Yet (short story)

Yet

Welcome to Heaven! Home to human souls and angelic spirits, as you may already know. I am a soul living in this holy place. Well, rather than living, I'm just a resident because...I'm not living yet. I'd like to give you my name but, I don't have any yet. I'm what they call an Unborn Soul, which means that I'm yet to be born in the physical world, or Earth, as you may call it. For instance, this situation of mine has been the reason for a very peculiar nickname. Yes, they call me Yet, and I'm the last Unborn Soul in Heaven.

Gosh, that sounded very lonely, didn't it? Well, that's not the case. You see, Heaven has 2 regions: Paradise, and the actual Heaven. In Paradise reside the human souls, and in Heaven are all the angels fulfilling their duties. I don't know any angels but, here in Paradise, there are also 2 distinguished sections able to interact with each other: the first is the Afterlife, home of the Dead Souls that, despite sounding a little negative, are just those souls that have already lived their lives and were worthy of entering Paradise once again; now, the second section is the Beforelife. I know, it sounds silly but, it makes sense...and this is my home. It has been since the moment of Creation and what troubles me it's not the name, but how much time will I be in here. How many more millennia do I have to wait for my birth?

"Who are you talking to?" says a distant voice.

"Huh?" I turn back and I see a very old friend. "Allie! I can't believe it! You're back!"

We hug each other—spiritually, 'cause we have no body—and start to catch up. Of course, I don't have much to say but Allie surely has a lot. Allie was the last Unborn Soul to be born, and now she's the newest Dead Soul. I think we can call her a "she" since that's what she was on Earth. She and I were together since the beginning of time, and when we were left alone here, in the Beforelife section, we grew to be close friends, even inseparable. She was born a few decades ago, but for me, they felt like just a few hours. Spirits are incredibly patient so time doesn't feel the same for us, or at least that's what my friends in the Afterlife have told me.

"Hey! You haven't answered my question. Who were you talking to?" Allie insists.

"What? Can't I speak alone?"

"Of course not. That's for crazy people."

"Well, I'm not a person yet!" Allie laughs. We laugh together.

"Why don't you talk to our friends in the Afterlife section, like we used to?" she suggests.

"I don't want to. I'm kind of tired of seeing others' lives. Besides, they must be enjoying their Afterlife, and I don't want to interrupt them. You should be enjoying it too."

"Yet...I am already enjoying it. I really missed you. Even though I couldn't remember you while I was living, in the moment of my death your memory flew back to my mind, and I couldn't wait. I wanted to rush back here, and I did. I could have got here earlier if it wasn't because of the tedious security at Heaven's Gates."

"Y-you really...did that?" I'm stunned.

"I bet you'd be blushing if you were alive," she smiles, and my soul does the same. Suddenly, I feel a huge presence right behind me. Allie looks up, and I get a little scared. "It's him!" she exclaims with big surprise. I turn to look at what's behind me and I cannot believe what I see. An angel of untold proportions stands by my side. I look up to him. He's bigger than anything I've imagined before.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot how tiny the human souls are," the angel proceeds to shrink in size. "Why, hello. You must be the soul they call Yet."

"Oh my God!" Allie shouts with joy. "It's him, Yet! It's him!"

"What?? Who are you?" I'm really confused.

"My name is of no importance. I traveled down here so we can start the process of your birth as scheduled," those words left me speechless. The moment was finally here!

"Allie! It's time! I'm going to—" suddenly, Allie's not there. I find myself in a totally different place. I'm not in the Beforelife section anymore. "Huh!? What's going on!? Where's Allie?"

"She's where we left her," the angel explains. "I had to bring you to this place."

"But I want to say bye to—"

"We have no time," the angel interrupts me. "As I said, we are under schedule. Don't tell me you want to make your mother wait," he speaks calmly, but firmly.

"...well, okay," his presence is so overwhelming I can't even argue with him. "Where are we now?"

"This is my home: the First Sphere."

"We are in the angels' Heaven!? But humans are not allowed in here."

"And angels are not allowed in Paradise, yet I was there, and now I allow you in here."

The First Sphere! No way! This is the highest place in the entire Heaven, and home to the highest angels as well. I see. He's not just an angel; he's an Archangel. That would explain that he has the power and authority to bring me to this place.

"First of all, let me explain to you a few things. You are finally going to be born, but before that, you must help me to write your life."

"To write my life?" he suddenly has a long piece of paper and a very stylish pen in his possession.

"Indeed. You are going to tell me exactly how you want to live your life; every nook and cranny. Every moment of passion and sorrow, of pain and relief, love and hatred, of joy and sadness. Tell me all, and all that I write shall become your real life. You have an interesting advantage since you have seen the lives of so many of your friends in the Afterlife."

"I...decide how will my life be?" this is the first time I hear about this. I don't get it. Does this mean that all the suffering on Earth was something they wanted? Or...am I the only one that—"

"You are not more special than Allie or any other soul," the angel interrupts me again like he was listening to my thoughts. "I do this for all the human souls about to be born, and you are just the next one."

"But I don't get it! I've seen it all. All the pain they've been through. I can't imagine why they'd wish for something like that. Did they really want—"

"It was their choice," he interrupts me once again, luckily, 'cause I was about to lose it. "All the things you have seen were all their choice. No, nothing went wrong—" he answers as he knew what I was gonna ask. "—and if something did go wrong, it was also their choice. They decided to suffer and to struggle, but you are not seeing the full picture. Tell me, have any of the Dead Souls told you they regret their life?"

I think of it and the answer is no.

"They did not only choose to go through pain—" the angel keeps going. "—they chose to love and to be loved. They chose to smile and to frown. They wanted to laugh and to grieve, and they got all that. But those choices have consequences, and that is the reason why not all the friends you once had could enter Paradise again. Now it is your turn to choose. This is the moment you have been waiting for, right, Yet? Or could it be that you are not ready yet?"

Upon hearing those words, I smile. "I'm ready." I finally get it. I feel so dumb. It's so simple, yet so hard to see. It might sound irrational, yet it makes much sense. I'm ready. "Sorry for making you wait, Mr. Angel. I'll start now."

"Do not worry about it. Up here, we have all the time you need." *smirk*