Waiting to get judged for your life on Earth is boring, which makes sense when you consider I’ve been here for six centuries and some change, sitting in this limbo, unable to do anything but prepare a “highlight reel” of why I’m worthy of a regeneration. Some do not have to go through this. Those considered “worthy without a doubt” are given immediate reincarnation. Despite the circumstances, I still believe I was a decent person.
How many good deeds do I need to compile to make it? They never told me. I have asked others here, but they are in the same boat, so their advice is empty and uninformed. I have been told lots of a little are better than a little of a lot. If every day you dropped a dime in the cup of a needy person, that’s three dollars a month, 36.5 dollars a year, and a third of a grand per decade. People have also told me it is about the big moments, like adopting a child from a war-torn nation or risking your life to take a bullet for the president.
According to rumors, Rosa Parks was deemed worthy without doubt for her refusing to stand during the Montgomery bus protest, a symbolic gesture that helped to spark the civil rights movement in the United States of America, though I would not doubt her other actions in life contributed to that decision as well.
I can tell that trials range from a few minutes to fifty years. We never get to watch the trials nor find out the outcomes, supposedly so that it does not affect our highlight reels. Most trials, though, seem to take about a day—one day of displaying your best moments and probably some disputing. One day, and then you either get another life, another chance to make something great of your life, or termination, your soul snapped out of existence in hopes of making room for better souls.
Of course, we are allowed to make friends, see what each other is going to display, and give notes, but as I have said before, our advice is virtually useless. The friendships are pointless, too. We do not get to know one another upon reincarnation, and life here is too dull to bond properly. Our existence for this lengthy period consists of watching our lives play out one day at a time and deciding if this minimal unselfishness will sway the judges’ decisions.
I’m on my fourth time watching 15 August 2018 and once again nodding off at hearing myself explain the experimental principles of human and animal learning within the theoretical framework of applied behaviour analysis to a class full of similarly drained graduate students. I have spent so much of my life explaining psychology to classrooms of silent, brain-dead kids in their 20s who brain-dumped my words every time they walked out of the door. I wish I could say my classes made me feel better and at least allowed me to support my family at home or rub elbows with other professors who provided important resources, but alas, I died single. Single and disliked by the entire faculty of the psychology department. It is saying something when you can have a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and yet still be accused of being an “armchair psychologist.”
This process of making a highlight reel forces me to watch and re-watch dinner date after dinner date, where I managed to convince every available person in the city that I was not to be loved. They are speaking about work or their relationship with their parents. Guys didn’t like me for being overbearing. Women did not like me for being nosey. If I were not so desperate to scrape the bottom of the barrel for good deeds, I would skip right over those hours of misery. I picked up the check here, complimenting the outfit there. It is basic and unremarkable, but when the risk of soul termination is on the line, any basic and unremarkable task feels like an angel’s kiss.
There is a knock at my door. I cannot remember the last time someone knocked on my door. It was probably three years ago, sometime around the fourth time I was watching my regrettable bangs phase. I will pause the reel and answer it.
“Greetings, Dr. Smith,” an advocate is saying upon seeing me. Their face is beautiful and perfect in a way only the spirit world can make. However, it also lacks personality. Their body is covered from the neck down in a translucent black sheet draped loosely over their curves lovingly. I have never met this advocate before, which was clear. Usually, I only see them in the courthouse, occasionally lurking around other people’s domains, delivering some news or another. Never, never have I had anyone make a house visit for me. Given that it is timing, I have a terrible knot in my stomach.
“Uh, greetings,” I am saying apprehensively.
“I am here to inform you that our preliminary review of your highlight reel indicates that you’re not going to be reincarnated.” Since when were there preliminary reviews? Are they telling me that I am not even getting the courtesy of a trial? This is it? “I am aware that this can be difficult news to accept.”
“Y-You can’t do that. Just change the rules on me,” I'm saying quickly, gripping the door and desiring to slam it.
“Doctor, I’m here to let you know that you will be permitted a rare tool to assist you in your upcoming case because of this.”
