by Robin Ray
CHAPTER 4
When Gregory was finished with his coffee at the Renaissance Bakery & Café, he strolled back leisurely to see Karen Carpenter at ‘House of Romany.’ Along the way, he studied the faces of those walking by, perhaps trying to see if they showed signs that they were dead. When he thought about his unusual exercise, he giggled. Maybe they might be zombies, he wondered. Better not rile them up just in case they’re hankering for fresh brains.
“Hello?” he announced himself, stepping into the gypsy emporium.
“You’re back,” Karen uttered, entering the store from the rear.
“So, what’s this about an ID?”
Karen went to the counter in the rear of the store, brought out a gray pad the size of a phone book that was stored in a glass-encased étagère against a wall, and placed it on the counter between her and her customer. The pad seemed unassuming enough. Completely smooth on the top and side, it simply looked like a lump of clay, albeit shaped in a precise rectangular block. In the middle of the pad was the word “usitatissimum.”
“Place your right hand here,” she instructed, motioning to the pad.
“What’s this?” the stranger asked.
“Think of it as a passport maker,” she answered.
“A passport maker.”
“Yes.”
Briefly scrutinizing the box, he noticed, “It’s not plugged in.”
“It’s self-powered,” she informed him.
He motioned to the unusual word inscribed on the pad. “What does that mean?”
“It’s Latin for ‘most useful.’”
“Okay.” Reluctantly, Gregory placed his palm in the middle of the unusual pad. Its surface, he noticed, was so soft that the weight of his hand created an imprint in it. Just then, a blue light emanated from below his palm, suffusing its warm glow around the perimeter of his hand. Seconds later, the light went out. As the confused man removed his hand, Karen slid a small door open in the pad closest to her, produced a dark blue, credit-like card and handed it to Gregory.
“Congratulations,” she told him. “Welcome to Heaven.”
Gregory studied both the front and back of the card. It was devoid of numbers and didn’t even have a magnetic strip, just a plain deep blue card with the word usitatissimum printed below his full name. Like most cards, this one felt as smooth as plastic, but was far more pliable, able to bend in half and rebound its shape without showing breakage.
“What kind of material is this?” he asked, studying his card.
“Rubber-infused carbon,” she explained.
“What is it, though?” he asked.
“Your passport, or ID card. You use it to make purchases at every establishment in town. You can use it for clothing, groceries, services, restaurants, everywhere.”
“This machine made this card without knowing any of my personal data?”
“It knows all your data,” she insisted. “The box read your soul and transferred the information to your card.”
“So, it’s like a debit card?” he asked, examining it closely.
“Yes,” she professed, “but you don’t fill it up with money.”
Gregory looked confused. “What do I use?”
“Credits,” she answered.
The new arrival furrowed his brow. “Credits?”
“Yes,” she explained. “Specifically, soul credits. When you do work around town, or do favors for people, or anything positive, really, you automatically add credits to the card. There is no cap on how much you can add to your card. Naturally, bad deeds result in a subtraction.”
Gregory nodded. “Interesting. So, they don’t use money in…Heaven?”
“That’s right,” she revealed.
“So how does it work?”
“Well,” she informed him, pointing to some items on a far shelf against a wall, “say if you want to get one of those dream catchers or throw rugs, all you have to do is take it. The credits aren’t subtracted from your card until you leave the store.”
“I see,” Gregory nodded. “There’s some kind of magnetic strip by the door then?”
“Something like that,” she indicated. “If you didn’t have enough credits for the purchase, or you took it by accident because you were distracted, your item wouldn’t be able to leave the store with you. It’ll just return to the place you acquired it. In other words, you’d have to want the item. The card will know because it has a symbiotic connection to your soul. And, of course, it’s non-transferable. It won’t work with anyone else but you. Just so you know, some stores do have alarms in case you took it accidentally. I must say, that’s pretty embarrassing. Better to know what you went in for, I guess.”
“How do I know how many credits I have left?”
Karen walked over to one of the display stands and pointed to a small metallic box with a green light the size of a nail’s head attached to the stand. “These are in every shop,” she informed him. “Just wave your card in front of it and you’ll see the amount of credits you have left on the scanner.”
Gregory went over to the palm-sized scanner and waved his blue card in front of it. The numbers on the little machine displayed 100.
“You begin with 100 credits,” she briefed him. “Right now, that would be enough for food, dining out, cleaning and household supplies, a trolley ride, and so on. Obviously, the more credits you have the bigger the things you can get, like TV’s, computers and smart phones.”
“What do smart phones cost?” the D asked. “So far, everyone I’ve met make them sound like contraband.”
“They might as well be,” Karen answered. “They go for around 16,000 credits.”
Gregory’s eyes widened. “For a phone?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“How long would it take someone to save 16,000 credits?”
Karen pondered it for a moment. “Four years, if you give up food for all those years.”
“Why is it so high?”
“Electronic parts are hard to come by and manufacture,” she answered. “Cobalt, for instance, is used in batteries, but how many people want to dive down in a mine and scrape rocks all day for 10 grams of it? You’d really, really have to want one. Also, as you may have noticed, there is no plastic in Heaven.”
“No?”
