Encyclopaedia Entry For: Heaven by Victoria Brooks

[SEE ALSO LORNA’S PLACE]

The first post-cessation-of-the-heartbeat experience was recorded quite by accident in the year 4080. Lorna was a person doing their compulsory space exploration service. She had short hair, small eyes, a wide smile and big trauma. NASA sent her on a mission to a white hole which they suspected was a portal to the afterlife. Lorna was given these instructions:

Marvel at the view of Earth.

Eat a Minibeast Adventure Meals (MAM) insect protein block.

The shuttle auto-returned after her first bite. An autopsy found that she had ceased from cardiac convulsions as a result of consuming monarch butterfly parts. The inquest found MAM’s safety checks had become slapdash during a recent food shortage. The following is an excerpt from Lorna’s continuing communications from heaven knows where:

[I’ve become my favourite smell: bergamot-scented hand sanitiser. Now I’m a deep inhale. Now a mixture of milk cake and thyme liqueur. A voice says, “Choose your heavens. You’ve got an eternity. Just as well.”

My soul swells as I understand that I can: become a lullaby. Or a piece of post-traumatic growth. A jellyfish tendril, or hope. Live as a tender space held between friends. An aria. Dust on the underground. Linked arms at a protest, or the glow of a desk lamp. The song in the body of someone escaping domestic violence, or joy after a lifetime of pain. Pleasure, then aftercare. Release. Zip past my late friend as the end of empire. Wave as I fly past my grandmother as the freedom of colonised people. Then, a kind shoulder touch, then, prison abolition. Oh, look, there’s community care—hug them, be them. Hell, be love on Mars. A beat. Be sleep, or dream. Be present tense. Birth, and death.

End of transmission]. 

Jokes!

I’m Messiah, for a while.