Tampines Mass Rapid Transit Station.
One more stop to my destination. One more stop and I get to see her. One more stop, to heaven.
There was a beeping like a bad techno ringtone during a funeral. The doors closed. A few commuters stopped abruptly outside those doors, effectively missing the train. From the comfort of my seat in the train, I thought: That split second in deciding what shirt to wear can make the difference between being on time and having Classified job ads as your bible. Those people are screwed.
The train started to lurch forwards.
Tampines MRT station was a large, spacious affair this time of the morning, but eventually it faded away to present my eyes with a view of trees and HDB flats. I was about to see the woman I adore, so the trees and high-rise apartments represented a symbiotic union, a blissful marriage of man and nature.
My thoughts moved ahead of the train.
Later, I would see her walking towards me. Would she smile? Would she frown? Would she yawn?
She would smile.
And she would walk with the slight bounce and gait of the girl i found lovingly adorable. And her eyes - oh her eyes! They were so beautiful! How they seem to make my heart stop -
The train stopped.
Then, it exploded.
And I knew, by virtue of the pole that had dislodged from the floor (or ceiling. It's attached to, and joins, both of them anyway) and lodged itself in my chest, that I died.
My last memory of pain so fresh and real. Partly from the metal rod that had crushed my lungs. But mostly from not being able to see her again, to tell her...
I awoke with a start, and looked around. It was white everywhere. White stretched beyond the horizon, it roofed me, it was under me. Or perhaps, I was in a white room, with walls and floors and a ceiling of pure, untainted White. It was an old black man's nightmare.
Naked, I stood in stark contrast against my surroundings. I looked at myself. I was whole again. No burn marks from the explosion. No metal pole sticking out of my chest and back. No blood. I definitely had to be someplace I wouldn't describe as the 'mortal realm'. Even so, where was I?
"Welcome to the Netherworld," a disembodied baritone voice said, as though it had read my mind.
Consciously, I started worrying about the privacy of my thoughts.
"Oh don't worry about them. They're private," the disembodied baritone voice assured me.
"Oh good. Hey! Wait a minute - "
"I am your Afterlife Orientations Officer And Answerer To Most Of Your Questions," My Afterlife Orientations Officer And Answerer To Most Of My Questions introduced himself.
"That's quite a mouthful," I advised him. "Don't you have a name?"
"Not a very formal person are you," My Afterlife Orientations Officer And Answerer To Most Of My Questions mentioned, in a pleased tone that suggested he sleeps, while snoring loudly, during formal meetings and pisses on formal documents.
"My name," he continued dramatically, "Is Preenkafkafmulumulugerbil-Nyoh, or Zack for short."
"What's Zack short for?" I asked, wishing to know the full form of such a peculiar name.
"Preenkafkafmulumulugerbil-Nyoh," Zack replied.
"Oh," I said, my brain numbed. "Okay."
There was a silence as intense as a nuclear explosion. At first, I let it fester. I had all the time in the netherworld, anyway. But then, thoughts of her started to creep back into my mind. I missed her so -
Before Zack could pick up my thoughts, and before my thoughts destroy me, I ventured against the tension. "So Zack, can I see how you look like? Are you ghostly, are you a shining light? Are you gargantuan, made of clay, perhaps?"
A second nuclear explosion. Or, something as intense.
"Are you sure you wish to see how I really look like?" Zack's tenor voice spoke suddenly. "Not many mortals have done so. And those who have were driven to great anguish."
"Yeah!!" I whooped. Great anguish in seeing a netherworldly being was definitely less painful than my mortal-emotional anguish.
At first, there was white. It stretched into infinity. Then, there was a blinding blue flash. Thank God it was blue. Most blinding flashes would've been white. Where I was, it was impossible to aesthetically appreciate white blinding flashes.
My eyes took awhile to readjust after all that blueness. Then, I saw Zack.He was so outstanding in this great white place.
Zack was an apple.
Blood red with a short stalk. "What do you expect," Zack said. His verbal output manifests in my eyes as the vibration of a single fuji apple. "An angel?"
"Well yeah," I admitted. "And you know those few mortals you've driven to great anguish? I think they were doctors..."
"No matter. I expect you have questions to ask me," Zack said. "About where you go from here."
It was true, of course. But it was not about my place in heaven or hell. All I could think about was a young lady, waiting for me at the station after Tampines. How I would never be able to talk to her ever again.
I tried my best to think of meeting Gandhi...
To be continued...
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