Five Idiots You Meet in Heaven

The magical transition fog seemed to linger longer than it had the first three transitions. Old Joe tried ineffectively to wave it away, as if in a kitchen filled with smoke, but he was thoroughly engulfed. Even below him was nothing but mist, and Joe was aware for the first time of the sensation that he was floating.

Finally, the fog seemed to thin and gradually gave way to nothing. Joe looked all around him, on all sides, above his head and below his feet. Total black nothingness. Then, one by one, Joe began to discern tiny pinpricks of light, and it became increasingly clear to him that he was floating in Outer Space.

For a brief moment, panic siezed him. Floating in Outer Space without a spacesuit! How long would it be before he ran out of oxygen or his head exlpoded, scattering his brain matter to drift aimlessly across the great void? Almost immediately, however, Joe remembered that he was in Heaven and that the laws of Earth only applied when convenient. Conveniently, Joe could breathe just fine. His anxiety waned, and he leaned back and floated.

After a while, Joe noticed that one of the tiny points of light appeared to be getting bigger. Joe watched it carefully to be sure, but there was soon no doubt that it was growing. Joe looked around to see if any of the other stars were doing the same, but they were not. Whether this particular star was coming towards him or whether he was flying towards the star he couldn’t be sure, but before long it loomed enormous in front of him and he could make out the flares and explosions of its burbling, tempestuous surface.

Soon, everything in Joe’s field of vision merged into a throbbing, blinding light. Joe clutched at his eyes and moaned in pain. Then, there was a squeal like speaker feedback and a deep rumbling. A voice spoke, unlike any voice Joe had ever heard. It seemed to come from everywhere at once and to echo off everywhere else.

“Joseph Old Joe Kaminski Junior!” the voice boomed. “I am the star you know as Beta Capricorni. I am here to give you your fifth and final lesson!”

The voice was as painful to Joe as the light, and he had trouble making out the words.

“What? I can’t- I don’t understand!” Joe shouted helplessly.

There was a sound like a steam engine venting in a deep cavern, recorded and amplified and fed multiple times into a feedback loop. The noise rose slowly in pitch and volume and then fell abruptly. It was an unsettling, alien sound. Yet, at the same time, it reminded Old Joe of nothing so much as a sigh.

“Very well. I will assume a form more comprehensible to your mind,” the voice thundered. “Just give me a second.”

Suddenly, Joe was no longer in Outer Space. He was in a broad, featureless meadow. On the ground next to him, mere inches from his old-man slippers, something was moving. Old Joe looked down to see one of the most frightening and repulsive creatures he had ever seen.

Joe gasped and backed away. The monster flopped around on the grass for a moment, its tail writhing uselessly, before it was able to pull itself up by its hooves and right itself. Its demonic, slitted eye fixed its gaze on Joe.

“Hello, Joe,” it bleated. “You may call me Ca-a-a-a-pricorn.”