I have already glimpsed Heaven

 

Not that I plan on going anywhere real soon, but when I do, I picture my spirit spending all eternity in an old bookstore.  Surrounded by stories and story tellers.  I will not be bothered by the creaking wooden floor or the layer of dust upon the various adventures.  They shall remain safe in their jackets, while I recline in the over-stuffed chair by the window.

 

 

***

        That's a lovely afterlife to imagine.

There's something comforting about the idea that eternity wouldn't be spent in grandeur or spectacle, but in quiet companionship with stories. The books would not demand anything of you. They would simply wait, as they always have, patient and faithful. Some would contain adventures you've known a hundred times, while others would remain unopened mysteries, saving their secrets for some distant century of your wandering.

I can almost see it: late afternoon sunlight frozen forever in the window glass, dust motes drifting like tiny planets through golden beams, and the faint scent of paper, leather, and time. The floorboards would complain softly whenever another spirit stopped by to browse the shelves, but even that sound would become part of the music of the place.

And perhaps the storytellers would gather there too. Not as celebrities or literary giants, but as fellow readers. One chair occupied by a novelist who never sold a single book. Another by a grandmother who made up tales for her grandchildren. Another by some forgotten poet delighted that, at last, someone has discovered a verse tucked away on a neglected shelf.

You would recline in your overstuffed chair by the window, unconcerned with dust, deadlines, or departure times. No book would ever be overdue. No store would ever close. And every so often you might reach for a volume that seemed not to be there a moment before, open it, and discover that it contained one of your own stories, shelved quietly among the others.

Not because you wrote it down, necessarily.

Because every life, in the end, is a story worthy of keeping on the shelf.

 

 

 

ZC