Once I happened to die. No wonder, it is a common thing especially nowadays. So, if you are interested in what waylays you above read these pages. I think they will be of great use for those who want to wind they way into the Kingdom. Although, I am now loitering about the Gates (I was not allowed in) - upon my word! had I known all what I know now, I"d have been inside a long time ago. To prevent you from such a miserable lot I"ve written this paper work, in lieu of better to engage myself. Oh! I wish you knew what a formalist the St. Peter is!
But all in good time. At first I was lucky because I died on the very Easter Sunday, and they say that if one contrives to do it he shall be in Heaven in less than no time. You bet none of that! He won"t. He won"t if his kith and kin don"t rustle and perform certain rituals.
Properly speaking, it was for the sake of these rituals that I"ve written this message and managed to smuggle it down on the earth by means of some bloke reanimated at the very last moment.
These rituals are not simply rituals but a ticket to the Paradise, no ticket (as in my case) no Paradise, and here there are no motels designed for such wretches as me and you have got to sleep rough.
I can tell you of all the manipulations inflicted upon my dead body on account my being a witness of them, the matter is that when I breathed my last, naturally my soul departed from my already insufficient body and for interest"s sake tarried in my former apartment.
I have to say that I always was a tidy person and had bathed on the eve; nevertheless, my cold body was bathed again and dressed in a go-to-meeting suit of mine (in a way, I was to go to a meeting indeed, but at that time I was a rookie and paid no attention to such, in my opinion, trifling things). Now I state you - it"s much better for you to be dressed in your Sunday best here, for St. Peter is so exacting on this account as some usher at the doors of a respectable restaurant where you are not supposed to enter without a tie.
So, whilst my sinful soul was hovering over my no less sinful body the apartment was getting crammed with our relatives, acquaintances and people absobloominglutely unfamiliar to me to bid me farewell and fix a kiss on my cold clean forehead.
I, pardon me, my body was attired in a gray suit which while living I had never worn; and the dressed flesh was carefully placed into a coffin, a red one. When my carcass in the wooden box, I freely flied about the quarters and observed the preparations, pretty absorbing ones: a place of my grave was to be chosen and purchased, food for the commemorative feast was to be bought and delivered home, and heaps of other things, I had never thought that to die was so troublesome an event.
Ere long there appeared three women - colleagues of my wife"s. No sooner had they stopped the threshold than they sated that I badly needed a pillow to rest my tired head. The trick was that the pillow must be stuffed with sawdust, moreover you must manage to sew it with no knots, otherwise they wouldn"t give a damn for my reaching the Paradise without such a pillow.
All right, then, the pillow sewn, no knots, and put under my "tired" head, the second step towards the Heaven done, God bless these good women.
I floated to the kitchen, through a wall, of course, you know. Debates were under way there - the topic was whether my body was to lie at home two or three nights. I, for one, preferred to be buried the very same day as I died not to sour and not to bother the human delicate smell, but my wife, being under pressure, resorted to some compromise: to let me lie for two nights and then no bells above the grave.
However, another obstacle was not long in coming - my body"s eyes wouldn"t be closed, they wanted to see whatsoever next. But the living were apparently disturbed by the fact and did their worst to prevent the naughty eyes from being so Paul prying. Two liberal slices of potato were laid on them, for no coins (it is the custom to lay coins on a deceased"s eyes) could manage to keep them shut. All right, my eternal soul needn"t any eyes, and I wasn"t upset by such a demarche from the side of my kin, I"d have been also not so pleased if being watched by a curious deceased left and right.
Now my body cut a jolly sight of itself with those jumbo potato slices and in that scarlet box. I don"t care a bit for that, for I was already a regular spirit, a God"s breath, though a very inquisitive one, so I darted from one group of people to another with a view to penetrate the things and events that were in store both for myself and for my insufficient body.
These things were horrible and funny at the same time. My body didn"t tire of wondering at all those miracles, so, its mouth was open all the way - that, too, didn"t add merry to the present and they decided to fasten the gaping mouth up with a ribbon and prevent it from so apparent expressions of its feelings.
That was not enough, some she-oldster strongly recommended to lay upon my pale forehead a belt with prayers inscribed on it - some sort of a pass to be submitted to St. Peter. Well, my wife took this useful advice, for she wished to meet me above, and the belt was on my face all right.
Now, fancy yourself my head with the huge potato chunks, with the ribbon to keep my body"s mouth from gawking and the broad belt with prayers at that. The nose alone was seen, it towered as a challenge to the Heavens and all the silly superstitions inflicted upon me.
So my body was let alone for some spell, and I was free to satisfy my interest without worrying of it. Now, I was hovering over the menu to be served at the commemorative feast in my behalf. It consisted of lots of items, which included both conventional dishes such as pancakes, fool, noodle, as well as extra ones: various salads, fish-pies, and to crown all the abundance there was to be the sea of vodka, of course. No one on earth could ever do without this beverage, especially at a commemorative feast; and it has been fairly a common event when the participants began wailing over the departed and finished with roaring songs and dashing dances - such is this mentality of ours, it can"t be helped.
But I didn"t fear all these dances and songs on my grave, I had been a cheerful person when alive - let them be merry rater than weeping for nothing. All right, I was quite content with the menu, I was; so, I departed from the kitchen towards the room where my hapless corpse was lying and subjected to torments which it had never seen ere.