"When is the case?"
"You are on the docket for 120 hours from now." They are reaching out, and I can see a note page and pen in their dark grey hand. “Write the name of the living person who you want.”
With a shaky hand, I am reaching out and taking the note page in my hand. The top has an angelic script I’ve hardly had time to learn how to read. “Who do I want?”
The advocate is tilting their head, but their face is as blank as ever. “Your human advocate. They who know your good side best and would be equipped to assist you in your highlight reel.” They are pointing into the house at my reel, still open and frozen on a particular frame of me with bloated cheeks of spaghetti. I am actively ignoring this and continuing to scan the paper. Someone who knew there was good in me. It seems like a bad sign that I can't think of a single person who could fit the description of knowing my good side like maybe that preliminary review was onto something.
But how? It can’t be true that out of all the people who end up here, most living beings, I’m in such a low category as to be found bad before even seeing trial. Hitler, Shiro Ishii, Osama bin Laden. Surely, they and their follower are more unworthy than me.
“Why bring a living person? My understanding is that no one is supposed to know how the afterlife works.”
The advocate seems to be losing their patience, clearly having not anticipated such a long interaction with me. “The human will have their memory erased upon the conclusion of the trial. This is purely a service being provided to you.
“Oh.” Quickly, I write my mother’s name. Surely, my mother would be among the most optimistic of my living contacts. I pass the note page over to the advocate, and after a glance, they shake their head.
“Doctor, your mother is dead.” They said it so fast that I’m unsure if I heard it correctly.
“She was alive while I was there,” I am telling them.
“Since that day, a month has passed in the land of the living, and your mother died not long after you.” They are passing the note page back to me, blank again, and I reluctantly accept it.
“Can I see her? Before my trial?” I am asking, my voice wavering. I haven’t seen or had news of anyone on the other side, and it would be nice to see a familiar face once more and thank her for my life.
“You may do as you please, but time is running out for you, so make your last week here count. I must make haste. Please,” They are indicated on the note page, and I am sniffling. Out of urgency, I am scrabbling my brain for any name that sounds friendly and helpful. Finally, in instinct, I am writing “Melanie Jones” on the note page and handing it to the advocate. They look at it and nod.
“Please allow a minute for me to fetch Miss Jones. She will arrive as she was when you last knew her so that she can be most helpful in your task.”
I wish that last detail had been added before I gave my answer. If she is as she was that day, she will not be the biggest help to my case. But it's too late. I am left alone with nothing, but butterflies are in my stomach, wondering what she will have to say to me that she didn't say six hundred years ago.
A flash of purplish yellow is filling the room all of a sudden and I have to cover my eyes it's so bright. Then, in front of me with the most disturbed of faces, is Melanie, still in the position she was in the second she was out the door of my apartment.
"What just happened?"
"It's a long story."
She is straightening herself as she looks around at the bland apartment that has been my home for so long, and I'm beginning to see it with a new perspective as it has been so easy to overlook it. It's just white walls, a front door, and a highlighting area. I never need to eat or sleep, so there is no need for a kitchen or bedroom. There is no need to do anything but look at my life, so there are no windows or games or television. I think the only reason we have a house and not just a pod for highlighting is that, on rare occasions, advocates like to pop up and tell us grim, unhelpful things like "You're running out of time" and "You will fail your evaluation if you keep this up."
"Is this hell?" Melanie is asking.
"Of a kind, I am dead and being asked to defend my reincarnation." I figure the fewer details, the sooner she will start helping rather than asking silly questions.
"Am I dead?"
"If you were, you wouldn't be able to help me."
Melanie seems genuinely comforted by this statement, and I am beginning to think we could get somewhere with it.
"Cool. So, I can leave if I don't want to help you?" Yep, I definitely chose the wrong person.
"Why don't you want to help me?" I'm asking. "It won't hurt you to try."
"Yes, it will. I want nothing to do with you. You've been a massive waste of my time. How much of my life I wasted dating you."
