Hi, I'm FRANCIS ROSENFELD

“Here,” the angel shoved a stack of papers in her hands. “Fill these out and come back to the desk when you’re done. Next!” he looked to the next applicant.

A line was starting to form and Eileen scurried out of the room, feeling awkward and followed by judgmental looks.

The checklist (that’s what it said at the top of the page) was four pages long and very detailed. The font was unreasonably small and hard to read, and each painfully specific item had a box next to it, to be checked as worthy activity completed.

Eileen had never flaunted the rules. All her life she’d filled her forms and checked her boxes without questioning the reason behind them, so she started from the top on these current ones as well and did her best to answer them truthfully. Half way through the list she started to panic. She’d been through two pages of the questionnaire already and couldn’t check a single box.

‘What on earth did I do with my life?’ she asked herself, suddenly turned insecure by the stack of papers that kept falling out of her lap and drawing everyone’s attention. ‘Isn’t there any place I could do this privately?’

“You can skip form 330 if you find it too challenging,” an assistant angel advised with a condescending smile.

"Just fill in the other form and bring it to the desk. If you have problems reading it someone will be there to assist you."

‘Form 275,’ Eileen mumbled to herself. ‘NET WORTH. Really? They care about this in Heaven? Something is not right here.’

“Excuse me,” she tried to draw the attention of the assistant angel, but the latter was busy with something that looked rather important and signaled towards her with a raised finger to be patient.

She buried her nose back in the forms, trying to make herself look good on paper, despite the alarming scarcity of checked boxes.

"I’m afraid you’ve exhausted your time, ma’m. Can you please follow me?”

‘What is this, the SATs? They’re timing this test? Wait, this is a test?’

“This way, please,” the annoyed assistant said.

“Where are we going?”

“The picture room,” the assistant replied, embarrassed. “It’s for people who have difficulty reading the forms. I’m sorry, I didn’t make the rules.”

‘What’s in the picture room?’ Eileen asked herself, anxious.

“You don’t have to feel ashamed,” the assistant mumbled, looking down,“everybody has a story.”

‘What’s in the picture room?’ Eileen anxiety rose by degrees.

“Here you go,” the assistant let her in. “Please make yourself as comfortable as you can. This can be a taxing process. We record everything, you know. For your personal use, of course.”

Eileen sat on the plush sofa at the center of the room, while a stream of images kept flowing on the walls and ceiling like a river: birthday cakes and wedding pictures, trips and holidays and little frustrating moments, beautiful sunrises and powerful thunderstorms, love and tears, hopes and disappointments and sudden surprises, beloved pets and enjoyable hobbies. Her life flowed before her eyes, not flashing, but slow and enjoyable like a movie you watch over and over because it comforts you.

“Is she still in there?” another angel in charge, who had just arrived at the scene, snapped, irritated. “You’d think one would find it sufficient to waste one’s life once. This one is watching reruns. Could you please call Security, I think she was sent here by mistake.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” the assistant spoke softly, evidently concerned about Eileen’s fate.

“I’m surprised you have to ask,” the first angel retorted, offended. “You’ve seen her in the picture room! She’s not even showing regret, it’s like she’s enjoying this!”

“Did you process her paperwork?”

“No, I voided all her forms, she’s scheduled for transfer.”

“We’re not here to fix them all, are we?” the angel in charge sighed emphatically and signed the transfer form. “Ready for transport.”

Eileen was still watching her movie when they came to take her, and she dragged her feet out of the room for as long as she could without looking like she was trying to make a fuss.

“This way,” another assistant angel showed her to her vehicle.

“Where are we going?” she asked, anxiously.

“Don’t worry about it, ma’m,” the angel responded. “It won’t take long.”

The vehicle stopped at the end of an alley covered in white gravel and shaded by oak trees, hundreds of years old, arching gracefully overhead and leading to an imposing gate she could barely see in the dark, revealed only now and then by the glow of the stars.

The gravel gleamed too in their scant light, as if dusted in silver.