“No fossil fuels,” she elucidated. “Phytoplankton without zooplankton does not for fossil fuels make.”
“Thanks, Yoda,” he groaned. “I’ll remember that for my next chemistry class. So, they have TV’s in heaven.”
“Yes and no,” she stated.
Gregory stood looking at her, waiting for her to take the hint to explain herself.
“Technically,” she finally continued, “they’re holograms. You’ll see later.”
He gazed around the store. “What do they use up here? Satellite?”
“Boy,” she suspected, “you do have some inquisitive mind. The holograms work on the ultra-high energy gamma rays’ bandwidth which, I believe, are a little above 10 exahertz.”
Gregory, suddenly pushed against the rope by that bit of technical mumbo-jumbo, could only wax sarcastic. “10 exahertz. Of course. Those dang gamma rays. You know, they warned Bruce Banner about ‘em, but noooo.”
“Is this too much for you?” she smiled, leaning her head to the left in empathy.
“No, no,” he swore. “It’s just a lot to take on like that. Yesterday, I was killed on my way to pick up a Yumbo Yack and some curly fries. Today, I wake up butt naked in Heaven, learn that emotions have physical properties, gray boxes can read your soul, and hologram TVs can turn you into the freaking Hulk.”
“Sorry,” Karen apologized, massaging his arm. “It’s like that for all of us when we first got here. A lot to absorb. A bit of a learning curve but you’ll get used to it.”
“Hmm,” the puzzled PI mused, rubbing his chin. “No plastic. So how do they make TVs and smartphones if there are no plastics?”
“Flexiramics.”
“Come again?”
“What about the casing for components?” he wondered. “Wood?”
“Yes,” she replied, nodding. “Specifically, bamboo. The engineers up here have worked tirelessly on this technology for some time now. Cases are wood and printed circuit boards and IC chips are ceramic. In case you’re also wondering, wire is coated with a wax & ceramic mixture, for non-conductivity, of course.”
“Of course,” he repeated, scratching his head. “I want to ask you something, but you have to promise you won’t cuss me out for being sexist.”
“I’ve been here since 1983,” she stated, knowing exactly what he was alluding to. “That’s 33 years. Most of that time was spent working in the burgeoning electronic farms. So, no, all my time up here wasn’t spent baking cakes or weaving baskets.”
The detective shifted the weight off his aching feet. “So, if this is heaven, why do people have to work? I thought everything would be free.”
“There are seven levels to Heaven,” she explained, “just like there are seven levels in the underworld. In Heaven, you have to earn your way to the upper realms until the highest peak is reached, which is Nirvana, total bliss and infinite knowledge. As you rise through the plains, take note that you can return to a lower level for misdeeds.”
The Will Smith lookalike considered her admission momentarily. Thus far, everything seemed like it was on the up and up, but then, one never knows. “So, if I do bad things here on Level I,” he asked her, “I’ll be returned back to earth?”
“Nope,” she shook her head. “You stay here till you move up. Somewhere along the way you’ll get tired of the same activities day in, day out. Those who are in the underworld have done very egregious things in their human lives, like murder or rape, a crime which cannot take place in Heaven.”
“I see,” he nodded. “So, if I did bad on Earth…?”
“Your soul would be regulated to Hell based on its egregiousness,” she added, “otherwise, upon death, it would just be transferred to a lower life form, like an insect or plant.”
Perish the thought, he wondered. “If I ended up in Hell,” he asked her, “would I be able to get to Heaven?”
“Certainly,” Karen answered, straightening out some tunics displayed improperly on a nearby stand. “You can rise up through the levels by removing your soul-destroying karma and come back as a human. From there, based on the way you live, you can then enter Heaven.”
“I see,” Gregory said, watching her gracefully re-hang the clothes. “So, there’s hope.”
“There’s always hope for redemption,” she suggested, moving on to the next rack.
The new arrival tracked her with his eyes. “That’s pretty fair.” He watched as she yanked a loose thread off a shirt.
“I didn’t invent the system,” she explained.
“I know,” Gregory figured. “I was just…never mind. You know, Karen, I’ve always wanted to know something.”
The proprietor threw up her hands. “Here we go…”
What did I say? he thought. “Oh, you get that question a lot, huh?” he asked.
“It never ends,” she huffed. “I know them all. What was Karen Carpenter’s last meal? Nothing. Why did Karen Carpenter’s house cost so little? It didn’t have a kitchen. If only Karen Carpenter had eaten Mama Cass’ ham sandwich they’d both be alive today. Ugh. It gets old.”
Gregory suddenly felt like he’d just now accidentally emptied out all the water in a kiddie wading pool in the middle of summer. “Sorry. I should’ve known.”
“That’s okay,” she consoled him. “Just be careful about making jokes about people up here. Those can cause you demerits.”
He offered her his hand. “Thanks, Karen.”
“Oh, before I forget,” she brought up, “your blue card is also your room key. Since you just got here you’ll be staying at The Inn on the Millstream. Just ask anyone where it is when you go outside. Everyone knows. The clerk at The Inn will tell you which room is yours.”
“Thanks,” he said, studying the card once more. “The first thing I want to get with this is some clothes and shoes, though. My feet are freezing.”
Karen smiled. “Let’s look around, see what we can find.”