“This is it,” Anya thought when the pain finally faded away. Her boyfriend’s screams subsided, and her tears felt like they were dripping off a mannequin’s face as her fragile, bruised body no longer belonged to her. Anya, an anxious person, at times horridly paranoid, had finally felt at peace. If she could take a deep breath of relief she would, but it was no longer her privilege to do so. Now, she was a floating orb, an energy hanging above her empty earthly vessel. Anya had always used religion as a guide; in her anxious life, she desperately needed a previously determined path. Now, in the face of her death, she felt rewarded by her choices. Her calmness was a result of her beliefs going hand in hand with what she was experiencing so far. As a Polish person born in England, Anya felt a sense of pride in her roots, feeling almost like she was chosen. All those people living around her, millions of them, would have no comfort as they didn’t care if they died a sinner. But not her, Anya had always had a plan. She would confess her sins every Sunday and was very careful to live below her means to preserve her space in the afterlife.
“Anya Warkok,” the deep voice spoke behind her.
Anya turned around, in the sense of the word at least, as now she was an orb. She was only getting used to it still. She didn’t have to turn around, as she had no back or front; she was a round energy ball floating in space. Nothing special about her, nothing at all.
An angel stood in front of her, or so she thought at least; he wasn’t a person but another orb. It didn’t have a mouth, it didn’t have eyes or even a single limb.
What a boring way to be, she thought.
“I wouldn’t know if it’s boring or not, as I have never had a body of any sort,” said the orb.
“I am so sorry.” Anya missed the simplicity of shaking her head ever so slightly to enhance her apologies.
“Are you an angel?” she asked.
“Another one,” the orb exhaled. “I am here to greet you and show you around the home.”
The orb floated closer to the sky.
“Follow me, please.”
The orb instructed before flying up high into the sky.
Anya followed, leaving her dead body behind.
From space, Earth looked like a ball tossed into a bucket of paint with different colours imprinted as a result.
“What happens now?” Anya asked the orb.
“Whatever you want,” the orb replied.
The Earth below rotated, speeding up time, but for Anya, only a second passed. A few more rotations around the Sun, and here was her sister, another orb.
There is a finite number of conversations you can have with your loved ones before you get bored. There are a number of times you can watch the Earth spin from space before your eyes shut and you drift to sleep. But imagine Anya’s horror when she discovered that orbs never sleep, no matter how bored and tired they are.
The ‘angel’ orb had told her she was free to do anything her heart desired, but what she missed the most was a struggle, a sense of challenge. She missed cry-fuelled runs to beat her records, she missed learning how to make a perfect pancake, or even waiting in a queue to go to the loo. Floating around in space, being everywhere and nowhere, having all the knowledge she could need, Anya knew…
…life on Earth was a masterfully designed heaven—if there ever was one.