Entry #26

Reversal
by Paul Liadis


Swinson cackled as his eyes adjusted to his new reality. A grand escalator leading into the sky rose majestic before his eyes. He stepped out of the nothingness onto the moving staircase.

Thinking of all of his colleagues who had given away their precious time and money to charity, Swinson laughed. He had done none of that, yet there he stood, where they aspired to be.

If only he could be present for the reading of his will. To see the look on the pathetic faces when they hear his wish to be buried with his fortune would be to die for. They said he couldn’t take it with him. Ha!

In an instant or possibly an eternity he arrived at the top. The view was spectacular. All of creation lay sprawled at his feet on the earth below. The old man stepped forward.

“Isn't it a bit warm up here?” said Swinson to the man at the front of the not-so-pearly gates. “And I'm not really sure what the stuff looks like, but I don't think there's supposed to be brimstone in Heaven, is there?”

“Heaven? Quite the opposite Mr. Swinson,” chuckled the man in the crisp red suit as he opened the gate to reveal the horror inside. “We switch places ever few millennia. They go down, we go up. But do not despair. We have a special place reserved just for you.”

Terror gripped Swinson and he wept, the tears of the Doomed dampening his cheek.