THE WAITING ROOM

My death came as quite a surprise, quite astonishing in fact. It took my breath away. What was I doing when it happened? I was in the middle of something hard to pin down. My memory is somewhat murky. When the mist recedes, I get a glimpse, an inkling, of chopping onions for a salad. Yes, I seem to remember now, a salad.

I seem to recall muted conversations from the next apartment, Bach’s Cello Suite No.2: Sarabande, in D minor on my radio, delicate strokes of Pablo Casals, making it compelling, authentic.

I needed to decant the wine and placed the knife to the side, reaching for something I never touched.

~ ~ ~

Yet there’s no doubt. I’m most certainly dead. It’s on the form I’m holding, a bold checkmark in a box labeled “deceased.” In my other hand, a ticket with its number printed dark green.

Heaven’s waiting room?

With absolutely no idea how I ended up here, I looked around, noting details with remarkable clarity. No fluffy white clouds. There goes that myth. No harp music. It seems so ordinary. I’m in a crowded waiting room, business-like and tangible. I’d always assumed my afterlife would be ghostly, otherworldly.

I’m neither happy nor sad. Apprehensive better describes it. Apprehension, maybe closer to disquiet, uneasiness. Not frightful.

It’s like lighting a firecracker, anticipating the bang. Still, don’t we jump when we hear the bang?

I sit, staring at three rows of uncomfortable-looking chairs, arranged like checkers on square-patterned linoleum flooring. The wall may have started peach, had faded to anything, but. A fluorescent light sputtering overhead only made it all look unhappy.

Oh my. I realized the great hereafter is like waiting at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

An electronic sign dangled above the counter. I glanced at my ticket number and waited.

As number 37 showed, a man whooped and raced to a door. Somebody had taped a handmade sign, “Eternity. Enter Here.” Whoever wrote it started with promise, printing bold, widely spaced letters, until words squeezed together, tapped to fit at the end.

The door closed behind him before I could see what was on the other side.

 I turned to a woman with orange hair, holding number 38. I smiled and suggested she must be excited about being next.

 She glared and snapped, razor-sharp, “ain’t in no freakin’ hurry.”

It left me wondering if her relatives and friends were preparing a celebration instead of a funeral or wake. But, given my current circumstances, I decided it unwise to be too judgmental, awaiting my turn, as it were.

Was I ever surprised when her number flashed red. She threw up her hands, tossed her cane to the side, and skipped through the door with a laugh that sounded like breaking glass.

Had I misjudged her, after all?

I passed the time for what seemed an eternity. The significance of that phrase, “forever and a day,” hit me square in the forehead like the smack of a ball-peen hammer.

The passage from my dying to my eternity was feeling somewhat nebulous.

The digital readout finally winked 39. I looked at my ticket and briefly wondered if I could pass on my turn, giving it to the next person in line. Could I keep doing that, remaining in the waiting room, what, forever? After all, what’s an extra eternity or two?

I didn’t whoop or skip. I slow-walked to the door, my steps tentative. I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out what was waiting for me on the other side.

I looked at the door sign and smiled at some graffiti. Someone must’ve been bored waiting. In small letters, at the bottom right corner, in neat handwriting, “Welcome to the Hotel California.”

I couldn’t help smiling as I opened the door.

When the door closed behind me, it sounded final. I stood in a smallish room, dominated by a large painting behind the desk. The canvas was more than sizeable. It was enormous. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the scene, a battlefield littered with corpses. Soldiers wearing Roman uniforms were drooling saliva while holding severed arms, legs, and heads up in the air.

A woman behind the desk, small by anyone’s measure, had a wrinkled face, outlined by silvery hair. She was skeletal, dull skin sagging on her bony frame.

Her broad smile didn’t match. Incongruous, I thought.

“Everybody has the same damned reaction to that picture,” she said, pointing over her shoulder. The person who had this job before me put it there, and I’ve been too busy to replace it.”

I liked her immediately but couldn’t shake the feeling I’d seen her before. Where? sizable

 “What happens now?” I stammered.

 She looked at her watch and yawned. “It’s late. You’re my last customer today.” 

I felt sorry for people left in the waiting room, but not too much.

“Your orientation starts tomorrow,” she said, “first thing.”

I waited, expecting more.

“Things are running a bit behind,” she said. She scrolled through the pages, stopped, and pointed a bony finger. “I took the liberty to rearrange your schedule. Usually, the meal comes after orientation. I arranged it so you can have your special dinner first.

You’ll attend orientation first thing tomorrow morning, back on the established timetable.”

I’d no idea what she was saying to me.

“What dinner?” I asked.

“Oh, dear, didn’t they tell you? It should be in your brochure.”

“What brochure?” I heard myself shouting, sounding hysterical, which I was.

“Don’t tell me they ran out of brochures again. So many people are dying to get in here these days,” looking amused at what she had said. “No matter, I’ll you what to expect. Everyone gets a special meal, smoothing their transition from death to eternity.” 

I’m hallucinating.

Still, she didn’t go away when I blinked.