In the first place, all the willing to take their leaves saw proper to claw hold of my body"s helpless legs - as they said "for luck", but I"m not sure for whose luck - mine or theirs; notwithstanding, all my body"s legs, all two, were a good deal tousled and the body itself none the happier for such a hearty treatment.
Then my coffin began being filled with odds and ends of all possible sorts: some kind soul, quite all of a sudden, remembered that I had been placed into the coffin with no strap on my trousers - oh, what a quandary I was found in, just imagine yourself! - I ascended the Seventh Sky (my kith and kin contrived, for a wonder, to admit that impossible in itself situation) and am about to enter the Kingdom. Now, St. Peter is rattling with the ring of keys and reluctantly unlocking his wicket in charge of which he has been for over two thousand years by now, vaguely suspecting some mistake on account of my being allowed in, and ... horror! My pants, being supported with no strap, collapse down and I, having stumbled, just tumble into the Paradise and measure my length in front of the God"s throne....
My relatives could by no means let this shame happen and put a strap in the box beside my body. This item was the first on a long list of trifles that flooded my new wooden place.
I used to be a chain-smoker and one of my friends decided to fit me out with a box of cigarettes and a lighter to boot, in the case if there above there is a queue and I have got to wait for my turn - a naive and guileless nature was my friend, for had he been a realist he"d have rather equipped me with a fire-extinguisher.
So, the strap was added with two more items. Then it was remembered that it was a Easter Sunday - and another good soul recollected another ancient tradition to accompany the defunct, who was so shifty to die on such a day, with an Easter egg - this idea was no sooner conceived than carried out, and here is my body surrounded with a whole set of useful things. Not a coffin, but some warehouse and I was able to strike a nice bargain if someone there above missed a good pull at a cigarette or was fed up with the nectar to the teeth and wanted a mere hard-boiled egg (though, on the other hand, if I was not to ascend but descend - my goods were of no use, the smoke is in abundance there below, I presume).
So, my body had the entire outfit all right, and the relatives were half satisfied, why half - because many things had to be done yet, and I tossed about the apartment absorbed in these preparations.
Oh, before I forget, let me anticipate events - so it happened afterwards that my body was buried at the same time with another one that had belonged to some gypsy, apparently a gypsy of tremendous importance when alive, and I understood that I would be just a beggar there above as compared with my new neighbor, for you know what goods I had with me, now I"ll describe the gypsy"s real estate put in his grave: first and foremost, the inside of his cell was bricked beautifully and covered with heaps of carpets; in the second place, his coffin was not a coffin but a whole apartment with electricity, and purchased for a pretty sum of money. Then, the gypsy was armed with a mobile telephone to communicate from above with his comrades below and a TV-set to amuse himself with our worldly gossip and X-films because these programs are banned there.
Well, to resume, my former place was bubbling along, my body was being made a fuss of far too much more than my soul, and its forehead was kissed up to bruises, so many kisses I had never gotten before, when alive kicking and pleasing.
All the mirrors in our apartment were wrapped up, but that was not enough - some lady heavily advanced in years insisted on doing the same procedure to all the TV-sets and all the surfaces which ventured to reflect things.
At first I kind of was astonished at my relatives and friends" strange behavior - they appeared to be afraid on account of my dead body, I cannot say for sure whether they feared that it might be stolen or it had a good mind to commit a dashing escape, anyhow, they sat by and watched all day long as well as all night through relieving each other as the Guards. But people will be people - the first day and night passed splendiferously but the time flies and my body began at first to reek then to stink and the Guards deserted their posts, so, the body lay in the empty room and, I think, felt somewhat lone.
The day of my burial was come at length. I won"t bore you with describing of the process, for it was very ordinary and passed entirely without any incident - hovering over the grave I had the last look at my shrunk and stinking body, then it was out of sight covered with a heavy lid. The coffin lowered into the murky cell and in its turn concealed under five foot thickness of wet earth. That was like a load off my back, which I had been bearing for so many years. I straighten up, squared my shoulders, took a deep breath, observed all my relatives and friends beside the fresh mound for the last time. Nothing stopped me on the sinful surface, the Kingdom was awaiting for my soul (at the least, I thought so), I gave a start and took off thither higher and higher...
Now, as I"ve said above, I loiter about the main entrance and am not let in. I was told stealthily in a very low voice out of St. Peter"s hearing that my kin appeared to have failed to perform all the necessary things to provide my soul the admission, and that here they are strictly stand upon this point.
The St. Peter"s dead busy, for there are myriads of new-comers flooding the square before the gates (by the way, the square was made when World War II had broken out) and there is no chance to get his audience to have my not so particular case explained. There are many of my sort, whose kin mismanaged to bury them properly for the lack of needed knowledge, and there swept a rumor that our cases will be hearing out and resolved when they are in a due quantity not to waste their precious time for each hapless severally.
It may happen that our future will be unenviable and we are a lost generation for the Paradise. I"ve written this message half from the abundance of leisure time I must confess this, but the second half is more worthy - I have a great mind to warn you all there below to do your best and worst to bury your dead rightly, to execute the rituals from the time of yore, otherwise the Kingdom takes the risk of getting desolate.