Heaven

You know the nagging feeling in your stomach, the one that always gets you in an old, gray, rectangle building? The one engulfing you as you try to tell your destination apart from many others that equally lack character? The one that validates itself when, after rummaging through corridors -the walls of which are invariably lined with footprints at the bottom- and flying through staircases, you end up in the wrong place?

Being the shitty navigator that I am, I had thought I would be spared from this personal hell of mine when the screen of the ticket vending machine dryly announced that I was admitted to heaven, seconds after I placed my hand on the biometric scanner. Go to room CN104 for your admission procedure.

I hadn't been able to make sense of the thin layer of dust on the scanner, though. I had wiped it on my stainless, glowing white toga and hadn't thought much about it - wish I did.

Maybe then I wouldn't be this shocked to find nobody in CN104. Or in the myriad of other places I ran around the whole day - if you can say that there are days here. Admission. Recreation Planning. Evaluation. Sanitation. Landscaping. (Management I couldn't get into to explore, but I suppose that's to be expected in heaven even more than in Earth.) Not even in the toilets. Not outside, enjoying the constantly beautiful weather, frolicking in the meadows carefully decorated with the most elegant of flowers. Not even around the glorious buffets, the tables struggling under the weight of roasted porks and the wines and beers - which I found an ironic reward for the restraint one needs to have in order to get here.

Then, in a wave of sudden clarity triggered by the familiar, welcoming scent of the untouched pork, I remembered. I never really had the restraint one needed for heaven.

I was in my personal hell.