karen heuler

by Karen Heuler

“I’m wondering if I’m here because I lived a good life, but just not good enough.” The young woman, Jill, sounded a little fretful. She was talking to Enrico, who was only about five feet away, close enough to speak to easily, though they had just met. They were both suspended high above the city, without explanation, and eager to talk.

“Maybe we just didn’t understand what all this rapture business was about. Maybe the explanations were too vague?”

“It’s not just the lack of explanation,” Jill said, looking down past her feet to the roads and houses below, where the still earth-bound stood and looked up to see the people hanging in the air.  “It’s the failed mechanics as well. Why didn’t we ascend all the way? This is like being stuck on a ski lift.”

“It’s not as advertised. Not at all.”

They both looked up. “I guess we’re better off than those people up there.”

“I wonder if they have enough oxygen.”

“Do they need oxygen? Do we?”

“It’s just so high. Do you think we’ll start moving again soon?”

“It’s strange how no one is screaming,” Jill said thoughtfully.

Enrico shook his head slowly. “Why would they scream? I mean, we made the rapture. That means we’re better than the average.”

“It makes me feel more average, though. Because I didn’t make it all the way.”

“I wonder if anyone did.”

Indeed, they were part of an enormous spiral reaching, presumably, heaven. The ascended vanished into the merest line as the spiral spread out and then raised up to the parallel ring above them. An incredible number of people if you had to wait your turn, Jill thought. As far as she could tell, everything was at a standstill.

Luckily, everyone was still dressed. It would have been immodest if they weren’t. When she thought of this, Jill tugged on her skirt to make sure it was proper, only to discover that the skirt was part of her skin. It was not removeable. “Try to take off your tie,” she told Enrico, who looked at her with his eyebrows raised, but did so. His hand faltered; he tugged but when he tugged, his head and shoulders moved. It was like being a living sculpture. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat to give himself a moment to think. “Well, that’s easier this way, isn’t it? No need to throw anything in the washer, we can just step in the shower…” His eyes looked into the distance. “Do you feel hungry or thirsty at all?”

“No,” Jill said. “And I don’t feel cold. I feel perfectly content. I don’t feel like I’m hanging in the air, for instance. It feels like I’m standing on oh, let’s see,” she concentrated, “a nice bit of lawn.”

They both looked down and then followed the spiral up as far as they could. “We’re on the lowest level,” Enrico said. “If we want to look at it that way.”

“Are we waiting to move? Could that be it? Too crowded at the pearly gates?”

“Blasphemy,” Enrico murmured, though he didn’t seem at all annoyed. He merely felt obliged to say it. He leaned forward and looked far to his right. “Hello!” he shouted. Jill leaned forward as well and looked to her left. “Hello!” she shouted and also waved.

Down the line, in both directions, people leaned forward and waved.

Jill and Enrico straightened up and felt better. “What a lot of friendly people,” he said.

“Of course they’re friendly. They’d have to be in order to be saved.”

Enrico thought this through, and Jill had time to think about it as well. “Automatic friendliness is not a sign of grace,” Enrico said carefully.

“No, it isn’t. I was thinking more of us being a community. The raptured community.” She looked all around. “This is the rapture, isn’t it?” She was certain and uncertain at the same time.

Enrico bit his lip. “This is a fixable problem,” he said. He turned slightly to his neighbor on the right, also a man, and stuck his hand out. “Hi, I’m Enrico.” His neighbor stuck his hand out as well, smiling and saying, “George. Nice to meet you.” Then the smile fell from his face. “I’m sorry, I can’t move closer and my hand can’t reach.” Enrico also frowned. It was true for him as well.

Jill had been watching and held her hand out to Enrico. Their hands wouldn’t reach. “Me neither.”

All three of them returned to looking ahead and considering what this meant. “I don’t like it,” George said softly. “I’ve worshipped all my life and I’ve made sure my soul was clean. Is this some kind of scam?”

Jill jolted upright a little. “Scam? A God-scam? I’m surprised you haven’t been sent to hell if you can think like that.”

George leaned to look past Enrico at Jill. “Maybe this is a kind of hell,” he said. “Or purgatory? I think it might be purgatory.”

“I’ve never heard that purgatory was part of the Rapture,” Jill objected.

“Again,” Enrico said, “there might just simply be a bit of a wait. Look at all the people.” He squinted. “How far up does this whole spiral thing go?”

All three squinted. Jill made an unhappy noise. “I’m getting worried. It doesn’t seem, well, organized, does it?”

“Maybe it’s by category,” George said.

Suddenly, from Jill’s left, a woman said, “I’m an atheist, you know. I don’t believe in this at all. I should be exempt.” This shut everyone up for a few minutes; their heads swam.

“It’s not like a jury-duty excuse,” Enrico said, but it was more in the nature of a suggestion rather than a conclusion.

From down the line, a woman said, “I’m Muslim. We don’t have this thing.”

There was a kind of ripple coming from far away down the left side of the spiral towards them. They could see heads turning to their neighbors as a message was passed along. Finally, it reached them.

“There’s been a coup up there,” Jill told Enrico in surprise. “Pass it along.”

He did so, shaking his head, and then turned back to Jill. “This makes no sense whatsoever. How can there be a coup against God? How is that possible?”

A second wave of information came to Jill. “There’s a different God now,” she told Enrico in surprise. “Pass it along.”

A few minutes later another ripple reached her. “There’s a wait until the new guidelines are in place. Pass it along.”

He grumbled but did it. “This makes no sense,” he muttered. “There’s no such thing as changing Gods, is there? And how can we tell this information is accurate?”

The atheist, annoyed, said, “God is a construct! And don’t you think if someone can organize this”—he pointed to the spiral—“they could make sure information stays accurate along the line?”

The messages were coming faster now. “Half the people will be sent back.” Enrico groaned but told George.

Another message reached Jill. “More than half,” she said.

“It’s a do-over,” the woman next to her said.

“Oh? Really? Huh.”

The information was coming quickly. Finally, Jill turned her head to Enrico. “All of it’s a do-over. From the start, I think.”

“Ridiculous,” Enrico muttered.

There was a fog far down the end of the line, or people were disappearing. It raced towards them as fast as the last bits of information.

“We’re going back in time. The dinosaurs won’t be exterminated,” she told Enrico, and bit her lip.

He frowned. “Won’t that be hard on humans?”

Jill raised her head after hearing the next piece of information and sighed. “No. Because this time—no apes.”

~

Bio:

Karen Heuler’s stories have appeared in over 120 literary and speculative publications, from Asimov’s to Conjunctions to Fantasy & SF. Her latest novel, The Splendid City, came out from Angry Robot Books in 2022 and her newest collection, A Slice of the Dark, was published by Fairwood Press. Arc Manor has re-released her beautiful apocalypse, Glorious Plague.

Philosophy Note:

I’ve written a few stories about the Rapture, as it puzzles me. If the righteous rise to heaven after death, then what does the Rapture achieve, other than a dramatic and very visual confirmation of spiritual status among the living? Of course it assumes Christianity is the base for salvation, which is something I play with. Since the source of Rapture theology is based on a misreading of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, what would happen if some of the assumptions that govern it were challenged and defeated? What if there was suddenly a new set of rules? As you move from one country to the next, after all, the gods change and the rules change. What if it was some other God’s turn?