Jessica

16

The sun rose and everything fell.
Alex woke up to a series of ‘thumps’ that sounded from all around her. She sat up so she could get a better view, but what she saw had left her in shock.
Everything had literally fallen. Clothes, picture frames, posters; they all littered the floor. Her desk was now clear and her closet empty. Could it have been an earthquake? She knew she hadn’t felt anything. Before she could come up with any other reasonable assumption, she saw something that gave her chills.
Things were starting to disappear. First it was small things, little trinkets, and she was sure her eyes were playing tricks on her. Soon enough, though, her clothes and notebooks and other things were gone. Then her nightstand, and then her desk. Her now empty walls seemed to be staring down at her as she pulled her covers more tightly over herself. And then they were gone. Alex’s walls fell back, like cardboard, revealing a scene that caused equal parts terror and serenity.
It was a large white room, empty of course. Even her bed was gone, and she found herself standing although she had no recollection of getting up.
“Where am I?”
She heard the words aloud even though she hadn’t moved her lips.
“How did I get here?”
Again, her thoughts spread through the air as if they had been spoken.
“Alex, girl, calm down. You are safe, you have to remain calm.” A man had appeared from thin air, a man that she recognized immediately.
“Grandpa?” she was excited, but more scared than ever, “How are you- where are we? You’re not alive. Am I dead? Is this heaven?”
He crossed his arms, “Nah.”
“What? What question were you even answering?” A small amount of annoyance had dripped into her concoction of emotions. Was that all he had to say after all she’d just been through?
“Most of them,” he answered, “First, I’m not exactly your grandfather. I’ve just taken a form that you’ll feel comfortable around. I’m a creator, The Creator. Second, you’re not exactly dead. Today’s sunrise marked your day of judgement.”
Alex suddenly regretted not going to church, since she would have known more about it.
Before she could respond, he spoke up again, “Your beliefs have nothing to do with this. Your life was tested by how you behaved and treated others.”
“Well, how did I do?” Alex thought she was a good person. Still, she didn’t consider herself to have morals up to par with a saint or angel or god or whatever.
“This doesn’t exactly look like heaven, does it? You did alright. Not great. You’ve landed yourself in the in between, Purgatory if you will.” He started to tap his foot, “You have one chance to get to heaven or you’ll go to hell.”
“Okay, what do I have to do?” she was relieved there was a chance for her to get out of this barren land. She could only imagine how amazing it would be to get into heaven.
The Creator uncrossed his arms and a clipboard suddenly appeared in his hand. He looked over it thoughtfully. “Well, it seems there’s been a single consistent mishap. You, dear Alex, have lived your life under the influence of pretention.”
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re a jerk. You lie about who you are and you think you’re better than everyone else. You’re judgmental. You rode your high horse for too long, and now it’s time to make up for it.”
Alex’s head was spinning. She wasn’t judgmental! If anything, everyone else was. She was constantly surrounded by superficial idiots. It wasn’t her fault she’d been born smarter and nicer than everyone else.
“See, you’re doing it now.” He looked smug and she wished she could shelter her thoughts.
“Okay, but how do I lie about who I am?” She was sure there was a mistake on that one. Alex always liked to think that she was honest with herself.
He sighed, “Oh my God, just look at you. You’re wearing a Nirvana shirt right now.”
“What?” she was suddenly quite angry, “How is that dishonest?”
“You don’t even know any of their songs. You like to pretend you do so you can give everyone the talk about you don’t understand today’s music and how much you think it’s garbage.”
All she could think to say was, “I love Nirvana.”
“Name one song.” He was tapping his foot again.
She thought about it and then looked down to avoid his eyes. “Smells like Teen Spirit.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He laughed, “And I know that’s the only song you know. And you hate 80’s movies, you thought the Breakfast Club was overrated.”
“That movie changed me.” She was upset because he was right and she knew he knew she was lying. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A pencil suddenly developed in the palm that wasn’t holding the clipboard, “Okay, I’m gonna add ‘insulting God’ to the list. Anyways, you only have one way out of here, so I’d suggest losing the attitude.”
The Creator scribbled on whatever piece of paper was there while she stood with her hands clasped behind her back. She tried to clear her thoughts and keep her mouth shut to avoid more trouble. The man who looked so eerily like her grandfather used his pencil to gesture to his left, her right. She looked in that direction to find two doors that weren’t there before: one red and one blue.
“Alright,” he said, “I’ll try to make this as simple as possible. The red door leads to Hell. The blue door leads to another room, a room filled with everyone you’ve mistreated with your superiority complex. This includes most of your family, all of your friends, and every single classmate you had in high school. All you have to do to get into heaven is be honest with them.”
“Honest?” she asked, immediately nervous. “What do you mean?”
“Tell them that you were a liar. Tell them that movies from the eighties make you want to hit your head against the wall or fall asleep. Then tell them that you don’t understand 80’s music, and you listen to Taylor Swift when no one’s around. Say you actually do understand this generation, but you feel uncool when they’ve left you out so you developed a fake interest in the past so you could act like you wanted to be an outcast. Admit there’s nothing wrong with the kids you’ve known. Then, in closing, say that no matter how much you ‘don’t care’ about today’s trends or how much you’re ‘not like the other girls’, you are in no way better than anyone else.”
Alex thought about it, disregarding the fact that he could hear her. Did she really want to do that? She had prided herself on not caring what others’ thought, or at least saying she didn’t, but it would be so embarrassing to admit that everything about her was a lie.
She’d spent so many time perfecting her image. Alex would be the girl who was different, because she didn’t want to be different. She wanted to be the girl who didn’t try, the effortlessly cool one. To achieve that look, she hand selected interests that she thought were unique to high school students, to high school girls. She taught herself to play video games that she hated and forced herself to listen to a thousand different bands.
Every day she’d wear the same combination of jeans and a band t-shirt. She’d straighten her hair, just to put it in a ponytail. Alex would look at herself in the mirror and approve. She wasn’t like the girls in the hallways or in the movies, despite being white, thin, and conventionally pretty. No, Alex, was special.
All this work just to be able to say she was special. Not weird, no, Alex was special. And special meant amazing. And amazing meant better.
And no one would take that away.
She had made up her mind. She walked slowly towards the red door.
“No one should be that obsessed with their self-image. Or with themselves in general.” God had spoken, maybe to himself. She knew those were the last words she’d hear him say, but she decided not to respond. The red door was directly in front of her face.
She took a deep breath, knowing she wouldn’t be able to come back.
Alex stared at the door handle and slowly turned the knob.