The Big Ol' Marble

The weirdest thing about being dead, Emily thought, is that everyone gets a sleeping bag. And she was right. Heaven was in a strange ol’ place. It was like a big ol’ ball where everybody was trapped inside, and maybe something was out there, but nobody really cared too much to check. A marble in the sky, where the light shone through the glass, casting rays of light every which way like thin silver strings caught in a weave. Bright--but not too bright. And it was a big, big ball, where everyone had lots of space but there still was not enough. On the porch of her big ol’ house, Emily could see for miles, and it was all hers. Open fields of grass and glass cutting into the sky, twisting up in beautiful broken edges towards that other side of the world. That impossible continent. The curve of the Earth had never seemed so important until Emily found herself in Heaven, the size and scope of the world opened up to her at a passing glance into the air. The stars, so impossible to reach, had an endless scope, but it just was not the same. It was a big ol’ ball, but not forever-big. Emily’s watch counted down moments, not seconds; an endless supply. Moments, not places, were in endless supply. That insatiable hunger to see and do new things was just a little bit missing. Emily wondered if there might be other marbles, filled with farms and caverns and rays of light. And she wondered why, of all things, she got a sleeping bag. It wasn’t cold at night, or during the day either. It wasn’t even like she really slept, except for when she wanted to. It was just kind o’ weird.

Some days Fredrick would come visit her, but not as often as she’d like, although she wasn’t terribly vocal on the matter.

Emily had met with death when she was 17 year old. She had been hopeful and bright, kind of like the big ol‘ ball. And on a big bright day, she had been hit by the big bad drunk driver, who lived and went to jail and then suffocated because of a weird little rope. That rope had tied him up and tossed him down and he had been sent away. He was in the Badlands O’ Hell now. Emily hated him so much it made her face go red and her hands would just squeeze together like tight ol’ fists. But she still didn’t think it right he was down in the bad, bad place. Emily just hated seeing her parents so sad, and she thought that was just damn terrible that there was nothin’ she could do.

I am dead, Emily thought, careful to enunciate each and every syllable the way she had been taught. And that kind o’ bugs me. What a placid thought. Fredrick knocked on her long wooden door, the sound resounding against the multiple plate glass ceilings that made up her abode. A clear view up into the sky and to the other side o’ the big ol’ ball.

“Fredrick, come in.” Emily opened the door, motioning him into the living room. She shuffled her feet and tapped her toe against the plate glass floor. Fredrick had been 17 when he died too. In fact, everybody here had so far as they could tell. That’s why Emily wondered if maybe there were other balls. Mostly she knew, but sometimes she thought What if there are loopholes? What if the only way to get to Heaven is to die when you are 17? She shared this with Fredrick. Fredrick, who wore blue jeans and a ruffled shirt. He had found the strange shirt in his closet first thing when he got to Heaven, and even though he didn‘t like it, some days he wore it anyway. It had been given to him by God knows who. It just seemed right.

“It makes me look kinda gay,” he moaned, trying to pat down the ruffles.

“I do not think that matters. We are in Heaven, Fredrick. Think o‘ what that means.” Emily had covered her mouth to giggle. She’d been in Heaven for a while. Fredrick was her only friend. He was a little too short and a little too shy, just like her. Fredrick had died when his best friend Johnson had cut his heart out and then fed it to the piggies on a big ol’ farm back home. A farm with a white picket fence where the pigs played in the mud and the blood sat on top of that thickly layered sludge like paint on a canvas. It painted the picture o’ that little boy’s death. His friend had been arrested and he was still in jail. He never died the way that ol‘ drunk did. Fredrick’s dad was the one who figured it out--not even the police! He had gone over to Johnson’s house and punched Johnson in his mean ol’ face, and Johnson had cried like a baby and swore he didn’t do it.

He said “I swear I didn’t cut out his big ol’ heart. I swear,” but he had. Now he was in jail with a guy named Thompson. Thompson and Johnson were best friends, and they kissed and hugged when the other boys weren’t looking. Fredrick knew this, and that was why he never, ever wanted to be gay. Because he didn’t want to be like Johnson, who was a big ol’ meanie who cut people’s hearts out and sank their bodies in the river. Fredrick’s heart hole had filled with grody ol’ swamp water, and the fishies had swum through his veins and arteries and into his brain.

