by Robin Ray
“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 PI thought, rubbing his chin, “No plastic. So how do they make TVs and smartphones if there are no plastics?”
“Flexiramics.”
“Come again?”
“Flexible ceramics,” she answered. “Good for circuit boards.”
“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 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 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 how gracefully she rehung 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.”
Karen, noticing a loose thread on one of the shirts, yanked it off. “I didn’t invent the system.”
“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?”
“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. “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.”
CHAPTER 5
By the time Gregory was finished learning about his blue card, it was already mid-afternoon. Outfitted in a bright yellow Senegalese boubou two-piece outfit, the loose fitting knee-length tunic and matching pants made him feel like he was headed to a conference at the U.N. At lease now, wearing comfortable sandals, the cobblestones were a little more bearable, plus, he no longer stuck out like an Eskimo on Monterey Beach in July.
Out in the street, it was a balmy 67 degrees – not quite cold enough to need a jacket, nor quite warm enough to consider going topless. The sky, he noticed, only had a handful of clouds, if indeed, it really was a sky and those puffs of cotton floating high above really were clouds.
Across the street, next to the hardware store, he saw an ice cream parlor called Molly Moon’s. Ah, he thought. A familiar name. Hadn’t he spent many an afternoon standing patiently in line at the various Molly Moons back on Earth? This outlet, he noticed, resembled the shoppes he’d frequented. It would be incredible, he wondered wishfully, if this unit carried my favorite flavors – balsamic strawberry and Stumptown coffee. Just the thought sent his heart racing.
Crossing the street, he stood in the back of the queue which, to his delight, was rather short. It didn’t take long till he was at the counter.
“What’ll you have?” a French-braided clerk with a mile-wide smile asked him.
“Let me see what you have,” he answered, reading the giant whiteboard on the wall behind the clerks who, like most everyone else, were attired in loose fitting dashikis, tunics or Moroccan ankle-length thobes. One particular flavor caught his eye – vanilla ice cream with a swirl of peach-nectarine jam and pieces of homemade blondie bars called…
“Orchard Blondie,” he requested. “Two scoops, please.”
“Good choice,” the clerk said.
Gregory waited patiently while the young woman scooped out two large helpings in a cone for him from a – wait for it – ancient, wood-covered freezer.
“Here you go,” the clerk said, offering the newbie the ice cold treat.
“Thanks,” he said, taking the cone. “Who designed that freezer? Barney Rubble?”
“Who’s that?” the clerk asked.
“Never mind,” the hungry PI said. “What do I owe you?”
“Two credits.”
Gregory retrieved the blue card from his pocket and handed it to the clerk.
“Oh,” the clerk informed him, refusing the card, “your credits will automatically be subtracted when you leave.”
“I see,” he nodded. “Suppose I didn’t have enough credits? The ice cream automatically goes back?”
“That’s only for non-food items,” she explained. “No one need starve up here in Heaven. All will be provided for, one way or another. If your card is empty, which is rare, by the way, that’s when it serves as a credit voucher. As you work or say, help someone out, your card will be automatically credited and this shoppe would receive what is due them.”
“Really? Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Now,” the puzzled new arrival asked, “when you say help someone out…”
“In whatever capacity you wish – cleaning houses, washing rickshaws and bikes, digging in the ochre mines, putting up posters, handing out fliers, milling seeds, that sort of thing.”
“Fascinating. I’ll bet somebody already found a way to hack the system, huh?”
“It can’t be done,” she assured him. “I mean, you can try, but the risk of demerits is greater than the reward of a few credits. It’ll be a big step backwards, if you know what I mean.”
“Got it,” he nodded. “Thanks for telling me.”
“Anytime.”
Gregory took a taste of the ice cream; the smile on his face betrayed his pleasure.
“Pretty good,” he remarked. “Tastes real; a little different than I remember, but okay.”
“Thanks,” she smiled. “Customers seem to prefer flax milk over what we used to use, soy milk.”
“No cow’s milk?”
“No cows.”
“Really?” his eyes lit up. “I’m surprised.”
“No cows, no cats, no mice, no rats, nothing,” she claimed.
“Well, that answers a question – do animals go to Heaven when they die?”
“The afterworlds are conscious choices only mankind can make,” she explained. “You can’t progress through the worlds if it’s beyond the scope of your comprehension.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Well, thanks for the ice cream. Is this really a Molly Moon’s?”
“Shh,” she whispered. “Don’t tell them we appropriated the name.”
By the time Gregory arrived, or rather, staggered to The Inn on the Millstream, the sun was down but his BAC was up, perhaps around .19 or so. For the past few hours, he’d patronized a handful of bars around town, made some new friends, and downed the tastiest merlots and zins he’s ever had in his life, and brought his credits down to a whopping one. Back on Earth, he’d made it a habit to never blend whites and reds in his stomach at the same time. Tonight, though, he felt it called for a celebration. This was his first day in Heaven and, by Odin’s beard, he was going to enjoy himself; high BAC be damned.
Standing shakily in front of the orange-faced Inn, his vision started criss-crossing in front of his eyes. Luckily, the incandescent lamps were on out front; at least he could clearly discern the path towards the brown door. The building itself, a two-story brick and wood structure, looked like it had close to 30 rooms; perhaps more, perhaps less. The building did seem stately as each sculpted window frame was painted a dashing bright red that, by moonlight, was a charming sight to behold. Trying his best to keep his composure, he straightened himself up as best as he could, teetered to the front door, grabbed the handle and staggered in.
