For All Eternity, another story from my forthcoming collection, Tales from the Hereafter, was first published by Centum Press in their One Hundred Voices, Volume III anthology, which came out in August 2017. It was also published online in CultureCult Magazine, which sadly now appears to be defunct. At 854 words, it is the shortest short story I’ve ever written…

 

When Sarah died, we had been married for fifty years.

At twenty-three, she was a dazzling beauty. Many men were vying for her attention. There was one in particular, Roland, a tall, dashing Frenchman, and I knew she was attracted to him. He was rich, handsome, and erudite. He proposed to her. He wanted them to live together in Paris, but she had strong family ties in New York, and so I won the contest. When she agreed to marry me, it was the happiest day of my life. And every day after that was just as happy. Even after the heat and passion of youth cooled, she was everything to me, my center. Then the stroke hit. It left her completely paralyzed. She always made me promise not to let her die in a hospital, and so I ministered to her as best I could for that last week. Finally, mercifully, she slipped away. Before they came to take her lifeless body from our bed, I made the decision.

“I’m coming with you, my darling,” I whispered.

Then I lay down beside her and took a dozen of her strongest pain pills. It was a very pleasant way to go. I highly recommend it.

 

When I awoke, I was standing on a dock, squeezed in on all sides by strangers. The crowd was enormous. Moored at the dock was a big white cruise ship. It looked like a giant, ship-shaped layer cake. People were boarding, going up a long gangplank, one-by-one. I couldn’t see what was making the process so slow, but it was clear everyone wanted to get on board that ship. I doubted there would be room for everyone on the dock. I scanned the crowd, frantically searching for Sarah. I saw someone who looked like her from behind.

“Sarah, Sarah!” I cried. But it was not her.

I couldn’t be too far behind her; she had only been dead an hour when I followed. Looking around, I noticed that no one in the crowd looked old. Everyone seemed to be in the prime of life. I looked at my hands, and they were young. Eventually I got close enough to see that people in uniforms were making everyone form a line. We entered a terminal, walking single file between two ropes.

Inside, each aspiring passenger had to pass through a scanner, like the ones they use at airports to detect bombs or guns. But this scanner was scanning for something else. I believed it was scanning for character. As each person passed through, he or she was either allowed to ascend the gangplank, or moved aside. The crowd of those who had been rejected was very large, and they looked unhappy and worried. I wondered what would happen to them. I wondered with dread if I would be one of them. I was sure Sarah was on that ship, and I didn’t want her to sail without me. Then, in that sea of distraught faces—those who had been moved aside—I saw her. It was the young, beautiful Sarah, the one I had married fifty years ago. I ducked under the rope and ran toward the crowd of rejects.

“Sarah!” She saw me, and fought her way through the mob to the rope that held them in.

“Sam! How…”

“Sarah, why are you here? Why didn’t they let you on the ship?”

“Because…” And she broke down crying. “Because I was unfaithful to you, my darling.” She dissolved in tears.

I couldn’t believe my ears. “No. That’s impossible. We were so happy. All those years…” Then I saw Roland making his way through the crowd of rejects. He stood beside her.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” he said to me. “Sorry you had to find out this way.”

“How long…how long did it go on?” I stammered, barely able to form the words.

“Five years,” said Sarah. “The first five years of our marriage.”

Then, a uniformed guard gently guided me back to my place in the line. I was crying. It was my turn to enter the scanner. Inside, it was not like the ones at the airport. I found myself staring into a mirror, at the young me, the me of fifty years ago. My reflection was cheerful, not crying.

“Your character has been as close to blameless as anyone I’ve seen,” It said to me. “Except for the suicide. Suicide is a big sin… However, since your motivation was not borne of cowardice, but of love, this sin will be forgiven. You may board.”

“But I don’t want to board,” I said through my tears. “I want to go where Sarah goes.”

“That’s not possible,” said my image in the mirror. “You must board.”

And so it was that I became the first person in anyone’s memory to board the ship to paradise with a heavy heart. As I went up the gangplank, I looked back at the crowd of rejects. Sarah and Roland were at the front, and they waved a sad goodbye. When I told her I would love her for all eternity I didn’t lie.

Ron in his early 20s, University of Chicago, early ’60s

He was not famous; you never heard of him. He was just my friend. My best friend. He lived in complete obscurity way out in the desert, a place called Hemet, CA. But, from 1969 to 1975, we were housemates in Laurel Canyon. After that, we stayed in varying degrees of contact until November 2017. That’s when he succumbed to dementia and then further complications that ultimately led to his death. In the five years prior to his death, we spoke on the phone several times a week, sometimes several times a day. He was a poet. He had an advanced degree in clinical psychology, but he would want to be remembered as a poet. He had a great penchant for rhymes—not the vogue in poetry these days. But he paid no attention to what was in vogue. He just wrote what came through him. He was also a great fan of marijuana. Here is one of his 800 poems:

WAKE UP

i guess Buddha never said he was the Son of God

or an angel, prophet or saint

i guess he never primped in mirrors or stood apart

or cursed the day with complaints

yeah, he took to this life like a fish to water

and he gave it up easy when he felt he oughta

surrender his body to the dark

frantic mouth of the starving shark

“What are you?” someone once asked him, suspecting a fake

and legend has it Buddha said: “I am awake.”

y’know there’s so many things in this life to take up

but Buddha’s in there somewhere hoping we all wake up

Like me, he believed that we are souls inhabiting “this mortal coil.” And we both believed that, after we “shuffle off,” the soul goes on. Exactly how that works, no one can say.

Now, here is my somewhat irreverent memorial poem to Ron, attempting to capture his style and spirit:

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, RON?

Where have you gone, Ron?

You’re sure not here

So you must’ve moved on

What’s it like across the River Styx?

Can I ride my bike? Are there any cute chicks?

 

Send me a telegram when you get a minute

Tell me ‘bout the afterlife and what the heck’s in it

Last time we spoke you were very certain

That we go on somehow

Beyond the mortal curtain

 

You were always Dr. Dog to us, your close friends

And you doggedly scribbled

Your poems ‘til the end

And those who crossed over before you in need

Are waiting there for you, and hope you’ll bring weed