Poet Heaven - Part One - by Gordon Purkis

It was a short life but a good one. Before he died, William Bidden had made peace with his god after a rough patch that saw him plummet to the depths of despair and was more or less alone save for his friends Jim Beam and Jack Daniels.

But he made restitution – and that’s all that mattered to him. He believed he was running on borrowed time and he lived each day as well and as thoroughly as is humanly possible.

It was a shame his heart gave out though – all those years of heavy drinking and drug use had taken its toll on his body. It was just one of those things – one moment you feel fine and the next a heart attack and a quick death.

All William left behind was his writing. He’d written poetry and short stories from an early age. It was all he really wanted to do in life and was a modest success at it. So many of his projects were left undone, however, as is the case with any writer who dies in his prime or any regular human being for that matter. We all leave things undone; we’d hardly be human if we didn’t have some things still on our to-do list when we pass on.

And, like it was said, William was more or less OK with it. He’d stopped thinking or worrying about the hereafter a long time ago. For him, it wasn’t really important to him if there was a heaven and hell certainly didn’t make any sense to him intellectually – if God was a god of love then such a thing as hell could have scarcely been conceived let alone exist. He believed that man’s troubles were of his own making and the idea of a “devil” just seemed like an easy excuse to blame someone outside of yourself for your faults. He had his own concept of god anyway, and for him it didn’t matter if it was true or not, only that he believed in him.

Much to his surprise however, he had awoken again in a strange place. He hardly remembered his last moments and of course any of the time in between. William discovered he was curiously dressed in a nice suit and tie. This kind of outfit was never his style on earth but he couldn’t argue with the fit and comfort of this suit, so he decided not to think about it to much. Wherever it was that he…was, he supposed, that was just the fashion.

The stark whiteness of everything that surrounded him seemed kind of strange to him but it didn’t take him long to figure out that this must be the afterlife. “Well, at least you go somewhere after you die,” he thought to himself. He had been lying on a white ceramic table and there were a lot of odd looking devices surrounding him. In fact, he remarked that it looked a lot like a doctor’s office, one of those rooms you wait in for eternity while the doctor is wandering elsewhere checking on other patients. It wasn’t a proper room though, it didn’t appear to have any walls and other than the apparatuses that he could see, nothing but whiteness stretched out in every direction.

There was a mirror and William looked at his face and it appeared familiar to him, but the image of a man much younger than he remembered. He could recall a time in his youth when he looked much the same: fuller, much longer hair and a bright face devoid of wrinkles and the scars of time.

Suddenly, an apparition materialized in front of him, holding a clipboard. As what appeared to be a she became more solid, she spoke and said “Hello, William.”

“Um, hello,” William replied. “What happened? Where am I?”

She smiled what could only be called a ghostly smiled and said “I’m afraid I have some bad news and some good news,” she answered. “You have passed away.”

William had it figured out already—he was quick-witted enough to see that something had happened, although he still wasn’t 100% sure until he heard it with his own ears. It didn’t come as that much of a shock though. It just seemed to roll off. I guess that would be more or less natural for someone who was deceased.

“But, the good news is, you are in Poet Heaven.”

“Poet Heaven?” William asked.

“Yes, a special part of heaven for the literary significant. I suppose congratulations are in order. Your work has been carefully reviewed and accepted.”

“Really, by who?”

“By whom, you meant to say,” she corrected.

William frowned mildly at having his grammar corrected but thought it more of a curiosity than anything else. It didn’t even occur to him that she hadn’t answered his question.

“What do I do now?” he asked.

“Just be. You’ll have the freedom to move about, talk to other significant authors who are also here. You will have no needs, no wants. Everything will be taken care of.”

“What about my unfinished writing?” he asked, "will I be able to continue my writing?

“You can, if you want to,” the nurse said. “But you’ll find it difficult, as you will see.”

“Why?” William asked.

“Without a body, without your true humanity, in the sense that the living have, the material having of life from the moment of birth until death…you will find it difficult to be inspired. With all your wants and needs cared for, there’s simply nothing to suffer over, no questions, no doubts.”

“Doesn’t sound like too much fun,” William replied. But the idea of having everything he wanted with no concerns, no worries, appealed somewhat to him. “But I think I’ll manage," he concluded. After all, what she said couldn’t possibly be true—he had all his memories and experiences in tact. That would be source enough for him to write a good long while. As for new experiences, there was an entire eternity for them. And, he realized, there’s nothing but time to do it, he didn’t have to worry about working a real job or even eating. “I’ll take a look around,” he said.

“You are free,” she said “to do whatever you like.”

William hopped off the table, smoothed his suit and wandered into the endless whiteness.

To be continued...

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