Chapter Fifty-Nine
“Heaven - the abode of God, the angels, and the spirits of the righteous after death; the place or state of existence of the blessed after the mortal life.”
Dex
This time around, dying didn’t hurt. I wasn’t lying on a frozen street, my body wasn’t crushed, and I didn’t struggle to breathe. It didn’t hurt to lose my body—it was never really mine anyway. It was almost a relief to be out of it, to not have to live in a place that I didn’t really belong.
I was back to the purple mist—the translucent body that really had no form. I looked but didn’t see the body anywhere. I didn’t see G.R. either. I thought for sure he’d want a front row seat to watch me go into hell—to watch the beginning of my eternal torment.
But I was in a place that was completely quiet, completely devoid of anything.
And then a yellow glow seemed to open and spread before me.
It started out small but expanded until it was all I could see.
It was beautiful and it was warm. From out of the yellow glow stepped a man in a charcoal-gray suit with a white flower in his lapel.
I blinked against the light as he came forward, almost as if he were floating.
When he stopped in front of me, I realized he wasn’t a stranger.
“Hobbs, what are you doing here? Did you die too?”
Hobbs smiled with a joy I’d never seen from him before and something behind him unfolded. Wings. Huge white wings unfurled from his back, covered in downy, snow-colored feathers.
“I didn’t know butlers had wings,” I said, still staring at them.
“Butler’s do not, but angels do.”
Why would I be with an angel? Was the bright, welcoming light he came from heaven?
“There was no butler job really, was there?” I asked, thinking of the night he showed up at my house for a job I hadn’t been hiring for.
He smiled. “No, but being your butler was highly amusing.”
“Then why?” I asked, wanting to understand. I stepped closer because the warmth around him was so inviting.
“Because you were lost and you needed a guide. You were really never meant for hell, and it was my duty to make sure you stayed that way.”
“But I’ve done horrible things.”
“Most of earth’s population does horrible things. God is very forgiving and he forgives you.”
His words washed over me and something inside me that I hadn’t known was broken and began to heal. It felt wonderful and I felt something I never felt in all my life … peace.
“I don’t know if I deserve it,” I whispered, desperately wanting it anyway.
“That’s exactly why you have it. You have been tempted—tempted with promises and riches and infinite lives to live. Yet you resisted. And you loved.”
He held out his hand.
“Come. Your eternity will not be of torment. It will be of light and peace.”
I looked at his hand and once more at the yellow glow around him. I reached out slowly, afraid what little form I had would evaporate and hold me back. But that didn’t happen. An outline of electric purple formed around me and held me together.
My hand slid into his and instead of going right through him, our hands caught and held.
“Welcome, my friend,” Hobbs whispered and then together we stepped into the brightest part of the light, and it wrapped itself around me. For once, I didn’t feel cold and I didn’t look back, not once. I didn’t think about what I was leaving behind. I only thought about where I was going.
Finally, there was somewhere I truly belonged. Finally, I was home.
Yes, I always thought I was going to hell…
I was wrong.