As Harry McCall awoke, he stretched his arms as far as he could above his head and looked with a big smile at the cloudless sky above him. He could feel the warm sun on his neck and back. It hadn't looked this bright in a long time. As he rolled to get up on his right side, he caressed the damp, rich grass. It was all around him. The sun appeared to be in the 10 o'clock position. He stared ahead to the west at the Franklin Mountain range, which he had always admired. It felt very peaceful. It also felt as if he had been asleep for a long time, and even now it seemed as if he were in a dream or trance.
After enjoying the sight of the mountains for a long while, Harry looked around him as he realized there were numerous people near him on this field of grass he was on. The sound of their many voices had caught his attention, and they were speaking in different languages--English, some Spanish, and some Oriental of some kind. Like him they were also apparently waking up, with some still sitting and others already standing. They all looked perplexed. A few feet to Harry's right, a lady was sitting who looked especially confused. She was staring almost straight ahead and didn't notice Harry even after he got up on his feet. She looked to be at least in her '80's and was probably short on eye power, Harry imagined.
"Good morning, ma'am," Harry decided to say. For a long time she just looked in his direction as if trying to find him in her line of sight.
Finally she asked, "Where are we?"
"I don't know." The question hadn't even occurred to Harry even though he was generally an attentive person. He started to look around. He knew he was in the same area of town that he lived in from looking at the mountains. There was a large thoroughfare that looked like Dyer Street. He then looked back down at the field and realized that they were sitting or standing next to holes in the ground with headstones right next to them. Apparently they must have been everyone who had ever been buried at Restlawn Cemetery. There was hardly a space that did not have an open grave hole with a person near it. He looked immediately to his left and saw the grave he had been in. He didn't remember getting out of it. The first thing he remembered was stretching his arms. He wondered what had really happened.
"Where are we?" he heard the old woman say again, directing the question toward no one in particular. Harry now remembered that he got hit by a car. He had been running up Transmountain Road in training for the annual Transmountain 20K Run. He remembered that he had just looked back to see what traffic was coming and had only seen the lights of one distant car. It was night time. Within a few seconds, he was hit hard by what must have been that same car. As he thought about it now, the car had to have been going at an excessive speed. It had simply reached him too quickly. He was sure of that. The pain on impact had not been too bad, but he remembered flying through the air for what must have been 30 feet at least. The flight had even seemed exhilarating for the two seconds it must have lasted. There had been sharp pain when he landed. When he landed, his forehead had hit the ground very hard. He then remembered the sound of a siren. He must have been unconscious until an ambulance arrived. It didn't keep him awake very long. That was all he remembered.
He looked down now and noticed that he was wearing his favorite training sweat suit--red fleece pants and matching zippered jacket with a wide green stripe on the front right side. The t-shirt was from the 1991 Phoenix Marathon he had run in. He laughed in his mind. It had been shortly before his death that he had told his wife at a party that he wanted her to be sure to bury him in this outfit in order to show the afterworld his favorite hobby. Everyone had a good time ribbing him about his wish and his wife publicly promised she would accede to his wish. He didn't believe she would actually carry it out, but it looked like she had. He could just see his friends--many of them runners--at the funeral service as they passed to look at the casket trying to be solemn. He and his wife had always had an ample sense of humor.
"Where are we?" the woman had kept inquiring while Harry was caught up in his reverie. He turned to her.
"It looks like we've come back to life," he answered as he moved to her side. At the same time the woman on the other side of her moved toward them.
"Yes, that's exactly what it looks like," she said in a voice that was half nervous and half joyful. She looked alert and appeared to be in her 50's. She started retelling how she had woken up and how she had realized what was happening. The older woman appeared to be listening intently and finally understanding something of what was happening. A man from a gravesite behind them moved toward them and listened shyly. Soon they were all exchanging information about when they had lived, and a young boy of about 14 came up. It was interesting to find out that if the boy had continued to live, he would have been in his 80's now. The whole cemetery was now abuzz with all the people who had been buried there and were now resurrected. Numerous small groups had now gathered like the one Harry was in with everyone exchanging information about themselves trying to figure out what was to come next.
People talked for about 20 minutes and then suddenly a bright white, thick cloud appeared all along the ground as far as one could see and it lifted them slowly and gently straight up in the air. The trees and utility poles and buildings gradually disappeared below the cloud, which still extended in every direction as far as one could see. Eventually only the mountains could be seen and even they completely disappeared after about 10 minutes. "Oh, this must be the Rapture," the younger woman exclaimed excitedly.
