A Young Athiest Dreams of the Afterlife

I wrote this my freshman year at UCLA. That must have been 1987, I think. I was eighteen and living in the dorms. Dyksta hall had ten floors and a basement, but ground level was actually the second floor, because like everything in CA, it was on a hill. I had only been an athiest for three or four years, at that point, and I spent a great deal of time that year waiting for the elevator, because I lived on the ninth floor-two things which might explain the subject matter. This was a transcript of a dream that I had the night before, possibly the most intense dream of my life, certainly in the top five. I am transcribing it not having read it for twenty three years or so. I have not changed the words or corrected for my florid and inexperienced writing style, though it pains me to do so (or tendency to contradict myself), it is more interesting the way it is.

This dream basically sums up the Blood on a Space Guitar aesthetic, and belief system, and I wrote it in a dream decades ago.

I awoke to find myself lying in a hospital bed, staring straight up at the ceiling. I felt much better. I actually wanted to get up and go for a walk. Sitting up, I noticed my family staring mournfully, as if I weren't there. I got out of bed. I was about to say something really cynical like "sorry to waste your time by catching cancer, you can go as soon as I'm dead", when I realized how many tubes I must have pulled out by standing up. I turned around and realized why my family was acting so strangely.

There is no sensation exactly like looking down at your own dead body, frozen with a peaceful expression on its face. Lying on its motionless chest was a plain, white envelope with my name "Alan Molumby" typed neatly on the front. I furiously picked up the envelope-annoyed that any medical center would be callous enough to bill a person the moment they died. Upon opening it, I found a curious blue stamp, with 20cents printed on it and a note that apologized for the lack of a reception. It instructed me to keep the stamp because I needed it to get into heaven, which was on the ninth floor. It was signed simply, "God".

The shock of the situation sent me wandering blindly off in some direction-I'm not sure with because I must have walked right through a wall. I was in a crowded hall of the hospital, which was full of busy doctors and patients, who were completely oblivious to the fact that I was standing there completely naked. Ahead of me was a massive bronze elevator. It stood there as if it had been there the whole time-which was obviously not the case because it was located in just about everybody's way. Oblivious of it, everyone just walked through it as if it weren't there.

Feeling a bit awkward, I walked right up to it and pushed the UP button. It was insanely ironic that, even after dying, I still had to suffer the inconvenience of waiting for an elevator.

I ran back to my hospital room and kissed my family goodbye. I was back in time to watch the light for the fourth, the third, and finally the second floor light up as the doors slid open. The inside of the elevator was spacious and ornate. The usual board of buttons listed ten floors and a basement.

I tried to maintain a sense of adventure, reminding myself that, after being confined to a hospital bed for three months, my situation was an improvement of a sort.

I punched the button for the ninth floor wondering "If the everyday world is on the second floor, and heaven is on the ninth, what occupied the other nine floors?" I could feel no noticeable acceleration as the elevator moved, and the ride was unendurably long. I watched the numbers above the door light up until the doors finally slide open at the ninth floor. A light-haired, handsome man dressed in flowing white robes stood at the doorway.

"We're sorry about not having anyone to meet you." He said. "we don't usually make people use the elevator unless we're completely swamped." He continued apologetically. "Oh, have I introduced myself? I'm the demiangel Antigonus-St. Peter is out right now, taking care of some unfinished business. Now, let me have your stamp, and I can show you around for a few minutes." He opened a huge bound book full of hundreds of pages-some were empty, others were covered with stamps. "We have a joke here. When we run out of room in these things, we'll have to start letting people in for free."

"What's on the other floors?" I interrupted.

"Oh, nothing that concerns you" he said, "especially the first floor, that's for people who committed too many sins to be issued a 20cent stamp."

Can I visit a few of them if I get bored here?" I asked.

"Don't be ridiculous." he replied, casually. "Heaven is for eternity, and besides, why would you want to go anywhere else? Those places are not for you."

I snuck a look at the view behind him. A bright blue sky with tufts of white clouds glowed with a radiant light. The tops of Venitian and Gothic buildings broke up the horizon, brilliant orange light from stained glass windows fell on the flowers and trees that moved gently in the sweet breeze. Families laughed and chattered as they walked through the fields. The place looked unbelievably happy, and quite boring.

"These things don't expire, do they?" I asked. "Not unless you spend them by trying to get off somewhere else." He said reproachfully.

"I'll be back in a little while." I said as I examined the buttons in the elevator.

"Suit yourself." He said, patiently, as the doors slid shut.

I had pushed the button for the second floor. Perhaps I could arrange to be reincarnated back home, or at least see what some of the other floors looked like.

On the way down, the elevator stopped on the fourth floor A curly-haired woman in her late forties stepped on-she looked quite upset. I held the door open and took a good long look outside. It looked like the inside of a large old building-well lighted but cluttered with objects. A powerfully built, tall man with a lean bony face stood near the door (Note here..this man was my high school chemistry teacher), motioning with a pair of hands that wore black rubber gloves.

