. The POWS! and KABOOMS! weren't big enough, though.

And then millions of Jews died when God watched a mustached man believe in hate.

And then He allowed some imbalanced men to fly jet planes into two tall buildings. This led to war. Many have died.

And then God let my mother have cancer. In her hospital coffin, she said to me, "I'll see you in heaven, Rory Cleveland." Though grief-stricken, I knew she was wrong.

And all along the way, God made us very good at using chemicals, ignorance, bombs, hate, and fear.

It's all been very effective thus far. There's plenty of disease and war going around for everybody. Scientists say our planet is boiling over. The Bomb has gotten so small and so powerful that we don't even see it anymore. It's all crumbling. Just look around. Despite all this, I can't help but think to myself (and I know it's grim): You're doing a great job, Buddy.

At this point one might begin to wonder, What happens when people die, then? A valid question. The answer: Nothing. Though I have no experience in the arena, I imagine death to be very similar to life, only you don't have to think or be. It's very relaxing. Unfortunately, if this doesn't appeal to you then you'll just have to wait until God pulls your card the next time He creates the Earth. It should have a Heaven by then.

So, based on this outlook, I've never been offended by someone telling me to "go to hell", nor have I found comfort in the prospect of going to heaven. Quite to the contrary, amidst watching man destroy the Earth by God's will, the most chilling and poignant phrase any person can debase me with is simply, "Look around."