I wish I could cry. In this limbo, no water means no tears, but the emotions are still here, making me feel like garbage. I am sitting on the ground, burying my face in my hands and sighing.
"I guess you've made up your mind. I'm sorry I wasted your time."
Melanie is still standing where she appeared, but after a beat, I can hear her walk gently to the front door and open it. An audible gasp is getting my attention, and I look up to see what Melanie is, who is frozen in the door frame. The world outside is of the blackest black except for small pockets of other homes where other people have their doors open. In the center of it all, a large structure akin to a Greek amphitheatre is covered in a tie-dye look of red, green, and blue swirls all over it.
"This really is the afterlife."
"It is, and I was told I am about to get judged unworthy of reincarnation based on my reel." I am then obliged to explain the system and everything I know. Finally, I have finished my explanation, and she is bewildered.
"So, I won't remember any of this? It will be like this never happened?"
"Honestly, I don't know. Seems this version of you is actually ten years younger than you are in the real world, so this isn't going to affect your life at all."
Melanie definitely looks a lot more open to helping me, and so, not wanting to miss an opportunity, I am gesturing to the highlighting station by the wall. She's following my hand to the station and getting in, an odd thing to watch from the outside after so long of doing it myself. She is sitting there watching my life flash before her eyes.
Well, flash is the wrong word. The whole video of mine takes about 60 hours to review, something that seems like no time at all in the great amount of time I've been in this place but feels like an eternity when I've had to sit here on the floor watching her watch the reel with no sleep to break the time up, no games or food to occupy me. Just endless silence for 60 long hours before, at last, she emerges from the station with a massive frown.
"Oh god."
"I'm sorry, maybe I'm misunderstanding your assignment." This sentence is one I heard a million times as a professor and almost always meant they understood but wanted to be lazy. This time however, it obviously means I was lazy, or at least inept.
"I don't get it. Was my life that horrible?"
"No, no," she's exclaiming. "It's not that. You've done so much good. Seeing it all compiled, it honestly makes me feel like crap."
"Then what is the matter?"
"Well, it just seemed kind of boring." Great. After more than two days, her biggest criticism was the same as the day we broke up. "You're so boring," "Where is your zest for life," "why won't you look at me while we kiss." Ok, maybe that last part is unrelated, but the point is she didn't review my reel for what it was supposed to be, highlights of why I deserve a second life.
I sigh and sit once again on the floor, brushing the surface, which was blank and uninteresting, like my life, apparently.
"I don't get you. You pick me, your ex of apparently a decade, to come and help you, and when I give you advice, you act like a baby?"
I'm looking up at her now, my eyes full of tearless agony. "I didn't think it'd be the version of you hung up about our relationship issues. I thought it'd be the version of you in your late 40s ready to lay some life experience on me."
"I'm hung up on it? I wasn't going to say anything, but I noticed I didn't make a cameo in your little film. You did plenty of nice things for me, and you included other exes from before and after me. But I'm hung up on our breakup?"
To this, I don't know what to say. She is right that our breakup has haunted me ever since. She was the one that got away, and yet it always felt like it was her fault. When I was reviewing my life, the year and a half we spent together was some of the most painful of all.
According to the advocates, I could choose to erase that section of the prime copy, but they warned it would erase her from my memory completely, even in this plain of existence. It was under real consideration that I even moved to do it after the third time through, but ultimately, that period of my life was too precious to me. Even now, I have no clue if I ever removed other memories. It's possible Melanie was spared, but another partner might not have been. I don't quite remember a few months at age 13, but maybe I'm overthinking it.
"I'm sorry for saying that. I'm just upset because my trial is set for about two days from now, and I don't have any ideas on how to fix it."
Melanie is sitting beside me, putting her arm around my shoulder and rubbing the back of my head. This is definitely a gesture I've missed since our breakup. She always knows how to avoid the spot below my hairline where I'm ticklish but still get my scalp really relaxed. In all the times I reviewed my life, her rubs, and ice cream were the two things it was torture to watch but not experience. If there is one benefit to having chosen her, it's getting to experience this once more.
