Game over

I was standing there waiting for the train last night. The day was at that fitful moment when the sun is shifting into a lower gear. Not-quite-sunset. And as the train was pulling up, there was something in that moment that brought up the most frightening moment of mortality.

I don't usually worry about questions of the after-life. If the hellfire and brimstone preachers of my youth are right, I'm going straight to hell for any number of reasons. No big deal. The idea of hell doesn't really bother me. Not enough to make me straighten up and fly right, at least. And if the Buddhists are right, reincarnation seems more irritating than anything else; in a "Oh, crap. You mean I have to do this all over again?" sort of way. And the idea of "you live, you die, the End" isn't really that disturbing either. I can accept the Great Nothing.

But the thing that occured to me was, what if there is something after you die, but you only get to do it if you did well here? What if life is pass/fail? The chance could be that you get one chance to live here, and if you get it, really get it, then you get to go on. If not, it's the old "worms crawl in, worms crawl out" and nothing more. Like an arcade game where, if you play well you get to go on to the next level, and if you suck it's all over. And you only get one quarter.

For an agnostic like me, that's one scary proposition. I mean, what's the criteria for living well? Who gets to make that decision? Is it written in someone's holy book? Or is it just up to you to figure it out? Living well can mean a whole lot of things. There are some people who lived good, pure, productive, benevolent lives, and been miserable as hell from cradle to grave. And there are people who've been blighters and bastards their whole lives, who in the end die in peace because they've lived without fear or regret and tasted every forbidden fruit. Maybe only one of them had the answer. I'm not sure which one.

Who knows? Maybe if I want to go to the next level, I should jump into Barney the Wonder Truck and drive out to Eldorado and see if Warren Jeffs is looking for a cell block wedding. I could be wife, what? 49? It might save my immortal soul. I'm guessing probably not. But it's not really the heaven or hell, saved or damned thing that disturbs me. It's that there might be a life after this. Something more. Another whole existence to live, to figure out, to experience. And if I don't figure this out, I won't get my shot at whatever that is. I hate missing out.