A figure then began to appear in the northwest sky. It was a gigantic figure, taller than any building on earth, dressed in a long white robe and it looked like a woman. She was hundreds of feet above the cloud and as her face became more clear, one could see that she was very pretty.
She spoke, "Tomorrow is the Day of Judgment. It will take place in exactly 24 hours. In the meantime you will have time to relax. The weather will be ideal. You will be free to do anything you want to. You can sleep until then or you can walk around to meet other people. You will be able to communicate with them effortlessly in a common language. You need not be afraid to walk on the cloud. You will not fall through. If you want to walk around the world, it should only take you twelve hours at a normal pace.
"The Lord will go through the Book of Judgment tomorrow at this time and judge all, both those who were already alive and all those just resurrected. You will find out who are the chosen."
The younger woman gasped. Then there was a long silence as everyone stood stunned. Harry said, "I don't know where I stand. I'll have to think about it."
The older woman still looked very confused, but it seemed like she knew a little more about what was happening. The younger woman said, "I used to go to church, was a member of the Northeast Christian Church for 30 years, helped a lot through the years, was always involved in fundraising. I hope I at least have a good chance." "Gosh, I never went to church," Harry said as he scratched the left side of his head. "I guess I should have. We'll have to wait to see what happens."
"Oh, you look like a very nice man," the younger woman said. "I'm sure that you'll have no problem. And you young man," she turned to the boy. "I'm sure you had no time to do bad things. Well, apart from the usual acting up that all young boys do."
"Well," the boy said calmly, "I obeyed my parents and my teachers. I got good grades. I never got in trouble except at home sometimes, like when I used to tease my older sister and we'd get into arguments."
The older woman finally spoke and said, "Oh, I went to church, too. Well, not in the last five years. I was too sick, but before that I always went to church."
The cemetery was buzzing with discussion. After several minutes, a tall, tall podium appeared in the same spot where the angel had stood. It was dark brown and looked like it was made of walnut. You could not see the top of it, but you could see the entire front of it as it stood hundreds of feet high.
Harry decided he wanted to be alone and thought he might want to go for a run. This could be his final hour before being consigned to hell. He certainly had the right clothes for running. He might try to run around the world. It didn't seem like running on a cloud would be very hard at all. He always tried to find a soft surface to run on and a cloud would probably be better than anything he had ever tried before. So he excused himself and started running toward what he figured was the east. He looked down and could see Lee Elementary School through the cloud. There were many children gathered together with a few adults on the cloud above the school, and some of the kids were still playing kickball.
As he ran he saw many people. It looked like the ones who had still been alive on earth had been swept up just as they were. He wondered how long it had been since he had died. Judging from people's clothes, it looked like the fashions hadn't changed. He imagined it must have been less than five years since his untimely death. He now appreciated how good it felt to be running on a cloud. He felt no impact on the soles of his feet and in fact it felt as if the cloud sprang him upwards with every step he took. He noticed that his breathing wasn't being affected at all so he tried running harder, as fast as he could. It still didn't affect his breathing. This must be what heaven is like, he thought. There were some people walking around but he didn't see any other runners.
He felt funny, maybe a little depressed. He started wondering what was going to happen to him. When he was alive, he had never thought very seriously about what was going to happen now. It never seemed like a real concern then. It sounded like the younger woman back there was a shoo in. She had been an active member of a church for 30 years. As he thought about it, he started feeling anger toward his parents because they never encouraged him to go to church.
When he was small, they would sometimes send him to the Baptist church in their neighborhood where they used to live in Houston, but they never told him it was really important and hardly ever went themselves. As an adult he definitely lost interest.
His wife had been a regular churchgoer. She was a Methodist. He had gone with her on special occasions, but it hadn't meant that much. Some of it seemed outright outlandish, but here he was now and what would he be able to say. Of course, he probably wouldn't even be asked, but if he were he had no excuse. As he thought about it more, he was becoming more sure that he would not be one of the chosen ones. His wife probably would get in. She'd been active in church and had been good.
Of course, he had also been good. He had been a good father to their two children, had worked hard, had done his best. When he got laid off a job one time, he had wasted no time and looked hard and found another one. Of course, it helped that his wife had worked, but he himself had always played his part. His kids loved him. He could possibly be accused of spending too much time with the guys. They hardly drank when they got together. In fact he socialized with the other members of the Half-Fast Track Club and they all took real good care of their health. Early every Sunday morning they met at a track in a park on the far east side of town to run races to stay in shape. That was one reason why he had hardly gone to church. By the time he came back it was too late and the family had already left by then.
