Antsy Does Time Read Free

and the Ice Water of Despair
    The idea of dying never appealed to me much. Even when I was a kid, watching the Adventures of Roadkyll Raccoon and Darren Headlightz , I always found it suspicious the way Roadkyll got flattened at the end of each cartoon and yet was back for more in the next episode. It didn’t mesh with any reality I knew. According to the way I was raised, there are really just a few possibilities of what happens to you in the hereafter.
    Option one: It turns out you’re less of a miserable person than you thought you were, and you go to heaven.
    Option two: You’re not quite the wonderful person you thought you were, and you go to the other place that people these days spell with double hockey sticks, which, by the way, doesn’t make much sense, because that’s the only sport they can’t play down there unless they’re skating on boiling water instead of ice, but it ain’t gonna happen, because all the walk-on-water types’ll be up in heaven.
    I did a report on heaven for Sunday school once, so I know all about it. In heaven, you’re with your dead relatives, it’s always sunny, and everyone’s got nice views—no one’s looking at a disgusting landfill or anything. I gotta tell you, though, if I gotta spend eternity with all my relatives, everybody hugging and walking with God and stuff, I’ll go crazy. It sounds like my cousin Gina’s wedding before people got drunk. I hope God don’t mind me saying so, but it all sounds very hockey-stickish to me.
    As for the place down under, the girl who did her report on it got all her information from horror movies, so, aside from really good special effects, her version is highly suspect. Supposedly there are like nine levels, and each one is worse than the last. Imagine a barbecue where you’re sizzling on the grill—but it’s not accidental like my dad last summer. And the thing about it is, you cook like one of them Costco roasts that’s somehow thicker than an entire cow, so no matter how long you sit there, you’re still rare in the middle for all eternity.
    My mother, who I’m sure gives advice to God since she gives it to everyone else, says the fire talk is just to scare people. In reality, it’s cold and lonely. Eternal boredom—which sounds right, because that’s worse than the roasting version. At least when you’re burning, you’ve got something to occupy your mind.
    There is a third option, called Purgatory, which is a kinder, gentler version of the place down under. Purgatory is God’s version of a time-out—temporary flames of woe. I find this idea most appealing, although to be honest, it all bugs me a little. I mean, God loves us and is supposed to be the perfect parent, right? So what if a parent came up to their kid and said, “I love you, but I’m going to have to punish you by roasting you over flames of woe, and it’s really going to hurt.” Social Services would not look kindly upon this, and we could all end up in foster care.
    I figure Hell and Purgatory are like those parental threats—you know, like, “Tease your sister one more time, and I swear I’ll kill you,” or “Commit one more mortal sin, and so help me, I will roast you over eternal flames, young man.”
    Call me weird, but I find that comforting. It means that God really does love us, He’s just ticked off.
    Still, none of that was comforting when it came to Gunnar Ümlaut. The thought of someone I know dying, who wasn’t old and dying already, really bothered me. It made me wish I knew Gunnar better, but then if I did, I’d be really sad now, so why would I want that, and should I feel guilty for not wanting it? The whole thing reeked of me having to feel guilty for something, and I hate that feeling.
    Â 
 
Nobody talked much on the return trip from the Roadkyll Raccoon incident. Between what we witnessed