"Do you trust me?" she's asking, continuing to rub my head but probably sure I'm calm enough to listen.
"If I didn't, it'd be kind of dumb to have chosen you to be my human advocate." Her face wrinkles at that statement, the look she always gave me when I said something self-deprecating, and she doesn't feel like "playing that game," as she would put it. She carries on. "I would like permission to review the reel once more and make changes."
I understand what that means at the moment. She will need the rest of my time, almost to the very last second, to review and make changes. And once she's done, I'll be unable to review the highlight reel anymore prior to the trial. That isn't just trust. That is putting my potential next life literally in her hands. I'm not sure if thinking will do much good, as it's just wasting time.
"Yes, as is, I'll fail the trial, so whatever you do can't hurt."
Melanie is smiling at me, and for a moment, I know she will be able to do it. But still, I don't know if I can handle waiting another 60 hours. As though she can read my mind, she's saying in the gentlest way possible, "Maybe you should go visit your mom."
As I suspected, Melanie was in my station the entire time I was visiting my mother. My mother looked young, which was an odd sight; maybe mid-30s, like when I was in high school. She'd always sworn my teen years were like hell, but perhaps deep down, those were the best years of her life. Regardless, she seemed completely drained, having spent 500 years up to this point highlighting mundanity, just me.
My appearance was a spark, I think, though she almost stared at me like one does a television, as though I was that child in the memory reel and not standing right in front of her. She hugged me and kissed my cheek, which, unlike in life, I fully embraced instead of cringing. It was odd not having seen her for about 600 years and still not having anything interesting to discuss. I would have told her about Melanie, but I knew informing her I was told I was failing would have dampened our meeting.
The other damper was, of course, that this was the last time I would ever see my mother. With Melanie using the highlighting station and my reincarnation or destruction, there will never be another chance for me to see her face. I thought, of course, that the last time I'd see her was on my deathbed. How would I have known all this existed after death? I suppose I should consider myself lucky to have had a second last chance to say goodbye.
Regardless, I felt I was only there an hour before an advocate, perhaps the same one or another, they all looked alike, appeared at my mother's door and informed me I was due to the courthouse pronto. I gave my mother a hug and she wished me luck and at last, I followed the advocate to the large red, blue, and green structure I've been fearing since my arrival.
The inside of the courthouse is corner-less, with long, glowing yellow walls that remind me of a paperclip heated with fire. Sitting in a chair, the first I've seen in a very long time is Melanie, tipping her feet rapidly as she looks around the hall. She just spotted me, and her face is hard to read. I'm opening my mouth to ask her how it went, but the advocate is practically shoving us into the courtroom. Apparently, my visiting my mom wasted valuable time. My apologies to the rest of humanity for making you wait a few extra minutes because it took longer to get to the courthouse from there.
The room has spots marked off with black lines where the advocate is telling me to stand. Melanie is being told to stand to my left, trying not to look as intimidated as I feel, but clearly was. In front of us is a bench made of a shiny, reflective grey metal, perhaps Tungsten, but I’m just guessing.
“Dr. Smith, human of 37.1 and 76.9,” I hear the advocate announcing upon leading me and Melanie into the courtroom, and I'm wondering whom They are talking to when suddenly, as though in the time it takes to blink my eyes, three large beings with luxurious robes are behind the metal bench, the robes different colours. The one on the left is wearing a blue robe, the middle is wearing a green robe, and the one on my right is wearing a red robe. All of their faces are beautiful and blank, like the advocates I'm so accustomed to. I do, however, find that the one in blue had a rather masculine appearance with a square jaw. The green-robed one has a more feminine appearance, with lusher lips and wider eyes. The one in red is fairly androgynous, sporting high cheekbones. In front of them are blackboards, empty from what I can tell from this distance.
"Good morning, human Smith," the one in a blue robe is saying. “As you are doubtlessly aware, we are here to determine the eligibility of your soul for recycling based on the value of the life you lived on Earth.” He is saying this as though all of that had been made clear, which is not true.
