THE LOVES OF GRAHAM PEABODY

Graham comes face to face with his non-faith.

Graham Peabody went to bed one night after getting quite irate at an item on the news, and fell slowly asleep with that item swirling around in his head.

The broadcaster had reported that his home country, the one that had always looked upon itself as a Christian country, had become nothing of the sort. Atheism was rife, like, suggested a contributor to the programme, an obnoxious disease that was tearing out the heart of something that had once been noble and worthy and was now corrupt, with women flashing their legs right up to their bottoms in summer frocks and men actually wearing short trousers as if such a garment was anything but evil.

And Graham was an atheist. He wore short pants. He grinned at ladies who had legs so long there was no room for much else. He knew that because the very idea that the old biblical stories might have a smidgen of truth to them was anathema to his very soul, if he had one. And that’s the world his dreams wandered about in, mostly, it must be admitted, on ladies legs in summer.

The dreams he had suffered from began to peter out, not as dreams do when a fellow wakes slowly from his sleep and casts away the shadows of night but rather like you might expect them to peter out when the brain they’re dancing around actually stops functioning.

And Graham’s brain had done just that, and he suddenly found himself slap bang in the middle of another dream. At least, it must have been the middle even though he could remember the start of it.

He was standing in front of a pearly gate giving a bearded old man the dead eye, and that bearded old man was consulting a huge book that looked as if it must be much too heavy for him to hold, but he was holding it.

“Graham Peabody?” asked the geriatric creature, and his beard did a flip when he uttered the “P” sound with a sort of hiss.

“And who might you be?” he asked, his voice querulous and slightly worried. There was something about that pearly gate that rang bells in what may or may not have been his head, bells that he seemed to recall signposted something that was plainly impossible. Why, he’d even written a poem when he’d been ten, seventy years earlier, in which he rhymed hell with bell, and his teacher had read it out to the rest of his class and caned him for daring to question the good book, which he supposed he must have done.

Since then he’d done a great deal of questioning that good book until he had finally dismissed it out of hand.

“I,” murmured the bearded gentleman, “am called Peter. You may call me that if you like. I’m in charge of these gates and only let good people through.”

“Then you’ll bar me, no doubt,” grunted Graham. “I think you and this gate and everything the other side of it are all utter nonsense.”

“Not so hasty, Graham, not so hasty,” murmured Peter, “let me see. Do you remember Janice Bingham?”

He did remember Janice Bingham. He had loved her with all his heart when he’d been fifteen and they’d even cuddled together in one of Farmer Piper’s haystacks and she had delved into his trousers and he had dived everywhere she’d let him, which was everywhere. Then she’d died. Out of the blue and nobody was ever quite sure why. Alive one day and dead the next. That’s what it had been.

“She was a good sort,” he murmured after a moment’s thought.

“And did she love you?” asked Peter.

“Maybe. I don’t know. It was a long time ago but I still remember her with a great deal of fondness,” he replied.

“Would you say you loved her?” boomed Peter, and Graham looked around, hoping there was nobody close enough to hear the conversation, which was too personal for him to want to share with strangers should any chance to be around.

“With all my heart,” he admitted.

“And you know that when she died she was thinking of you? Her last thought was a happy one because you’d made her happy, that time you did all sorts of things in a haystack on Farmer Piper’s field.”

“Shush!” he exclaimed, “that was a long time ago, we were very young and, sod it, it was private!”

“But it’s in my book,” smiled Peter. Graham could tell he was smiling even though his mouth was almost completely hidden by whiskers because his eyes gave it away.

“Then it shouldn’t be!” snapped Graham.

“What about Alice Cringeworthy?” asked Peter, changing the subject, “you must remember her!”

Graham started. Of course he remembered her! She had been, well, his ideal of a beautiful woman incorporated a shapely bosom, beautiful long hair and legs to die for, and she had all of those, and a great deal more.

“She died too,” he sighed, “in an accident.”

“And only twenty,” reminded Peter, “you were both only twenty, and after her accident she lay in a hospital bed in a strange place between life and death for the better part of a week, and throughout those days, she could only think of you. You guided her as she slowly died, and helped her suffer without feeling the pain.”

“That’s nice to know,” admitted Graham.

“She remembers you still,” sighed Peter, “as does Alice. They both recall you every day with a great deal of fondness, and are almost overcome with gratitude that they knew you.”

“But they’re dead. That’s a silly impossibility,” pointed out Graham.

“Maureen Percy as was is dead too,” grunted Peter, “and she still weeps for you.”

“My wife…” whispered Graham, “nobody will ever know how much I loved her and tried to make her smile when we both knew she had little time left. But the cancer got her in the end… But she can’t weep for me. The dead have no tears, not when they’ve paid a visit to the crematorium.”

“She weeps for you,” murmured Peter, “look through the bars of the gate. Here she comes…”

And a figure that appeared there did look like the woman he’d spent the greater part of his life with, walking down a grass path over a meadow that sparkled with daisies and buttercups as if the very flowers were gemstones.

“Where…?” he asked.

“Welcome to Heaven,” breathed Peter, “and you can enter. Go to her and tell her one more time that you love her. And behind her you’ll see Janice and Alice. Tell them too, for it is their reward for living good lives.”

“I still don’t believe. I’ll wake up soon,” grunted Graham as the gate swung open.

“The dead don’t reawaken,” pointed out Peter, “and you’re dead…”

“Then why?” asked Graham.

“As I said, a chance to meet with you again is their reward. It’s what they wanted.”

“And I dared say I’m going to find there’s a fiery afterlife for me,” grunted Graham.

“Of course not, you silly spirit! But maybe you’ll find something that your Maker discovered an age ago.”

Graham was though the gate by then, but he turned anyway to hear the rest.

“And that is?” he asked.

“You’ve got an eternity to discover what it’s like being worshipped,” replied Peter, “an age and even more to get bored with your precious earthly loves.”

“Nobody will worship me, silly!” almost laughed the spirit of Graham Peabody, “I’ve never wanted that!”

“Which is why you’re staying where you are,” came the mumbling voice of Peter, and it faded as if with distance. And Graham looked around.

They’d gone, had the three figures of the people he’d loved, and as he walked the grass under his feet faded and the gem-like flowers turned to dust.

All light went. All tastes, all flavours, all scents, all feelings, and worst of all, the memories of the loves he’d lost.

“Welcome to Heaven,” he muttered to himself, “welcome to Eternity,” and he walked on in the dark of an endless void as everything, even his thoughts, faded beyond forever into the darkest imaginable hell.

© Peter Rogerson 12.08.21

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