“I don’t think that only us 17 year olds get into Heaven, little miss Emily,” Fredrick had said, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, looking for something, anything, to fiddle with. “If that’s true, that means my mom’s in the Badlands o’ Hell, and I don’t wanna think about that.” His hand retreated from his pocket and pointed sternly at his head.

Think, Fredrick thought, and then corrected himself. That’s wrong. I’m in Heaven now. I think with my heart, not with my brain. He dropped his hand over his chest, but Emily didn’t notice.

“Well my dad cries himself to sleep every single night, because his one true love is gone to Heaven.”

“What about your mom?” Fredrick asked.

“She cries too when she finds the time. But neither o’ them find time to love one another. They love me so much because I am gone and they cannot have me. So their tears fill the rivers and they forget they have each other. They don’t so much as hug no more.” Emily sighed and stared down at the ground, past her check-check-checker flannel sweater, her orange pleated skirt, and her slip-on shoes. The ones with the nice little jewels that sparkled even in the shadow, if you could be so lucky as to find one.

“Tears filled the valley in the river of my heart,” Fredrick replied. “And when fish go in your brain, that’s when they learn a little something. They learn that they can’t learn. It’s an epiphany they’re bound not to have. All that when we‘re up here with all the time in the world to figure stuff out. Ain’t that just a little bit unfair? Ain‘t that weird?”

“I think it is weird bein’ dead,” Emily said. “I think that is weird enough.” She looked through the glass roof of her ceiling and onto the second floor, and through the glass paneled roof beyond even that. She could see the other side of the world, so full of life impossible to make out. Just a giant cluster of people, hustling and bustling in their own little ways, hidden by the immeasurable distance of the twisting, crossing paths and trails of the ball. The other side of the marble was like a glass roof too, with the light staring in through the crystal flower gardens, reaching past those people and coming like a summer’s warmth down upon Emily and Fredrick and everyone else so inclined to live nearby. It felt good to share.

That’s what it is like being dead. You have so much time to take everything in you just stop and breathe. And if you’re lucky, you’ll see the other side o’ the big ol’ marble is stoppin’ too, and they can’t see you neither. They just know what to do. A ray of life, passing through everyone. A lot of things have changed, but we bring some things with us from Earth. Ain’t no way around it, no matter how much you hated it. You’re stuck with it cause it’s who you are. Heaven is a chance to see things for real, even if it‘s too far away to really get a good look at. You just got to believe the people are out there, and hope they do good the way you do. Hope they brought that goodness with them from the big ol’ Earth.

“Well,” Fredrick said, throwing his teacup into a hole in the floor, God knows why, “I’d best be going. The night’s a comin’.”

“You know as well as I do, the night does not mean a thing.” Emily said. I just think it’s a sick ol’ joke, makin’ it night time but havin’ it shine so bright anyways.

“You may be right you pretty girl, but I gotta go. That’s what it is to be dead.”

“Fredrick,” Emily paused, “You’re a mighty good lookin’ boy yourself.” She winked at him, and he stepped out the door, across the property, and all the way home. Across the forest ridge and down the strange ol’ trail that twists too far, and all the way up across the glassy fields where shards of green, green grass glitter in the sun and under the moon. Underneath them, his dad sat up and paced around his bedroom, a path worn into the floor, and two parents cried on opposite sides of the same ol’ bed. They were man, man and lady, sitting on a marble beneath a marble in the sky.

Fredrick sat at home in his favourite ol’ chair. It didn’t creak or moan as he rocked. Instead, the soft motion nodded him off to sleep. And he thought to himself, Boy, that Emily sure is pretty. I wonder if she was so pretty back home on the Earth. I hope I love her the way I think I do.

Emily curled up in her sleeping bag and laid up on the couch. She had a blinder that didn’t work, but she wore it anyways out o‘ habit. She clutched the sides of the bag and allowed a sea of thoughts to race through her head. But in the ocean of commotion flying through her brain, one thought stood out, even though she may not have even noticed.

It sure is weird, this sleeping bag here. It’s not so lonely in this big ol’ bag. I wish mom and dad had sleeping bags too.