Young Writers Society

In the afterlife, you find yourself back in the place you considered to be heaven on Earth, for what is heaven if it can never exist in the afterlife? It's rather cold, and the mountains, though majestic, feel imposing, contradicting the happy memories you recall having there. You come to realise that there is no better place on Earth to accept your own mortality than here, where the mountains project their never-ending reams of snow onto the little wooden huts below. The altitude, though not very high, eerily reminds you of the dread you felt as a 4-year-old, gazing out at those same snowy mountains from a chair lift. You only now realise that this feeling was not of dread, but acceptance- an acceptance that there can never be any place on Earth quite as mesmerising and haunting as this. And you turned out to be right; those who visit it say they can never look at snow the same way again, whilst others muse over its grandeur, making Mount Everest seem like a “monster on a tiny hill.” So, it makes sense that this should be God's chosen scenery for the afterlife. But what’s the problem with this? 

You recall that, on your last visit, whilst descending from Mont Blanc on the same chair lift, you had to make way for 9 huskies to enter the carriage. Of these 9 stood one great figure with black fur, serenely surveying the majestic snow-caps, despite being controlled and berated by an experienced yet meagre Frenchwoman. But strangely, she did not do this to any of the other dogs. Not even the ones who were at each other’s throats, fighting to the death and barking incessantly. This scene makes you wonder if it mirrors your relationship with your mother, or even with yourself, but doesn’t change your opinion of the place. In the afterlife, you find yourself face-to-face with the same majestic dog, who, like you, shares a curious and introspective nature. It guards the entrance to the chairlift, refusing to let you pass. When you try to reason with it, it merely barks. When you feebly attempt to push past, it pushes you aside into the snow. These barriers are not unlike the ones you faced in life, notably with your mother. Her erratic behaviours and pointless criticisms mirrored the barking of the dogs. In this way, they were both your comforter and torturer. Since this is the last chairlift to descend the mountain, and the rest will be permanently shut down for safety reasons, you find yourself unable to leave. You think of skiing or snowboarding your way down, but there is no equipment to be found. And even if there was, you don't know how to ski, or snowboard. The afterlife, you realise, is your greatest regrets shrouded in a thick white layer of eternal peace.

Having no experience with climbing mountains, you lay down paralysed in the snow. The freshness of the snow contrasts with your decaying flesh as it succumbs to hypothermia and untold horrors, eliciting memories of sadness tinged with joy. It occurs to you that there was something about the afterlife that God told you before you came here, but your recollection of it is poor. Lying on the snow, the truth is revealed to you in a blur; there is no guarantee of immortality. So, you can either freeze to death or spend eternity up here in the mountains, for the chairlifts are now under the continuous control of the huskies, hence their sudden closure. Not knowing whether you will die once again may seem petrifying, but this is not the worst part. You think of your mother's favourite phrase; l’esprit de l’escalier, and you only now reconcile with its true meaning. It is too late to come up with a clever retort to comfort yourself, for the wind carries your words down the slope of eternity. Who is there to listen to your comebacks? There is nobody else here; the absence of other souls amplifies the cruelty of this atmosphere, for who else would join you? This is nobody's heaven but your own. The weight of your own insignificance is the only thing that the afterlife clarifies for you in harsh vivacity. A fleeting realisation flickers over your mind like snowflakes. Heaven is something that, due to its very nature, is unattainable for eternity. Its duration is finite because the feelings you attribute to it are finite. Even if it is the case that your soul lives on, that does not guarantee that your perceptions do, for emotions develop and change over time. And in the afterlife, all you truly have is time. You sigh and let tears fall to the ground like icicles as you ponder over the greatest punishment of the afterlife. Because heaven exists on Earth, it can never exist in the afterlife...