“I was not told-” I am trying to start, but the being in green is placing a finger to her lips while plucking a feather from the one in blue's hair, scribbling something on her board quickly.
“Human, we will be so gracious as to give you an opportunity to give your feedback in a moment. For now, it is time for you to listen.” I dare not say anything in reply, so I am quiet. At this point, the one in red reaches over and plucks a feather from the one in green's hair and begins to write on their board.
The one in red is the next to speak. "As Love was saying, we are here to determine your life's value. I am the judge of your Grief and Fears. My colleague in the center is our judge of Rage, and on the other side of the bench is the judge of Love."
Love is the last to pluck a feather for writing, choosing to reach across the bench to pluck one from fear. He is saying, "I see you have a human advocate here today, which implies you had a hard time with your highlight reel."
I may have never been to law school, but I'm certain that is a trick question. Fear doesn't seem to mind my silence as they write something else down.
"The first stage of this trial is to talk to you and evaluate you your capacity for each of our areas of expertise," Rage is beginning to explain. "We're about done with this stage, so soon we will turn to your highlight reel and see how that stacks up to our understanding of you."
"Finally, we will provide our verdict. If you meet all of our standards, you will receive your reincarnation."
"But I was told this evaluation would be about my worth as a person, not based on emotions." Rage is lifting her quill as I speak, and I can feel Melanie's hand rest softly on my shoulder. I understand what she means. "My point is, I don't feel like I've been able to prepare for this properly."
Love, upon hearing this, is chuckling. His chuckle is loud to the point that Melanie and I have to cover our ears, and he is saying, "You wanted more than six centuries to prepare for today?"
I'm clearing my throat. "Well, not exactly."
Rage is next to speak. "Good, because that isn't happening. If people were told the exact metrics by which we grade, they would only ever highlight those things. Part of this test is seeing what you find makes your life valuable." With that, she places her board face down on the bench and now has a face a little different than the stone face of the other judges and the advocates.
"Human advocate," Love is saying. "How would you say you handled your task?" Melanie, I'm only now noticing, is smiling, practically beaming up at the judges. Perhaps she thinks they are cute, but all I feel is dread.
"I think I was helpful. Got the good doctor on the right track." Love is nodding as he is writing something and also flips it, face turning to a smile as though Melanie's is infectious. Finally, as though trying not to delay it any further, Fear is flipping theirs over, their face kind of skeptical or maybe contemplative. Hard to tell.
Right on queue, this final action seems to trigger a little brown ball to roll into the center of their table, stopping right in front of Rage.
"All right, so now we shall look at this reel, the one you feel underprepared for. Light!" The walls of yellow are dimming to a royal purple as the ball is growing in her hand until visible to all five beings in the court room. Right away, I can tell Melanie has made massive changes.
The first thing I put in my reel was the first act I did as a child: put my birthday money in the charity box at our local taco place. I'd reviewed it no kidding a thousand times to make sure it couldn't be perceived as vain. Instead, the first part of my reel is something I wasn't even aware of when it happened.
I'm an infant, probably a newborn, in the arms of my mother, who is beaming down at me in her hospital gown, her eyes swelled with tears. Almost inaudibly, the sound that fills the courtroom is a squeak of a giggle. My first laugh.
Next up, I see myself learning how to ride a bike, one of the few things my father was really there for, seeing as my parents split before I was born, and he felt some guilt about not being more present but not enough to actually become more present. My father, in this memory, is walking me along, and he looks happy. I'm scared to death, of course, gripping the handlebars so hard my knuckles are white, but somehow, I manage to peddle and hold the bars well enough not to fall over as my dad lets go of me. I fell over not ten seconds later, but the experience must have been fun enough for me to get back on and practice for the rest of my life.
Now, I am at my high school, asking a boy out to the prom. He said he was going with someone else and, for the first time in my life, I had a heartache. I was crying for what seemed like a week until someone else, who I'd never even noticed before, asked me to go, and I never thought about that other boy again.
