The Line Was Too Long

CONTENT WARNING: Death, tragedy

It was a late Sunday morning glazed in gray and black.

Outside, it rained soft and steady over the town of Bellemere, Virginia, pattering against the windows of Mercy Hill Hospice like a gentle metronome. Inside Room 207, every breath was a battle.

Robert Asbury, once a builder of homes and teller of long-winded stories, now lay withered and hollow-chested, each breath pulled in by sheer will. Tuberculosis, in its cruel, final march, had stolen nearly everything from him—his booming voice, his ability to walk, his appetite for the buttery grits his daughter used to make. Now it was his lungs' turn to surrender.

His daughters, Maggie and Rose, flanked either side of his hospice bed. Maggie, the elder, had aged a decade in the last few months, her face lined by worry and nights spent in the hospice chair. Rose, younger and quieter, held her father’s hand between hers like a bird’s wing, whispering fragments of hymns she only half remembered.

The nurse had given a gentle warning that morning.

“Today, I think. Maybe this morning. It’s very close.”

And so they had called him. Father Michael Wayne McKnight.

He arrived not long after the call, his coat dripping rain and his glasses fogging the moment he stepped inside. A stout balding man in his late forties, Father Wayne had served Bellemere for fifteen years—baptizing babies, marrying young couples, and standing at the bedside of the dying. His hands were steady, his voice calm, and his presence the kind that settled even the most restless of souls.

He knelt beside Robert’s bed.

“Mr. Asbury,” he said softly, “it’s Father Wayne. I’m here.”

Robert opened his eyes—barely. They were dull with exhaustion, but recognition flickered.

Maggie and Rose stepped back as Father Wayne donned his purple stole and began the sacrament. There was no time to lose.

First, confession, the whisper-thin voice of Robert trying to form words, trying to tell the priest things he’d been holding in for years. The girls respectfully left the room. They did not need to hear what belonged to their father and God alone. Absolution. Ego te absolvo a pecatis tuis, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

Then the Anointing of the Sick, oil touched to his forehead and hands.

Then Eucharist. Robert’s lips barely moved around the Host, but he took it.

By 12:30 PM, Father Wayne stood, made the sign of the cross, and prayed one last blessing over the man he’d known as a parishioner for a decade. “Go in peace, Robert,” he said. “You are ready. Run to the arms of God.”

Robert’s breaths were shallow. Barely there.

At 12:45 PM, with the priest gone and the rain slowing to a drizzle, the machines flatlined.

The nurse entered, gently touched her stethoscope to Robert’s chest, and waited. She nodded. “Time of death: 12:45.”

Maggie let out a quiet cry and turned away. Rose leaned her forehead against their father’s hand. It had grown cold already.

The machines were turned off. The oxygen line removed. Sheets were drawn up, gently.

And then—

GASP.

It was a sound that tore through the room like a shotgun.

Robert Asbury sat straight up in bed, eyes wide, chest heaving like a drowning man breaching the ocean.

Everyone screamed—nurse, daughters, even the orderly who had just entered with the death paperwork.

He gasped, blinked wildly at them all, and said, “I can’t go yet.”

Maggie backed into the wall. “Dad?!”

Robert coughed once—wet and ragged—and said, “It’s too busy. The line’s long.”

“What?”

He blinked again and said it like it was obvious. “I’m just gonna go sleep for a bit.”

And just like that, he lay back down, closed his eyes, and exhaled.

Two hours later, at exactly 2:45 PM, Robert Asbury died in his sleep.

For real this time.

That night, grief filled the house like fog.

The girls had come back to their childhood home, where the fridge still hummed like always and the living room light still flickered every third minute. Cousins and neighbors had filtered in and out all evening, dropping off casseroles, saying the same things everyone always says.

“I’m so sorry.”

“He was a good man.”

“Let us know if you need anything.”

They had nodded, said thank you, and gone through the motions. There was no energy for anything else.

Now it was past ten. Maggie, Rose, and their cousin Josie sat on the worn sectional couch, a bowl of uneaten popcorn on the coffee table and reruns of Frasier playing softly on the TV.

It wasn’t funny tonight.

Maggie reached for the remote. “Let’s just watch the news,” she said, trying to sound functional.

The channel flipped.

WDBV 12, the local station.

The anchor appeared onscreen, wearing a navy blazer and a somber expression.

“This just in. A tragic accident occurred at precisely 12:45 PM this afternoon in the Appalachian Mountain tunnel construction site twenty miles north of Bellemere. A tunnel, still under structural development, collapsed with over sixty workers inside. There were no survivors.”

The room froze.

Rose sat forward. “What time did he…”

Maggie whispered, “12:45.”

Silence.

The anchor continued. “It’s unclear what caused the collapse. Emergency responders say the tunnel caved in completely, and recovery efforts are ongoing. The mayor has issued a statement of mourning for the lives lost.”

Josie whispered, “That’s… the exact time. When Uncle Rob died. The first time.”

Maggie’s throat was dry. “He said the line was long.”

Rose’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh my gosh.”

The coincidence was too strange.

They replayed the news segment. Listened again. Searched online for more updates.

Sixty-six workers. All buried. All dead. At 12:45 PM.

Exactly the moment Robert had been pronounced.

And yet, he came back. Gasped like a man fighting for breath in a room with no air. Sat up. Spoke.

“It’s too busy.”

Later, Maggie called Father Wayne.

She explained everything—what had happened, what their father said, and what they saw on the news.

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

Then: “I’ve heard of things like this. Once or twice. People who… come back. Briefly. Sometimes they say strange things. But never something like this. Never so… specific.”

“Father,” she said. “Do you think…”

He finished for her. “That the tunnel collapse and your father’s return were connected?”

“Yes.”

There was another pause.

“I don’t know,” Father Wayne admitted. “But I believe God doesn’t waste anything. Not even time. Not even death.”

Two days later, Rose found herself sorting through their father’s old things in the attic. It was too soon, she knew. But she couldn’t sleep, and something compelled her.

In one of the old boxes, she found a manila envelope labeled “If I’m Gone” in Robert’s tidy cursive.

Inside was a letter.

It wasn’t legal paperwork or instructions about the funeral. It was just a letter. Written to both of them.

It said:

Girls,

If you’re reading this, it means I’ve gone home.

I don’t know what it’s like yet, but I believe it’s good. I believe there’s something beautiful on the other side. I hope I die with my boots off and my lungs clear, but if it’s not that way, don’t you worry about me.

You know I always hated crowds. If the gates are backed up, I’ll wait my turn. Maybe even take a nap. There’s time enough on the other side.

Don’t be afraid. I’ll see you again. I promise.

All my love,

Dad.

At the funeral, Father Wayne spoke with a quiet fire.

“He was a man who believed in building things,” he said. “Homes, lives, bridges of peace. He believed in the long work of grace. And though death came for him, he was given a glimpse, I believe—a glimpse of eternity. And even then, he waited. Not out of fear. But patience.”

Afterward, the tunnel collapse was declared an accident. Structural failure. Tragic and senseless.

But the family knew something else.

They knew Robert had stood at the edge of forever, seen the line, and said, “Not yet.”

They knew he had rested—maybe just long enough to let someone else in ahead.

And in Bellemere, Virginia, on rainy nights when the wind whistles just right, Maggie sometimes dreams of her father standing in line in a great big coat, smiling patiently, waiting his turn at the gate.

Because even in eternity, Robert Asbury was a gentleman.

And he didn’t like to cut in line.