Eileen looked back at the angel, who smiled and encouraged her to follow the path to the gate.

She could feel her heart beating in her neck and in her ears; she was overwhelmed by this physical sensation, which in any logical context should have been impossible now.

When she reached the gate she was surprised by how big it really was, and figured she must have walked that silver path for a very long time, without realizing it.

One of the panes was slightly ajar, and she gently pushed it open, just enough to squeeze through it into a garden whose fragrance dripped from every branch, filling the night air with a divine scent of honeysuckle, jasmine and magnolias.

“Welcome home, Eileen,” a voice from nowhere resonated, sounding like it was really close, but she couldn’t see any being it could have belonged to.

“Where am I?” she asked, unsettled by the fact she was expecting an answer out of thin air.

“You don’t know?” the voice chuckled kindly. “This is Heaven.”

“So, then…the other place…”

“Oh, that was the waiting room,” the voice explained. “They’re really big on paperwork there. Did you complete your mission and values statement?”

“No,” she replied thoughtfully. “They took away my forms after I failed the portion about my net worth, I only had time to go through the first half.”

“Yeah, well, it seems it still took you too long. If I knew you’d arrive at night I would have put up some lighting for you.”

"What's going on here?" Mrs. Davenport approached, graceful as usual, her elaborately coiffed hair sleeked back and stepping lightly on her heels."Are you guys still debating?" she smiled and weaved her way through the group to get to the other side.

"Make sure you're not late for class," her sweet admonishment lingered behind her, shifting the students' focus away from the box for a second. The youngsters watched her go, then returned to the bone of contention.

"I'm telling you there are eleven", insisted a very fair skinned boy whose hair and eyebrows were almost as light as his complexion.

"And how would you know?" the tall girl clamored with a shrill tone in her voice that made several people shudder.

"I just know", the boy insisted, looking down with great conviction, loathed to engage the girl in yet another fight.

She delighted in conflict and seldom needed a reason to start another argument.

"Does anybody actually know what they are talking about?" she dared the audience, hoping that somebody would take the challenge. Nobody was eager to pick up the gauntlet, except, again, for the little guy who was still munching. He seemed to have an endless supply of snacks squirreled away in his pockets, supply he relied on to calm his jitters. He eyed the box with longing eyes, unwrapped another tootsie roll, preoccupied, then interrupted the conversation, speaking with his mouth full.

"I think he's right, there are eleven", he concurred without offering any explanation for his opinion.

They all looked at the box again, trying to assess the contents by volume. The tall girl puffed dismissively at his comment, eager to move on to her own estimation.

The bell rang and everybody rushed to the next period, concerned not to be late and forgetting all about the box for a while. Forty five minutes later the discussion resumed. Groups formed, contradicting each other, each more certain than the next and ardently defending their convictions.

The tall girl tried to drag the little guy into a heated argument, her efforts thwarted by a small but very noisy bag of pretzels.

'Where does he get them', she thought, irate, staring him down and waiting for the munching to subside. When the bag was finished, to her dismay, a chocolate cookie appeared to take its place. She gave up on the challenge of showing the little chipmunk what a real debate looked like, it didn't seem to be worth her trouble.

"You are not going to lunch?" a friend asked the skinny guy who shrugged and shook his head, too absorbed in the conversation scene to miss ten minutes.

His friend waited for a few moments and then left. The argument expanded and rose above their heads like the air of an overheated room; just when the tension was about to burst the bell rang again and they all went to class.

"So why are we wasting our time with this again?" the fair skinned boy asked, another hour later.

"Don't you want to know how many there are?" the tall girl asked.

"No, not really, who cares?" he retorted with non-dissimulated boredom.

"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about, it's people like you who care for nothing but themselves who are the problem", the tall girl took the opportunity to be offended and ran with it.

Mr. Schneider, the science teacher, approached the group, opened the box, took a doughnut, closed it right back and left.

"I think there were ten", the skinny guy said, mad at himself for not paying attention.

"Nine", the tall girl screeched.

"I tell you there were ten", he insisted.

