I wrote this with my Thursday night group, and many of the prompts were inspired by the Colbert Questionnaire from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. See if you can figure out which ones: what is the best sandwich?, scariest animal, apples or oranges, what do you think happens after we die, favorite action movie, favorite smell, least favorite smell, exercise: worth it?, flat or sparkling, one song to listen to for the rest of your life, what number am I thinking of?, hide-out, dream, swirl of colors
After her sister Monica passed, Miranda spent a lot of time wondering what happens after we die. She’d been raised Christian and had always assumed—in a kind of amorphous way—that there was something rather than nothing, but suddenly she was beset by the thought that maybe life just winked out for each of us, like a sleeper without a dream. No thought, no action, nothing.
“As long as there are no spiders in the afterlife, you’ll be fine,” her husband Fred chuckled.
“Spiders?” Miranda repeated.
“Isn’t that your idea of a scary animal?” he asked frantically, as if afraid he’d gotten it wrong.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I think we’re going to be cuddling up with panda bears and snow leopards,” she said. “You know like on the cover of a Watch Tower Magazine or something. It’s just—well, lately—I can’t help thinking. . .”
Realizing he had misread her mood, he settled next to her on the couch and gently touched her foot. “What do you want to have happen after we die?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said curtly, unconvinced he was interested.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “What do you hope for Monica?”
Miranda leaned against him. “I hope she gets to eat as many ice cream sandwiches as she wants!”
“Those were her favorite,” Fred agreed.
“I hope she gets to eat anything she wants and never gains weight,” Miranda continued.
“No need to exercise then,” Fred said happily. “What’s the point of spending endless hours in the gym if you can eat and eat and never gain weight!”
Miranda played along. “They play Rhapsody in Blue on a continuous loop, all the water is sparkling, and you can go out into the sunshine and pick a fresh orange every single morning. What’s more, every time you have to poop, it smells like roses!”
Fred laughed. “Anything else?” he asked. “A swirl of colors? A secret hideout? A life that rivals an action movie?”
Miranda grew quiet. “No, no, I wouldn’t want any of it. If that’s paradise, I’d want to get out of there so fast.”
“Then what?”
“I’d want to be one with everything, with the stars, with the universe, with everything and nothing, beyond imagining, something completely outrageous and surprising and complete. That’s what I want for Monica. For me. For you.”
She paused and they both allowed the silence. Finally she whispered. “But what if there’s nothing?”
“You’ll never know. Never. So don’t be scared. Think happy thoughts for Monica.”
“What number am I thinking of?” she asked him.
“I don’t know.”
She nodded slowly. “All of them.”
