AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS

Another end-of-life bit of musing...

“Life as a struggle, and there’s no messing when I think that, but this is worse,” thought Gregory Sebastian Innings, RIP.

The RIP was important because he’d passed all the necessary examinations in life and died like we all do when our time is up, and his time had come to an end some time recently.

That’s how he looked on it because he’d lost count of minutes and even hours and possibly days, and he wouldn’t have been too shocked if it had been months. Time, in fact, had ceased to have much in the way of meaning for Gregory.

The last thing he remembered was that awful pain in his chest, the one that went on and on until it suddenly stopped, which had been one hell of a relief. Angela had been there, but she hadn’t noticed as she preened herself, rubbing some or other ointment into the wrinkles on her face as if she believed they’d vanish in an instant because the ointment was so very special and expensive. So his last sight before the nothing of blackness took over was the woman he’d loved for so many years ignoring him as he died.

Because that’s what he’d been doing: he’d been dying. And the blackness spread like an invisible eiderdown over everything: the clock and its pendulum that swung in a tiny arc because it would need a new battery soon. He’d meant to give it one, but somehow had succeeded in putting it off until tomorrow. Mañana, old clock, he had said as if the instrument understood and would wait with clockwork patience until tomorrow or somewhen else. And Angela, she and her magic ointment, they became one with the eiderdown’s black interior and the rest of everything in the room, and beyond it. He might have wept if he could.

And himself. He looked back and there he was, a black shape against the black of nothing, slumped with a grimace on his weary old face. And then he watched as he rose like a wraith out of his body, out of his chair, and walked up to Angela, and kissed her neck.

“What do you think you’re doing, you daft sod,” she said, humorously, but when she reached back to squeeze his hand it wasn’t there.

“Probably a cobweb then,” she whispered to herself, and smiled, “better do some dusting tomorrow…”

And then the room was gone. Just like that: all of it, and an unexpected and apparently endless staircase stretched before him.

“I’m too tired,” he told himself, “I’d rather lie down and go to sleep. That’s what I’ll do. Catch up on a bit of shut-eye until this nightmare’s over.”

But this was no nightmare: this was death.

But the stairs were there, white and shimmering in the black of a night that was blacker than any night has the right to be. They were drawing him towards them. Just one little step, then a second, they seemed to be saying in a silent almost mocking voice.

“Oh, all right!” Was that him replying? It had none of the timbre he’d bred into his vocal chords over a life of play-acting on stages the nation over. Never big stages, of course, just the small ones. He’d never attracted any fame to his name, and was grateful for that, though Angela had once had different ideas because fame would bring fortune and being a nonentity didn’t.

That first step took an age. Every sinew in his body struggled to master the intensity of gravity that was pulling at him. He could feel his muscles being drawn towards the floor or whatever it was that was hidden by the intense blackness beneath him. Even his bones creaked and threatened to splinter as he lifted first one foot, then the other until he was standing on the first step.

“That’s made it, then,” he sighed, “Only a thousand more to go.”

“Wake up, Gregory, wake up!” he just about heard Angela shout out, but her voice, though no doubt raised to some horrendous decibel level, was barely a whisper as it came to him.

He wanted to say you silly tart, can’t you see that I’m dead, but dead men can’t talk, so he couldn’t. That was his trouble. He’d always enjoyed shouting back at her, something like I can’t, you silly moo, I can’t!

But he couldn’t. Not any more. Instead he told himself the next step might be easier and anyway it looked more comfortable, so he fought his way to it. And as he’d hoped, it was easier. The atrocious gravity that had tried to join him to the first step was gone, and he was suddenly afraid that he might float, weightless, off into the wide black yonder of nothing and nowhere.

Behind him he could just make out the shadow of his chair, his body slumped in it, his wife trying to wake him and failing, the floor beneath her slippered feet, a carpet expensively from Axminster, the television in the corner switched on to some mindless channel like it always was, the wretched clock that seemed to be ticking backwards, then the whole of the house, bricks and mortar that had been slopped together maybe a hundred years or more earlier, the weathered front door with its grotesque Scrooge knocker, the road with its potholes and a number fifty seven bus trundling along… all were shadows and all were almost there.

