Flash Fiction: Science Heaven
Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
“Heya!” a pipsqueak of a girl with a pair of cheap, paper-mache wings strapped to her back greeted the small gaggle of stunned onlookers. “Welcome to Heaven! I’m you’re tour guide!”
A series of “Oh’s” and “Ah’s” wafted from the group, all of whom were looking around the endless, cloud-filled landscape appreciatively.
“Last thing I remember,” an overweight gentleman with a bushy white mustache muttered aloud, “I was trying to make that 18th hole before a thunderstorm rained out the golf course. What happened to me? What about my wife and children?”
“Yeah, um, I got no idea,” the tour guide popped her gum. “That was, like, ten thousand years ago. You guys were all totally dead between then and now. We’ve got a social networking system, like you had on your Wild Wild Web, where you’ll be able to register and find all your loved ones. It’s really fab.”
“What about my cat, Mr. Snugglekins?” a little girl in pajamas asked. “Will he come to heaven too?”
“Pets are a special case,” a transparent window materialized before the tour guide, and her lips moved silently as she read to herself from it. “Pets are resurrected on a case by case… Blah blah blah… Navigate to… click on the Suggest a Pet link… Okay!” she snapped her fingers. “You can put a request in with the administrators. All they need is your four-dimensional location in the space-time continuum. You know, when and where you owned Mr. kitty, and they’ll find him.”
The little girl was frowning skeptically at the tour guide.
“That reminds me!” the tour guide took the wad of gum from her mouth and stuck it to one of her wings. “If any of you can remember homeless people, or people who didn’t have any friends, if you could take some time to describe them to our caseworkers, we’d really appreciate it. We’re missing a lot of people here.”
“I don’t understand,” a little old lady spoke up then. “Aren’t you all-seeing and all-knowing? How can you lose people?”
“It’s called chaos theory,” the tour guide was twirling her curly blonde hair with one finger now, “The universe and time are really really big. We can’t keep track of everything in it.”
“Would you mind behaving a little more professionally young lady?” a priggish woman at the front of the group piped up. “For most of us, this resurrection is a very sacred experience.”
The girl rolled her eyes, “Uh huh. Look lady, there was, like, billions of people alive on Earth when you were alive. Multiply that by, like, thousands of years, and that’s… like… Um… a lot of people, okay? … What makes you special?
“I was a devoted member of my church,” the woman replied, holding her head up stiffly, “I attended every Sunday and donated thousands of dollars to the ministry over my lifetime.”
“Huh,” the tour guide quipped, obviously unimpressed, “Well this is Science Heaven, okay? Do you remember being in some Christian Heaven before you arrived here?”
“Well, I… No.”
“Do you want us to send you back there?”
The woman appeared ready to retort defiantly, but then caught herself, looking down sullenly, “No. Thank you.”
“Okay then!” The tour guide swiveled around and began leading the group into eternity, “We have another group coming through in just a moment, so if you’ll follow me, I’ll present to you all the first day of the rest of your afterlife!”
“Heya!” a pipsqueak of a girl with a pair of cheap, paper-mache wings strapped to her back greeted the small gaggle of stunned onlookers. “Welcome to Heaven! I’m you’re tour guide!”
A series of “Oh’s” and “Ah’s” wafted from the group, all of whom were looking around the endless, cloud-filled landscape appreciatively.
“Last thing I remember,” an overweight gentleman with a bushy white mustache muttered aloud, “I was trying to make that 18th hole before a thunderstorm rained out the golf course. What happened to me? What about my wife and children?”
“Yeah, um, I got no idea,” the tour guide popped her gum. “That was, like, ten thousand years ago. You guys were all totally dead between then and now. We’ve got a social networking system, like you had on your Wild Wild Web, where you’ll be able to register and find all your loved ones. It’s really fab.”
“What about my cat, Mr. Snugglekins?” a little girl in pajamas asked. “Will he come to heaven too?”
“Pets are a special case,” a transparent window materialized before the tour guide, and her lips moved silently as she read to herself from it. “Pets are resurrected on a case by case… Blah blah blah… Navigate to… click on the Suggest a Pet link… Okay!” she snapped her fingers. “You can put a request in with the administrators. All they need is your four-dimensional location in the space-time continuum. You know, when and where you owned Mr. kitty, and they’ll find him.”
The little girl was frowning skeptically at the tour guide.
“That reminds me!” the tour guide took the wad of gum from her mouth and stuck it to one of her wings. “If any of you can remember homeless people, or people who didn’t have any friends, if you could take some time to describe them to our caseworkers, we’d really appreciate it. We’re missing a lot of people here.”
“I don’t understand,” a little old lady spoke up then. “Aren’t you all-seeing and all-knowing? How can you lose people?”
“It’s called chaos theory,” the tour guide was twirling her curly blonde hair with one finger now, “The universe and time are really really big. We can’t keep track of everything in it.”
“Would you mind behaving a little more professionally young lady?” a priggish woman at the front of the group piped up. “For most of us, this resurrection is a very sacred experience.”
The girl rolled her eyes, “Uh huh. Look lady, there was, like, billions of people alive on Earth when you were alive. Multiply that by, like, thousands of years, and that’s… like… Um… a lot of people, okay? … What makes you special?
“I was a devoted member of my church,” the woman replied, holding her head up stiffly, “I attended every Sunday and donated thousands of dollars to the ministry over my lifetime.”
“Huh,” the tour guide quipped, obviously unimpressed, “Well this is Science Heaven, okay? Do you remember being in some Christian Heaven before you arrived here?”
“Well, I… No.”
“Do you want us to send you back there?”
The woman appeared ready to retort defiantly, but then caught herself, looking down sullenly, “No. Thank you.”
“Okay then!” The tour guide swiveled around and began leading the group into eternity, “We have another group coming through in just a moment, so if you’ll follow me, I’ll present to you all the first day of the rest of your afterlife!”