His wife complained--but only once or twice--that he should go to church with the family. No, it probably wasn't going to sit too well with the Lord. It was too late now. He felt sad now. His wife and kids would get into heaven, but he wouldn't be able to join them. They had both been good kids.
He wondered about hell now. What would it be like. He hoped it wouldn't be as bad as they sometimes said--eternal fire. He had heard that dying by fire was just about the most painful death that there could be, and then again you didn't die. The torture just went on and on and on. At least when people died by fire, they finally escaped the pain. In hell you would just have to endure and endure and endure.
He passed over what looked like another school. Surely most kids would get in. What could you hold against them except maybe for a few hard core ones who had committed serious crimes. And how much of that was the parents fault? At that early age, maybe it had just been a matter of bad heredity, maybe just one bad gene among the 100,000 genes or so that we were supposed to have.
He could see that he was going very fast. Most people he passed were talking calmly, but there were others who were actually arguing, probably about how much other members of the family were to blame for their not getting into heaven. Wives could be scolding husbands because they hadn't been better because now they were going to be separated forever.
He realized that perhaps there was no use in trying to think about anything very deeply. Perhaps the thing to do was to try to enjoy the last few moments of peace he would ever have again. It didn't seem like he had any chance of changing his fate at this point. He had always heard that your judgment was all based on your deeds before you died. You had to get it right before your last rites because once you died that was it. And he hadn't had a chance to have his last rites. Tomorrow God would open the Book and not find his name.
He entered the American South and saw Protestants arguing among themselves, even the Baptists arguing among themselves, on who deserved to enter and who didn't--who had followed the right doctrines, who had lived the right life.
As he crossed France, he saw what appeared to be Protestants and Catholics arguing about which group would be more deserving. He wondered what was the use of arguing now.
As he passed what looked like Eastern Europe, he thought about the Serbs and how they had treated the Croats and Muslims in the '90's. Certainly many of them shouldn't be able to go to heaven, but then that meant they would be down there with him and that didn't make him very comfortable.
As he ran across Asia, it occurred to him that most of the Asians would go to hell based on the fact that most of them hadn't accepted the Christian word. Here they were, probably more than 2 billion. There were more than a billion just with the Chinese. So at least that guaranteed there would be other people with him in hell.
After Harry got back he guessed, he had been gone seven hours. He knew he had run very fast. The sun had stayed in exactly the same position--straight up, and yet it had been in the same noontime position throughout the world. He didn't feel tired at all and yet he had run hard all the way around the world. He couldn't believe it.
Back at his place in the cemetery, the older woman was still sitting there but she now seemed more relaxed. As he sat down, he thought about how he really wished he could go to heaven. Life would be so easy. He wished he had done something about it when he had the chance. If God could read his mind, it would make up for it. He would be found deserving. Surely not as deserving as others like these ladies who always went to church, but still.
There were still many hours to kill. He thought about going to try to find his family, but it would be almost impossible without having reliable landmarks to go by. Besides it would be too painful to see them again and then have to part with them again forever. He walked around the cemetery wondering if he might find anyone he had known but had no luck.
He then decided to go ahead and sleep until the appointed hour and tried to get into a comfortable position. He thought about his parents. They had been buried in Houston and it would definitely be impossible to find them. Besides he was confident that they would be going below, and there would be plenty of time to find them later. But he didn't want to think any more about what was going to happen now. He just wanted to sleep until the time for reading the Book.
When he awoke, he saw the angel from before standing to the right of the podium as she was calling out,
"Awaken, awaken now." After a few minutes, the angel announced, "And now the Lord God."
A gigantic figure walked up to the podium from behind dressed in a long gold-colored robe. You couldn't see His face very well. It was probably purposely unfocused. He didn't say anything but simply started turning the pages of the huge Book on top of the podium. The more pages He turned the faster He went. This went on for hours while everyone stood silently watching. He went faster and faster not stopping at any point in his leaf turning. The angel stood beside the podium the whole time. Finally God finished and turned around and walked away. Then the angel said, "I'm sorry but no one made it." Then right away the light dimmed as the cloud quickly lowered. As it became completely dark, Harry felt himself being sucked back into the ground.
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