Future Fragments

Benny wondered when he would realize it for himself. He’d read and heard about it, but didn’t believe any of it at first. However, it had been scientifically and astrally confirmed and, though he wasn’t a man of Science, who was he to dispute the academics and researchers?

It was 2050.

The Global Center had released its conclusive findings in June. By September, Benny began to believe the whole thing was a massive ruse to create shockwaves of international proportion. There were daily updates from the Center, keeping the global population – those who had access – apprised of the newest developments and discoveries.

He knew he was somewhat of a fatalist and a bit ashamed that he no longer practiced the religion of his childhood but, by the time he got to secondary school, its tenets and teachings seemed completely inegalitarian. Why should those who were born into a faith in which they were lucky enough to believe and, so, dutifully practice deserve to have an afterlife superior to those whose fate allocated them into a different - or no - belief in God? Benny couldn’t resolve the inequality of the random paths that global citizens were born to follow.

Over the years, he had crafted and come to believe his own world, life and death views and truly held that everyone had a divine right to an afterlife that rewarded the mortal one that is well-lived. He worried constantly that, because he’d stopped practicing his faith decades earlier, his name would be stricken from the roster of those deserving immortal and eternal reward. But he lived what he believed was a good and kind life, committed to treating others as he would himself be treated. Admittedly, Benny thought, he had wavered from the straight and narrow from time to time but, on balance, he hoped his track record proved worthy of happiness in perpetuum.

“Have you insensed the latest from Global Center?” Benny’s good friend, Evelyn asked him when they met for their routine break at 10 o’clock every morning. This had become a near ritual in both their lives. They were friends, but friends only. At the outset, Benny knew Evelyn was hoping the relationship would become something more but it had been decades now. Evelyn was long married with children and grandchildren. Her late husband never seemed to mind her close relationship with another man. Evelyn was such a good and moral being; Clifton had no reservations about her choices.

“I still hate that word, ‘insensed’,” Benny lamented. “It sounds exactly like ‘incense’ with a ‘c’ which makes it make no sense. ‘Insensed’, however, was how nearly the entire world population now received their news. An amalgam of reading, watching, hearing, feeling, tasting and learning, ‘insensing’ meant everyone with access learned what was happening at home, across the globe and the astral plane via every sense. It was neither good nor bad. It was reflective.

“But, yes, I insensed it and truly wish I hadn’t,” he added. “The smell of burning gasoline was a bit unwanted first thing this morning. It is really hard to manage sometimes, the enormity of everything.”

Evelyn knew exactly what he meant. Experiencing every aspect of every event worldwide, by sense, took them to moments of joy and exhilaration, but it also resulted in feelings of devastation and despair. It gave them first-hand experience of what hurricane survivors or embattled soldiers and victims of every kind felt and smelled and heard as their lives were being torn apart.

“At least we can filter it still,” she said. “Nobody could bear to feel all the feelings and see all the sights and hear all the…”

“Small favors,” Benny interrupted. “It was so much easier when we had to intentionally invite all the news to our senses by watching or reading or hearing or viewing. Feeling is too much. Smell and taste are almost always horrific.”

“But,” Evelyn was quick to add, “Getting the good news can be absolutely thrilling. And there’s always some good news. Most days anyway.”

“I’m waiting for something today. And I’m waiting to get the prophecy, if it’s ever coming.”

“Don’t worry,” said Evelyn, “I know it will. Just be patient.”

Evelyn had received her afterlife prophecy near the beginning of the roll-out. There was never any doubt, Benny knew, that hers would be among the best – if not the best – imaginable. Such a good person would receive confirmation that the afterlife would be just as she’d hoped: a reunion with all her departed loved ones before and after her, and unrelenting joy thereafter. Benny didn’t think he deserved Evelyn’s post-mortem reward, but he still held out hope he would eventually realize a happy life beyond the veil.

The June proclamation was explicit. After almost a century of investigation and trial, research and testing, the Global Center issued confirmation that, if a person lived a good and moral, decent life, he or she would be rewarded with whatever afterlife was imaginable and enjoyable. Those people had nothing but happiness to expect – in whatever form desired – after death, be it of natural or compromised causes.

However, there was a point in his self-examination and conscience beyond which Benny couldn’t imagine any outcome but what he specifically envisaged. His ultimate desire was to pass away in an easy and natural death, at an appropriate age and, then, be reunited with his parents and siblings, and any friends who had gone before him. And dogs. He couldn’t imagine eternity without his beloved dogs.

That is what Evelyn had insensed just days after the Global Center announcement. She knew, without any doubt of the surreal intruding on her conviction that she was going to rejoin Clifton, her parents and friends who had already left and, with them, eventually be blessed with a reunion with her children and any loved ones she had left behind.

Benny hoped this was the fate that would await him. It was what he believed of the afterlife and, if one were to believe the Center’s prophecy, that was exactly what he was going to find when he left the world of mortals.

“I wonder when I’m going to find out my fate, when will I insense and intuit it?” he asked aloud.

Evelyn poked him in the arm with her elbow. “You’re such a worrier. You’ll find out very soon, I’m sure. There’s just no rhyme nor reason when these prophecies will reach each and every person.”

Still, he worried that his would be a much worse fate than that for which he’d long hoped. Those who lived a good and loving life would find that the afterlife was exactly what they’d hoped. Those who didn’t wouldn’t learn the truth of their eternity until immediately after death. There would be no stay in a limbo world to absolve them of their wrongdoings. They would only learn - when their souls departed their bodies – the nature of the afterlife they faced. And it was well-documented on the Global Center manifest that they would not achieve the immortality of the soul. The idea of “Hell” about which everyone of Christian faith had learned at some point in their lives was too cut and dried. What would happen the deviants and miscreants was a horror to be learned only when this life ended.

It was just two days after this conversation at their break that it happened. Benny was out walking his three dogs on what was a sunny day, the type of day anyone would want to be out walking. Suddenly, the sky clouded and what had been a gentle breeze picked up momentum and began to whirl about him like a tiny cyclone. He felt his body shudder as the dogs started barking. He lost consciousness, but only for a few seconds. So he thought when his thoughts cleared.

And there it was. He had it. All the stomach churning and worry he had expended over so many years wondering what death would bring was suddenly gone. He knew what awaited him, and he wanted to scream it to everyone around him in the dog park.

All he had ever wanted was the certainty that death should not be feared. It was but a tunnel to a truly better place. For him a better place meant an eternal life with all his loved ones, of any stripe or species. For someone else, it could be eternal nothingness. For Evelyn, it would be the blessing of spiritual visits with her children and grandchildren until they could join her. His relief at not being condemned to nothingness or punishment was palpable and, suddenly, death was no longer something he feared. He could anticipate it now without dread of the unknown and, he was most happy to learn, an eternity of privilege in light of any good he had done over the entirety of his life. He pitied those who had lived a life of selfishness and evil because they would never know what awaited. They would face every living day blind to what their actions wrought upon their future.

Benny didn’t care anymore how Global Center had unearthed its findings about the afterlife. Instead, he was filled with a joy that he had lived to experience the discovery and his own recognition of what eternity held.

He laughed absently and shouted to his dogs, “You ain’t getting’ rid of me that easily, boys.”

They wagged their tails in unison. Benny could have sworn they were smiling.

His grandparents were smiling too.