Retirement Planning

“So, what’s the catch?” asked Wilbur, his mouth quivering in anticipation of the answer. He fiddled with his glasses with his left hand, and his wife Enid squeezed his right hand and beamed at the nice young lady sitting across the bureau.

Karen stopped typing, looked up from her PC, and blinked a couple times. “Um,” she said, blinking again. “Well, you’ll go to Hell.”

“Uh-huh,” Wilbur said. “What’s that look like?”

“Uh,” Karen drew out, and she glanced at the script on her monitor again. “Just a sec.” A couple clicks. “There. Okay, so what it means is, when you die, your immortal soul goes to Hell for all time.”

“Yes, we know that, dearie,” said Enid. “But what’s it like?”

“What? Hell?”

The elderly couple nodded.

“Um… bad? It’s Hell.” Then after a pause, and with a single dire dip of the chin, “Hell.”

Wilbur nodded and Enid motioned for Karen to continue, as though she were coaxing her youngest great-granddaughter forward on her trike. Karen let out an exasperated breath and turned to her computer.

“Okay, let’s see. Says here you’ll spend all of eternity by the Lake of Fire–”

“Ooh!” said Enid.

“Did you hear that, love?” said Wilbur. “Lakeside!” They huddled together in a giggle. “It’ll be just like that time we went to Cabo, I bet!” He turned to Karen. “So what’s the rent on something like that run?”

Karen started blinking so hard she had to pinch the bridge of her nose and close her eyes. “Rent? What – there is no rent. It’s Hell!”

“O-ho!” said Wilbur, with a dentury grin. “What a steal!”

“The Conners will be so jealous,” Enid said, tittering. “And they just bought that condo, too. Now, it’s really nice, sure, and the neighbours seem like good people, but I really do think they’re overpaying. Considering the size. And the age of the plumbing. Oh, and those carpets in the hallway. I don’t want to say anything mean, but they just don’t work for me at all.”

“You know, I really like that swimming pool they have though,” said Wilbur.

“Wilber, really! When’s the last time you went swimming?”

“Well I’m sure I would do so more often if I had a pool. I tell you, I’m really looking forward to this lake thing.”

“Oh, me too!” Enid said. “Just think of all the sunsets we can watch.”

Karen snorted. “No.” She stared up at the ceiling and then clicked madly on her machine. “No, no, no. I don’t think you guys understand.” She clicked a couple more times, so hard she risked voiding her mouse’s warranty. “We’re talking about Hell.” She swiveled her monitor so that they could see it. “There are no nice sunsets. There is no beach, or swimming, or whatever. It’s just an eternity of torture.”

Wilbur and Enid leaned in and squinted at the horrific photograph depicting indescribable atrocities. Periodically Karen clicked through the slideshow to the next photo, hoping – based on her clients’ scrunched brows – that maybe they were finally understanding the gravity of the situation.

“Golly,” whispered Enid.

“I know,” said Wilbur. He cleared his throat. “Look at all those bones! And how firm they are. I bet they have great healthcare. Karen, what’s the healthcare like?”

“What?”

“I mean, if we’re there for eternity,” Enid said, “seems like they’d probably have pretty good healthcare.” Wilbur nodded. “Especially for us older folks.”

“There’s no healthcare!” Karen snapped. “You’ll be dead! You won’t need healthcare!” She let out a white-knuckled growl, her exasperation petering out to a flaccid whimper. “I need you to understand the gravity of this: you’ll go to Hell. This is an eternity of torture. That means: for ever.”

“Well,” Wilbur drew out.

“Forever!” She stabbed her monitor with her finger. “This, this right here. This horrible little machine. You see how the people are screaming? This will be you. It’s torture, unending.”

The elderly coupled leaned in again, and then shared a look.

“Well, dearie,” said Enid, “that doesn’t look so bad.”

Karen’s eyes widened, and she snapped from the screen to Enid, shivering with incomprehension. “How is it not bad? Do you see what’s happening to his legs? And the ears! Oh lord, the ears! The body does not spiral that way!”

“Oh, sure, it looks bad now, but… forever is a long time.”

“I don’t understand how you don’t find the prospect of this, forever, unsettling.”

“The thing is,” said Wilbur, wrapping his wife in a side hug, “with time, people can get used to pretty much anything. It’s like if you go to the bathroom at the game. Sure, it’s gross, and it reeks, and there’s all kinds of colourful bodily fluids everywhere. But if you stay there long enough, you kind of stop noticing the smell.”

“Yeah, take it from us, dearie. I mean, after nearly seventy years of marriage to this one–” Enid made an exaggerated thumb towards Wilbur, and he chortled “–I think we can weather a bit of poking and prodding.”

Karen shotgunned through her desk drawers, found a bottle of antacids, and took a swig. She closed her eyes as she chewed, going through some half-remembered breathing exercises. She tried to visualize a serene stream in the woods, and when she couldn’t, she tried to picture the breakroom instead. It reeked of microwaved fish even in her mind’s eye, and the floor was sticky, but all that was fine. At least it was a kind of calming oasis.

“You all right?” asked Wilbur.

When Karen’s eyes snapped open she found the world’s colours had shifted. “Why?” she asked. “Maybe this isn’t the best course of action for you. You seem like nice people. Why do you want to sell your souls?”

The couple glanced at each other. “We had a coupon,” said Enid. She dug around in her purse. “Well, somewhere here anyway.”

Coupon? Karen mouthed, not daring to breathe it.

“Besides,” said Wilbur, “what do a couple of old farts like us need them for anyway? Figured we’d get something for them and help our kids out. Watch the grandkids actually enjoy their inheritance, that kind of thing. Like a reverse mortgage.”

He squeezed Enid’s hand.

“Say now,” he said, “you don’t really seem to enjoy your work.”

“Nope. I ruin afterlives and my boss is literally The Devil™.”

“So why do it?” asked Enid.

A tremor rippled through Karen’s shoulders. Then another. Then she hiccoughed and buried a soggy wail in her hands. “What else can I do?” She sobbed. “Where else can I go?” Her breath hitched. “Nobody’s hiring, and the world’s going to crap, and everyone’s angry all the time, and, and, and–” Shuddering whimpers overtook her.

Enid patted her arm. “There, there, now dearie.” When Karen blinked away the wet, Enid passed her a tissue.

“Thanks.”

“Listen,” said Wilbur, “it’s just a job. I know it probably seems overwhelming now, but take it from us: there’s so much more to life. It might not seem like it right now, but like the old saying goes, it always gets worse before it gets worse.”

Karen flinched. “How’s that reassuring?”

“Well, then you have something fond to look back on. Your own Good Old Days when Things Used To Be Better. After all, at the end of the day we’re just memories, aren’t we?”

“I… suppose,” said Karen. She blinked away the last of her tears, still uncertain.

“Found it!” said Enid, proudly drawing her coupon from her purse and holding it high. Then she squinted at it. “Oh, shoot. It’s expired.”

Wilbur and Enid shrugged, got up, and took their leave.