She reached in a drawer, withdrawing a folder. “Here it is.” She spread a menu folded too many times, bits of tape holding it together.

“Your feast will be fully catered, of course. Appetizer, salad, main course, and dessert, along with a beverage of choice.” She pointed at the menu.

I was appalled. The menu included extinct animals and vegetables that no longer existed. I barely concealed displeasure as the clerk carried on.

“Our transition team came up with the idea for these crossover dinners. I believe it’s an outstanding gesture. I think you will agree. It’s our way to compensate for your life’s disappointments.

You may invite two people to share your banquet. It’s your choice, free and clear: anyone you wish to request—your opportunity for an evening of freewheeling conversation. Get to know someone you admire. You may take part if you want, or merely watch the evening unfold as an observer.”

She looked at me, and I knew she expected a response.

Who to invite? What to eat? Is this how Alice felt, falling down the rabbit hole? I held up my hands, palms out. Is this hell? I’m doomed to spend my eternity in this room, interviewed by a person whose sanity is more questionable than my own.

Insult upon injury, she reached for a pack of cigarettes. Who smoked anymore? They were Marlins, my favorite when I used to smoke. I watched her strike a match, the wooden kind. As a flame flared before settling into a steady yellow glow, she touched the blaze at the end of her cigarette and inhaled. As she let a slow breath out, I watched small, white fumes curl above her head like a restless cat.

“Who would you like to invite? Oh, did I tell you they have to be dead, no living people at your banquet,” laughing? “I always forget to add that.”

What the hell, I joined in with laughter. What do I have to lose?

She blew smoke out of the left side of her mouth, “I don’t have all day. Wait, maybe I do,” her laugh segued to a hee-haw.

I looked over the menu, a catalog of things now extinct, discarded, disappeared, gone.

What the heck, why not, I thought, and made a quick, by eternity standards, decision.

“Chilled Axolotl Salamanders on a bed of extinct Chabala lettuce,” I said. “Goat cheese dressing, made with milk from a Pyrenean Ibex. I’ll have a filet of an extinct cloud leopard. Rare.” I snickered. “Grilled over charcoal from the Brazilian rainforest, of course.”

I paused. “A bottle of rare Napoleon Brandy made from the grapes hand-picked in the autumn of 1811 as his troops marched past vineyards on their way to Moscow.” I wondered how many were alive as they passed by a year later?

“Cuban cigar leaves hand-wrapped at Pinar del Rio in1941. Yes, that should be all. That’s what I would like.”

She nodded, “I will arrange it.” I could tell she was waiting for something.

“What,” I asked?

“Who are you going to invite? You know, as your guests?”

My mind raced, I can tell you, surprised with the speed of my decision.

“Eva Cassidy,” I said without further hesitation.

“Add Winston Churchill,” watching her write in her little book. “Oh my. I forgot. Tonight is a bonus night,” she said. “You’re eligible to ask one additional guest, a third guest.”

I was at the rock-bottom of Alice’s rabbit-hole by now. “What bonus? Why do I get that?”

“I don’t know whose idea it was to have a bonus guest It started ahead of my time. See, this star beside your name,” she pointed. “That means three for dinner. I don’t know why. Go figure.”

Without hesitation, I chose the great German theologian, Deitrich Bonhoeffer.

I imagined Eva’s perfect music. Winston, the politician, writer, and statesman, mixing it up with a towering theological intellectual. There you have it. I was having dinner with Eva, Winston, and Deitrich.

For the first time since chopping that salad, I looked forward to something.

~ ~ ~

Eva arrived first, carrying a guitar and her smile, reminiscent of the mysterious gaze of the Mona Lisa.

“It broke my heart when you died,” I managed to say.

“How sweet of you. Do you have a favorite song?” she asked.

"It's a no-brainer," I replied. “Had I a Golden Thread.”

“My favorite, as well,” as she strummed a chord and started singing. Eva’s ease as she played matched her extraordinary, flawless voice.

I linked my fingers, creating a cradle for my chin. The music spread throughout the room, finding a way to each corner and crevice.

As the last notes faded into nothingness, a door burst open, and a plump man, wearing a smoking jacket, thrust his presence into the room.

Who does that angelic voice belong to?” He roared the words, grinning widely, cigar firmly clenched between his fingers. I expected him to hold up his fingers, making the famous V for victory gesture. He didn’t

“I know who you are, you’re famous,” Eva said, turning her head slightly down.”

I remembered now; she was incredibly shy. I often wonder if that’s why I stepped in to make the introduction.

“I thought you would surely know each other, Mr. Churchill. May I call you Winston?”

“You may,” giving an odd sweeping bow, surprisingly formal, almost a curtsy. ‘No, I’ve never met this lovely creature.”

He looked and sounded quite Churchillian. Now, that’s a surprise, eh?

I warmed to the occasion, realizing I brought them together.

“I heard such singing,” someone said, with a trace of German. “Und du, Meine Liebe, hast die Stimme eines Engels. The voice of an angel.”

“Reverend Bonhoeffer, this is Eva Cassidy,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m honored to meet you.”