"Did you count them?" asked the girl, aggressively getting in his face.

"Did you?" he countered, standing his ground.

The box defied them from the table, light gray inanimate object that it was, impervious to opinion, inquisitiveness and frustration.

And yet, as I passed by the old stones they silently imposed reverence.

"Listen to those whose lives ended long before your time," they said.

"People just like you. Just like you."

I was always tense and frowning back then, (I still have the eleven lines to prove it), but ambition feels so pointless in the presence of the dead, and I guess I learned to listen to them then, one of the few things I learned to do well at that age, I learned to listen and understand the things that really matter are always unexpected gifts, and to see the fleeting nature of our so-called fate, and laugh at the silliness of the important and the urgent, because nothing that doesn’t outlast the season can be that important in this transient existence in which after a few short years you no longer recognize the person you used to be.

I listened to those departed strangers, whose lives and names I never knew, when they told me to live. You can always trust the departed. They have no hidden motives when they tell you to look past the pointless grind of daily chores and live, live, if you’re lucky to be alive, live!

"Luck is not winning the lottery, luck is being here with the sun in your face and the scent of crocuses in your lungs in early spring, and having the sense to wonder what bird is singing so sweet in the tree nearby, that’s luck, you hapless young woman trying to be everything to everybody at all times!"

I listened to the departed, always dutiful and polite, eager not to offend as I was at that age, lest someone might not like me, and passed the grave stones with quiet reverence, and only five minutes later forgot their request, because very important paperwork had to be processed, there were no clean clothes left and the boss had asked for that project to be done ASAP, we all know that ASAP project, there is no other kind, but the next day I passed by the graveyard again, and heard the wiser voices of the past scold me for being such an klutz I couldn’t hold a simple concept like that steady in my head.

I welcomed the sight of the old stones on my way home; they made me feel like I was chatting with a wise old friend, one who knows better and never gives you bad advice; no matter how my day had been, they comforted me, always there to remind me of what really matters, and whose life I’m supposed to live. You don’t live your life most of the time, have you figured that out yet? You manage expectations, balance priorities, execute plans. The dead were there to teach me how to live.

You can’t share this kind of story with your friends, because you know who lingers around graveyards? Vampires and crazy people. Normal people buy things and then brag to their friends about what they bought, and secretly rejoice when they learn their friends haven’t bought those things yet. They bellyache over career moves, neighborhood resale values, the size of their heinie.

That’s what normal people do at twenty-eight, when society imposes an unwritten obligation on you to feel insecure, and want things that are always just slightly out of your reach, but which you could have gotten if only you were a little better, just like other people always seem to be, something your betters never forget to point out to you.

You can’t share this kind of story with your parents, who question where they went wrong in your upbringing and ask offended how can you be so morbid, after all the hardships they endured on your behalf, just so you’d make something of yourself, for God’s sake, not give them more things to worry about with your creepy death obsession.

Death is not to be discussed with your elders.

Ever.

But the departed smiled kindly at my pointless fretting, and I smiled too and kept our conversation secret, like all the important talks in life must be. You don’t share the wisdom that you want to keep.

There is a special aura around the days that matter.

However long a time has passed, or however many things have happened since, you vividly recall exactly how the tree blossoms smelled that afternoon in early spring, so important it etched every one of its details in your memory.

"Live, you goose," the departed asked me. "Live, because you’ll wake up one morning an old woman, if you’re lucky, and wonder what happened with your life! Live now! Live tomorrow! Live every day! LIVE!"

“But what about the grant application?” I asked, making clear, to their dismay, that I didn’t get the message. One doesn’t, not at that age, not for anything.

How sad is it we all have to repeat the older generations’ mistakes ad infinitum, like a printing error message that keeps replicating automatically in hundreds of copies, wasting the ink and the paper?

One day I stopped passing by that graveyard, because, as the departed had already explained to me, life gets reshaped constantly and the surroundings always change, and you’re always too busy to notice.

One thing about graveyards, though, you can pretty much find one anywhere.