He wore a doctor's smock, and spoke with a deep voice.

"What's this place like-what do you do here?" I asked quizzicly.

"Not much goin' on here, just MOVIN' STUFF TO HEAVEN!" He sounded like a longshoreman. At that moment, he turned to direct a hospital stretcher as it passed down the corridor. Atop it was my own pale, dead body, still wearing the hospital smock. A succession of objects on pallets followed-bathtubs, cans of motor oil, and surreal objects I didn't recognize.

The doors slid shut, leaving me trapped in a metaphysical elevator with a hysterical middle-aged woman who wasn't wearing any clothing, either.

"Where are you from? What's wrong? Where are you going?" I asked hurriedly. "I got off at the wrong damned floor." She said in a weak voice. "The bastards charged me 3cents, so now I can't get into Heaven." I looked into her envelope, it had a single blue 15cent stamp and two blue 1cent stamps inside.

As we rode to the fifth floor, she babbled tediously about her life story. She had an air of weakness and I sensed a certain lack of imagination. The elevator stopped at the second floor. A muscular man in his early twenties stepped aboard. He stared at the two of us.

I was about to step out when he said "You an Indian." "No." I replied calmly. "Then you can't use your stamps there-they only take the green ones-I tried already.: I stared at him blankly. and then stepped back into the elevator. He glanced over his shoulder and hit the first floor button.

"You're taking us to Hell!" Shrieked the woman.

"What the fuck do you care?" He said. "You don't have to get out there, do you?". She looked away.

"Maybe there's a floor you can get into for 17cents." I said.

"I'm not interested, if I can't get into Heaven." She snapped.

The doors slid open at the first floor. A tall, incredibly attractive dark haired woman wearing a ninetenth century military uniform stepped into the elevator. She had bright, dark eyes. A magazine of machine gun bullets hung across her chest.

She took the muscular man by the arm, and said "I've been waiting for you, just hand over the 10cent stamp and I'm sure we'll be able to accommodate you here." She licked her lips seducitvely.

Outside, smoke drifted in sheets. Flames licked buildings of marble and alabaster. A lake of boiling tar could be seen in the distance, with a few legs jutting above it. The man refused to come, saying "I don't have to give it to you."

"You will." She said confidently. "Sooner or later,m everyone gets tired of this stupid elevator, of watching other people go to heaven where they can be happy..." The middle aged woman looked away. "You can't stay on Earth, either-its too frustrating not being able to do anything but watch idly as other people live out their lives. Sooner or later, everyone gives up and comes here-there's nowhere else you can go."

The woman hung about him seductively, her arms around his neck as she rubbed his leg with the inside of his knee. "I'll see you sooner or later she said, kissing him with inside lip."

"What about the other floors?[there have got to be other places to go to-there are eleven floors, including the basement, and nobody seems to be interested in anything but three of them. I felt as if I had interrupted them. The dark woman flashed me a quizzical smile. The midle aged woman and the man both looked at me as if I had just embarrassed them. "That's the unknown." said the middle aged woman "And if it was meant for me, I would have been told to go there by God." She looked angry. "Look what accidentally getting off on the wrong floor cost me-now I guess that means I should go to hell."

Jabbing her envelope at the dark-haired woman, she walked straight out of the elevator.

She looked straight at me and smiled. "Why are you here, kid? You could get into heaven/"

"How do I know that's where I want to be?" I whispered. "There are all kinds of places to go, now that I am dead." I exclaimed, bitterly.

"What's on the tenth floor?" I asked.
"Some old Greek and Norse gods-it costs a lot more than 20cents to get into there though-and you won't want to go to the fourth floor-that's more for objects than people.

"Thanks." I said, smiling at her. I kept trying to remind myself that I was flirting with an archfiend.

"I like you." She declared. "I was like you, once. A long time ago, I wanted to go from floor to floor, not too many people do, you know. For some reason, most people prefer a place like hell to the unknown. Before I came here, I saw most of them." She said. "I collected a book full of hundreds of stamps. I spent most of them getting my position here, but there are still a few pages left back at my home on the third floor."

"Aren't afraid he'll get to them?" "Are you kidding? He's too daft to tie his own shoe laces. Good luck, Kid.: She said, touching me on the lips.

She turned to the muscular man, saying "Even purgatory costs 15cents, too bad ou can't affort do go anywhere but here. See you soon." The door slid shut, and she left.

That was the end of the transcript I found in my basement the other day, going through boxes prior to a move. Though it was twenty years ago, I still remember how this dream ends. I take the elevator to the third floor, where I can get out for something like 17cents, and the man cannot. It is a beautiful, grassy place, with an early twentieth-century bandstand sporting a brass band, gentlemen picknicking with their families, and bicycles. I do not have too much trouble finding the devil's former house, as a mortal or whatever they are on the third floor, one floor removed from our reality, and there it is, that book of with pages of unused stamps.