He brushed my greeting away with a sly smile. “Winston and I knew about each other in the before life, the pastor, and the rascal.” The two exchanged nodding smiles. “I’m delighted to add Ms. Cassidy to the list.”

What followed was an evening beyond anything I could imagine or wish. Their conversation found common ground.

Winston took the seat at the head of the table. “Eva, you say you’re shy.”

She nodded. “But when I start to sing —” She didn’t finish.

“It’s an affliction I also share,” Winston said. He leaned over confidentially, waving cigar smoke away from her face. He turned to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

“Reverend Bonhoeffer,” he began.

“Deitrich, please.”

“It’s an honor to dine with you,” Winston said. “Courage - like yours - often comes from a deep well, quietly working to the surface.”

Their words joined them together. The seriousness when I saw D Deitrich now radiated warmth. His passionate account of his evolving theological thought, ending with his commitment to fighting Hitler and the Nazis. “Ah, the reconciliation of the line between my Christian beliefs and participating in an assassination. The quiet way he spoke of his execution flowed like clear water in a mountain stream.

“That man, Hitler, was evil personified,” Winston roared.

Eva shared what it took for her to walk on a stage, even in a small room with friends, the effort needed to face down shyness.

 I’d watched and listened and could no longer hold back.

I want to tell you why I invited you to dinner.

“You each embody traits I admire, traits I only aspired to in my living days.” My emotion simmered to the surface. “You, Eva. You gave the world such beauty. And what did I do?”

She smiled as if to reassure me.

“Winston,” I turned. “What did I ever do that came close to the bravery needed in those terrible, dark days of the war.”

 He reached out and put his hand on mine as if to reassure me.

“Pastor Deitrich,” looking at him. “Unlike you, I never took a stand that risked prison torture, or worse.”

He placed his hand over my other hand. I felt a calm wash over me.

The qualities I admired most. Beauty. Determination. The courage to take a stand for one’s beliefs. I now examined my life up in comparison? Did I create beauty? Did I stand up to the school bully picking on someone? Was my biggest challenge doing my taxes each year?

I sank back. What had I done, thinking these three would want to meet me. Maybe my dinner was a disaster, I feared.

“Tell us about your life,” Winston said.

“I want to hear,” Deitrich said.

“Me too,” Eva added.

I told them. “I was dropping out of school, flirting with misbehavior.” I warmed up. 'Joining the Army turned my life around.

I told my three new friends about working hard, determined to work my way through college. I forged a career.

“Best of all,” I said. “I married an incredible woman. She was perfect. We have three breathtaking children,” wondering if I needed to use the past tense.

“I just realized I don’t feel sad as we’re talking, only sorry that I left them to handle their grief.

We sat in comfortable silence. I’d unburdened myself as we sipped brandy, sensing the evening coming to an end.

“You carried more weight than you realize,” Winston said.

“You created beauty,” Eva said. “It’s there, in your Children.”

“You cared for others,” Deitrich added, “Creating a family, helping friends, caring about injustice. I’d read your bio before I came to dinner,” smiling. “You did what mattered, leaving an unblemished legacy.”

I was stunned.

Eva, in her short life, overcame shyness grace us with her voice. Winston embodied bulldogged determination, combined with a marvelous, spontaneous wit. Deitrich did what was right, regardless of the consequences.

I realized they’d each validated my life, validating my record.

Food, wine, conversation, and companionship, combined to leave me feeling what? Calm? That wasn’t it, exactly. Then I realized I felt ready. My apprehension was gone.

Eva sang her interpretations of jazz, blues, folk songs, and gospel. Winston harrumphed and told some wickedly funny stories. Deitrich mesmerized us with stories of his family, his deep religious convictions, and the stone-cold decision to assassinate Hitler, a man of evil. “He joined Eva for a song later, while Winston hummed along.

Evil and deranged characters from history had no place at my dinner party. My three companions were perfect.

There’s so much more I’d like to tell you about our time together, but it would take an eternity. There comes that melancholy time at every dinner party when the music stops, the food consumed, and the last of the drink glasses emptied.

Eva ended the evening with a heartbreaking version of The Parting Glass, allowing one final time to relish in the purity of a voice now silenced for the living

We bid goodbyes with the usual promises of getting together again. We knew it would never be, but politeness said in parting, without meaning it

Each left through different exits. I sat alone, hearing a door open softly. The woman from the desk returned, brushing curling smoke aside with her hand.

“No lectures here about smoking being bad for your health.” She broke into fits of laughter. “Yeah, the joke’s intended.”

She placed a hand gently on my arm, guiding me to a yellow door I hadn’t noticed before.

“It’s time,” she said with exquisite simplicity.

“What’s your name,” I asked? Somehow, I needed to know. “I feel like I’ve seen you before.”

 “No one ever asks me,” she said. “I'm treated like a clerk, invisible to everyone because they’re afraid, awaiting their final destiny.” She blew smoke out of the side of her mouth again, the right side this time. “Selma. I used to play a bailiff on a television show,” she said, “maybe you saw it.”

Now I remembered. I was pleased that I had asked. I nodded, turned, and stepped through the door to my eternity.

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