13 Chapter 13: Heaven 2.0, Part 1

Not one hour after her yellow Labrador Wynette had passed away, Gretchen Healy heard a knock on her door. It was soft and hollow, as if the knuckles themselves were made of wood. Go away, she thought. Her heart felt thick and heavy, as if someone had filled its chambers with lead. The last thing she wanted was to talk to anyone.

The knock came again.

She let out a long sigh from the pit of her stomach. Wynette had been her best friend. She had not judged, she had not been needy, and unlike people, she had always been there when Gretchen had needed companionship. All Gretchen wanted at the moment was to curl up in bed against the soft comfort of her quilt, and shut the rest of the world outside.

The hollow-sounding knuckles rapped the door a third time.

Gretchen wiped her puffy eyes with the back of her hand. She decided she would open the door, and tell whoever it was to go the hell away. She rose from the couch, walked to the door, and turned the handle.

"Good afternoon, Miss Healy," said the Asian man on her doorstep. He was short, thin, and carried the faint aroma of tuna. The Coke bottle lenses of his gold wire spectacles magnified his eyes into hazel saucers. His skin, the color of milk, hung from his skull in folds. His charcoal suit, by contrast, was silken, sharp, and impeccable, as if it had just come off the rack at Snobster Bros. "May I come in?"

By the time Gretchen had parted her lips to say no, the shriveled man had sidestepped her, and was inside her home. He removed his fedora to reveal not quite white hair that was thin and nicotine-stained. "I'm so sorry for your loss," he said, his head bowed.

Gretchen's eyes widened. "How did you know?" she asked.

"It is our business to know," the man said. He extended his left hand. Between the prune-like fingers was a business card. Gretchen took it.

"Hisao Oshiro," she read aloud, "Eternal Solutions." She turned it over. "Providing paradise for your beloved companions. Defeating Aquinas for over two hundred years." Comprehension dawned. "I see," she said. "Well, I've already made arrangements. I'm having Wynette cremated, and I'm burying her under her favorite tree. So if you don't mind..." She gestured at the door.

"You misunderstand me," Oshiro said, raising his wizened hands. "I am not talking about repose for dear Wynette's body, I'm talking about a resting place for her eternal soul."

Gretchen's face flushed. "Ok," she said, "who sent you? Was it Lorraine in marketing? Because this is sick."

"I sent myself, Miss Healy," Oshiro said. "I come where I am needed."

"I don't need you."

Oshiro cocked his head, looking like a Siamese cat fashioned from crumpled plastic wrap. "Wynette does," he said.

Gretchen did not reply. Her comfort zone consisted of her job, her saxophone, a good book before bed, and, in the lonely dead of night, a glass or two of Merlot. She had been tossed without warning into the icy waters beyond that zone, and it took her a few seconds to proceed. "I thought all dogs went to heaven," she heard herself say.

Oshiro snorted, and chuckled to himself. "Miss Healy," he said, "without your intervention, poor Wynette could languish in limbo for all eternity. Doesn't she deserve better?"

Gretchen rubbed her temples. She felt a lump in her throat, and swallowed. "I don't believe this," she said. "So, what does an eternity in doggie paradise go for these days?"

"One year."

Gretchen blinked. "Excuse me?"

"One year off of the end of your life," Oshiro said. A pink tongue darted out of his mouth to lick his cracked lips. "Is that too much to ask?"

Gretchen shrugged. "Why not?" she said. "I hereby trade you one year off the end of my life for an eternity in paradise for Wynette. Now, will you please get the hell out?"

"Certainly," Oshiro said, his rheumy eyes glinting. He extended his hand. Gretchen shook it. It was cold and rubbery. "There is one minor matter, just legal red tape, to be honest."

"Whatever it is," said Gretchen, "I have complete faith in you to handle it." Hisao Oshiro grinned, and pumped her hand one more time. He placed his hat on his head, and left.

The next day, Gretchen held a small memorial ceremony in her back yard, herself being the sole mourner. She cleaned out a coconut shell, placed Wynette's ashes inside, and sealed it with cement made from flour, water, and eggs. She buried this biodegradable urn beneath a willow that Wynette had marked many times as her own. Being an atheist she said no prayers, but instead played Sinatra's "That's Life" on her smartphone. The ceremony completed, she went inside.

She heard a hollow knock.

Gretchen closed her eyes for a long moment. She crossed the house to her front door, and answered it.

Someone had tucked a black, square, cardboard envelope into the frame of the screen. She recognized it instantly for what it was: a disk holder. It had a rough but soft texture that reminded her of velvet. Inside was a charcoal-blue DVD-ROM, labeled Heaven 2.0 in gold script. She looked up and down the street. She saw no one, just a calico cat lazing on the neighbor's lawn.

She loaded the disk into her laptop. The screen flickered, then it went black.

Pachelbel's "Magnificat" blurted from her speakers in eight-bit MIDI tones. A blocky VGA cartoon of a yellow Labrador appeared. It smiled, lolling a pink tongue from its mouth. The words Heaven 2.0 flashed underneath in large Lucinda Console letters, along with "Press Enter to continue." The cartoon Wynette barked a digitized "arf."

A menu opened, offering a list of locations. There was a beach, a porch, a meadow, clouds with angels... All in all, she had twenty paradises to choose from. Gretchen streamed the program from her laptop to her smartphone, lay on her bed, and examined her choices.

She chose a playground, as she and Wynette had spent so much time walking together in the park. "Hunting, or canned food?" Wynette liked to chase birds, so Gretchen chose hunting. "Sleep, Y/N?" She chose Y. What would heaven be without sleep? The options went on and on, and before Gretchen knew it, an hour had passed. She knew this was a silly game, but giving Wynette the best afterlife possible, even if it was pretend, gave her a strange sense of closure. After eighty minutes, she had answered every question. The program compiled the results.