“I must climb higher,” he told himself, and did. Step after step as if he was some fairy girl, all giggles and floating hair and twinkling eyes, one step after another as if the whole thing was just one huge game and he playing it on his own.

Then the gate.

Suddenly, he hadn’t seen it coming he’d been dancing so crazily up the stairs, and there was a shining gate.

“Whoa!” called the gate-keeper, a shiny-faced cherub with bright blue eyes, a mouth made for laughing with cheeky glee and wearing smart school shorts with white knee-length socks as if there was a winter coming.

“Who are you?” he found himself thinking: not saying, not resorting to speech because he couldn’t or rather he didn’t know how to, all the old systems no longer seemed to work.

“The name, young fellow, is Peter,” replied the cherub, “and I’m in charge of the gate. Let me see, I need the book, the great big book of lives so that I can tick you off and the gate will open. Oh dear, if only I’d gone to school and learned to read, but I couldn’t have. Back then, at the beginning when I was appointed gate-keeper, there were no schools. Just a grumpy old boss sitting on his cloud weeping for his son…”

“Show me!” urged Gregory, “let me see…” and he took the heaviest book anywhere in the ten universes or maybe more and struggled to open it. But he had no intention of looking feeble in front of this cherub-like gate-keeper, and managed to turn the pages, and there was his name right at the top of the only page he could see.

“Here we are,” he grunted, in thought, obviously, actual speech was beyond him still, “see:” and he read it out: “GREGORY SEBASTIAN INNINGS, that’s me. What does it say next to my name? I can’t read it.”

“That’s because it’s not been written yet,” smiled Peter, “you’ve got to be interviewed by the boss before any notes can be added.”

“Is this Heaven, then?” asked Gregory, sure that it was but needing to show that he had something inside his head that was the good side of ignorance.

“Heaven?” laughed the cherub, “of course not, you turnip! This is the door to the waiting room. You’ll get in there along with everyone else who’s climbed those stairs, mingle, maybe, have a good time with some pals, a drop of punch, a biscuit or two, maybe a slice of cake, and wait. Because that’s what waiting rooms are for. For waiting in.”

“For what?” he asked.

“For what? You are a turnip, aren’t you! The end of time, that’s what! Look, it might seem a tad disappointing, but what’s the alternative?”

Gregory shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m new here,” he pointed out, “I can’t be expected to know everything.”

“Then I’ll tell you. The alternative to waiting is not waiting, and that doesn’t bear thinking of. There is a not waiting room, but that’s somewhere else, somewhere you’d probably not like.”

“Then I’d best stay here,” he thught, and the sherub winked. “It’s fun,” he said, “and you meet some fine people. All men, of course, not a woman to distract you. They go somewhere else.”

“I like women,” he protested, “so where do they go?”

“I don’t like to say.”

“Gon on, anyway. Where are the ladies?”

“All right then, you’ve bullied me enough so I’ll tell you. They’re in Heaven. Doing girlie things, like laughing and thinking and being generally pretty. There. Now you know.”

“And I won’t?”

“You! I should think not! You’re a man and men, well, what use would they be in Heaven where love rules until the end of time? So just be happy with your lot and pray, take a seat in the waiting room. Next to Hitler if you like. A lonesome cove is Hitler, not so many pals. Or take your pick. Look: there’s your dad!”

“He’s crying! Why is he crying?”

“Ask him, and he’ll mumble something about not being able to find your mum. But she’s not here. She’s a woman and she’s happy!”

“My poor father,” wept Gregory, “I think I’ll talk to him until I spot my lovely wife Angela when her turn comes. Hitler can wait.”

“Angela?” asked chubby Peter, and he giggled.

© Peter Rogerson, 28.04.22