The lobby, he noticed, seemed like a typical motel – wooden floor, fireplace, ripped sofas that looked like they were picked up off a sidewalk, a holographic flat screen TV in a corner broadcasting a Rangers-Oilers game to an audience of two white-haired men, a coffee machine against a wall that looked like it was caught in a time warp, mail slots behind the desk, and a cigarette-smoking clerk that looked like he could be 100 places better than there tonight. At least the 50-ish male worker with the rolled-up sleeves and broken teeth had company – a svelte woman in her early 30’s standing on the front side of the counter. Gregory moseyed on up to the clerk as straight as he could. Epic fail; he was fooling no one.
“Hey, you,” he began. “I’m new here. You got a room for me?”
“What’s your handle, mate?” the clerk asked in his thick Cockney accent.
“Gregory Angelicus.”
The slick, black-haired clerk flipped through his ledger till he found Gregory’s name.
“You’re in 214,” he told him. “It’s on the 1st floor.”
“That’s funny, ain’t it?” the inebriated visitor noticed. “You’d think it’d be upstairs.”
“It is.”
“So then why…?”
“This is the ground floor,” the clerk stated, pointing to the counter. “That’s the 1st floor,” he indicated, pointing to the ceiling.
“Bizarre,” the unsteady PI said. “Where’s the elevator?”
“There ain’t none, mate, just the apples and pears at the end of the corridor.”
“What?”
“The staircase,” the lady in front of the desk translated.
“Man,” Gregory scolded the clerk, “you got the thickest accent I’ve ever heard.”
“Blimey!” the clerk retorted. “You Yanks nicked our tongue and we got the accent?”
“Oh,” the lady interrupted, walking towards Gregory, “you’d better get to stepping. Don’t wanna get this gentleman all riled up. He’s Joe Strummer from The Clash and his temper is pretty well known around town.”
“Hmph,” Gregory snorted. “This way?” he asked, pointing down the hall to his left.
“Mama,” Joe asked his translator, “can you help this legless bloke out? The smell ah him will make me nethers shrink.”
“Sure,” she replied. “You got any hospitality kits?”
The clerk went to the back room, quickly returned with two canvas bags of goods, and handed it to Mama. Taking the packages, she wrapped her arm in Gregory’s. “Ready?”
“What’s…what’s your name?” he asked her.
“Cass Elliot. Most people call me Mama Cass.”
“You’re a pretty fine woman, Mama Casssss.”
Cass recoiled from Gregory’s breath, especially in the long way he dragged out “Cass.” It smelled so bad it could kill all the bees in their honeycomb from 10 feet away.
“Hey, Joe,” she beckoned to the clerk, “they got mouthwash in here, I hope.”
“You bet.”
“I’ll see ya later, then” she told him. “Let me just get lover boy upstairs before he crashes right here.”
Mama Cass, a strong and confident woman, didn’t think carrying the inebriated stranger and his hospitality kit up the staircase would be a walk in the park, but she didn’t think it’d be like pushing a dump truck up a hill, either. By the time she was able to flop them both down on the wood-framed bed in his bedroom, the strength had been sucked out of her muscles.
“My God,” she lamented. “What do you got in your pockets? Bricks?”
Gregory, already half asleep, didn’t respond. Moaning, he adjusted himself into the most comfortable position he could muster, something akin to a foetal pose.
“Not so fast, sailor,” Mama Cass warned him. “You’re hitting the water.”
“No, I’m not,” he protested weakly. “When I get upstairs I’m going straight to bed.”
“Get up,” she ordered him gently, raising him up off the bed.
“Five more minutes,” he begged.
“I had a friend once who wanted just five more minutes,” she remarked, “but those minutes never came. Vomited in his own lungs and suffocated to death. Get up.”
Realizing she won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, Gregory complied, stood up with her help, and dragged his carcass to the bathroom. Sitting him on the toilet’s closed wooden lid, she stripped him naked and helped him get in the shower.
“Yow!”
he screamed as the cold water from the overhead metal nozzle came pouring over him. “My balls just flew up in my chest.”
“Oh, hush,” she whispered. “You’re making a big deal out of something little.”
Minutes later, having been revived by the frigid liquid, Gregory sat at the pine kitchen table in a brown terry cloth robe drinking coffee while Mama Cass, standing in front of the electric stove, prepared them both something to eat – wheat bread with eggs, melted cheese, and slices of tomatoes. Using a bamboo remote, Mama Cass turned on a virtual jukebox sitting in a wall in the kitchen. It was playing instrumental shoe gaze music, or as some would call it, psychedelic dream pop – reverb-heavy, non-formulaic background noise.
“You know what I don’t get?” the recently showered guest asked her. “Where are we exactly? Where is…all this?”
“You know,” she answered, “I’m not really sure. You’d think that this being Heaven we’d be up in the sky somewhere. But my understanding is we’re in the same plane as the other worlds.”
“Earth and Hell.”
“Yes,” she replied, “but existing in separate dimensions. Figuratively, Heaven is above the Earth and Hell below, but that idea only came about as a way to differentiate the polar opposites of the afterworlds, makes the concepts easier to grasp when they’re attached to directions, a tangible idea all men can understand. Makes sense, too, when you think about it. How else can a soul travel from the Earth to Heaven that quickly unless they were side by side or intertwined to begin with? Supposedly, when the soul leaves the body, it’s so tiny it can penetrate any point in space and regenerate anywhere.”
“So, right now,” Gregory wondered, “I could be sitting on a runway in Paris with Anna Kournikova strutting right through me in modern tennis gear and not know it.”
“Technically,” she said, “I don’t know much about it, but when you have the time, take a trip to a Holographic Engineering or Quantum Mechanics sector, or whatever it’s called these days. They change them so much I can’t keep up. I do know it has something to do with ultra high energy gamma rays and interdimensional travel.”