Now, I'm in my first lecture hall for a psychology class, and I just received an F on my final paper for the class. I'd studied so hard, and that effort seemed to have translated to the same thing as me not trying at all. Of course, one frame after I ripped that paper up and finished with that major forever, I'm walking the stage at 28 to receive my Doctorate in that very field of study. I went from such a low to such a high that what was in this room was the literal blink of an eye.
My next memory was going on dates, except none of the good deeds like paying for meals were on display but instead me making my dates laugh or cry or storm out or kiss me. There were some montages of long relationships, but mostly just the process of trying to find out who I am and what I'm looking for.
Melanie makes an appearance, and as much as I still believe that was my greatest chance at love forever, it is over in a matter of thirty seconds. The next thing is the montages of my lectures and the wild things college professors have to deal with. I can see the bored faces of my students, but also the times a student would pull me aside to ask for help, and I would stop everything to help this interested pupil. Teaching wasn't all bad, and there was appreciation from a select few.
Finally, my cancer diagnosis, which I handled by just loading myself with more work, including that book I'd always wanted to write. I'm sure the half-finished manuscript is still on some hard drive that got tossed with the rest of my stuff, never to be read by anyone. It seemed so important before I died. At some point, even laying around typing was too much to handle, and there I was in my 40s, dying in the arms of my own mother as she stroked my hair and sang to me. She never left my side, not even to eat and sure enough, as I found out a few days ago, she withered away in her grief for me. I wish I had told her to go take care of herself. I'd be fine, but in my heart, I was just glad someone cared enough to be at my bedside as I was being consumed by cancer.
My last memory was my mother grieving my shortening breath, eyes wet as drops graced my cheeks; the reel is over after only playing for a maximum of ten minutes. The room is silent as the orb that held that reel flitters into dust. The walls are now shifting back to their yellow light, and I am quickly wiping my cheeks. The judges are all already deep in their blackboards, writing and erasing as Melanie rubs my head as she does so well. A few minutes later, Rage is first to speak.
"As was said before, the three of us will now give our final scores. I'll begin." She is looking once more at her board. "In terms of your life's rage, I evaluate that it was Satisfactory." I feel my chest deflate as a massive sigh of relief is released. In my original reel, there was not a speck of rage on my part. I thought that would make me look mean and unworthy of another life.
"In terms of your life's fear and grief," Fear is saying, "I evaluate that it was Exemplary." That doesn't shock me, of course. My original reel didn't include any of that either, but between my cancer and my lack of long-term relationships or children, it seems fairly full of grief. This thought doesn't help me. I lacked love. That isn't good.
"Finally, in terms of your life's love," Love is saying, the last to place his board down as he hadn't finished calculating. "I evaluate that it was Excellent." For a moment, I'm silent as I process what I've heard, and then, at once, Melanie and I are screaming in excitement. I am crying once again, and Melanie is as well. We are hugging, and I thank her over and over and over again, but I am unable to control my appreciation for her.
As I look back up at the judges, they are all smiling down on me, and for the first time, they look warm and friendly, perhaps as Melanie saw them. "Congratulations, Human. You had a life worth living." I'm hearing this and, for the first time, truly understand what the assignment was. I didn't need to demonstrate I was a saint or that I was the most successful psychologist. I didn't need to have started a civil rights movement or saved the world. I just needed to have known what it was to be human, to have loved and been loved, been angry, felt grief, and felt fear.
"I wish you could keep this memory when you come here one day," I'm saying, my heart heavy knowing this version of her will disappear along with him.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about me. I'll figure it out just fine," she's winking at me and that is making me laugh because I know for a fact she's right. She'll get down here, slap her reel together in an afternoon, and spend 600 years hanging out with her own family and friends, maybe wondering whatever happened to me but probably not thinking too much outside of giving me a cameo in her own love montage.
"Are you ready?" the three judges ask me in unison. I thank her one last time and, at last, nod, stepping forward toward the judges.
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