The Annotated Afterlife

21. Judgment Day

Title
In the Abrahamic religions, and Zoroastrianism, Judgment Day is the final reckoning of all souls in the Afterlife. It doesn't have much to do with Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but that's a great film, and one of my favourites.

Here's a fun (actually annoying) fact:

In British/Commonwealth English, the spelling of the word is judgement, as in the sense, "Sarah's judgement was impaired by her previous encounter with a T-800."

However, when you are using the word in a legal sense, you inexplicably swap over to the US spelling, and it becomes judgment, as in, "The court's judgment was that Sarah was mentally incompetent to stand trial, and had to enter a treatment facility for her obsession with Skynet."

So to discuss the Assessments, I had to make sure I was writing judgment not judgement. Another annoying fact: my spellcheck has no way to distinguish which word is correct, and blindly accepts both spellings. Even more annoying: I kept getting confused about what the rule was while I was editing.

In short, if you see the word spelt incorrectly in Between Life and Death, numerous apologies.

Quote
From the 1975 song "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd. It was based on a poem Roger Waters wrote about their former band mate Syd Barrett, who retired from music in 1972 due to severe mental illness, and became a recluse.

The band last met him in 1975, and were shocked that they no longer recognised him. Roger Waters glimpsed him in a luxury department store in 1979, the final sighting any of them had before Barrett's death in 2006. "Wish You Were Here" is often chosen as a funeral song.

The lines I chose from the song,

So you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell?
Blue skies from pain?

display a certain scepticism about the Assessment process, and whether the judge will really have an understanding of Julian's situation.

Assessment Centre
The classical style white marble Assessment Centre is based on American courthouses, so familiar to us from legal shows and films.