The Days Of Hellfire

Chapter Eight.

Coimetrophoboia- Fear of cemeteries.

THERE WAS something strange, yet beautiful about a person's life ending.

Unlike animals- namely dogs, who everyone knows makes it to doggy heaven when they leave earth- Being human and having a naturally sinful soul, we are not guaranteed a happy ending or a happily ever after.

On one end, the person is dead. Their souls are casted out of their weak bodies flung into the world of the unknown, or dragged unwillingly into a pit of nothingness.

How can one imagine such a thing? One moment a person is here. They are breathing. Fresh Air is filling their noses, and other familiar scents too. Perhaps they owned a cat, or a dog, and would smell the odors of the animal every morning when they woke up, or every evening before they fell asleep. Perhaps that person owned a Bakery- yes, the best bakery. With treats as vast as the mind can conjure, and the smells were something along the lines of heavenly. There are croissants, and freshly risen bread, and oh- oh yes, donuts. Warm and gooey, nice and fluffy, or beautifully glazed. Painfully perfect donuts that made your mouth water by just looking at them.

Perhaps they owned this bakery on the best, most busiest street on the good side of town, where it lay comfortably wedged between a quaint little coffee shop and old run of the mill book store. Business was good. It was just enough, and then some. Everyone loved the bakery and everything in it. Everyone loved this person.

And then one day, the person heads home, tired and weary from the hard day of work. Perhaps this person was old and frail. Running a bakery had taken its toll on them, and they are more than ready to lay their heads down, and get enough sleep before the new day approaches. But, as they crawl into bed, their bones aching and head pounding, and the mattress feels oh so good on their aching joints that they praise Mary, they feel rather odd. They feel queasy, or detached.

They shake it off and call it a cold, that they're getting something that they caught from that one customer who just would not stop coughing everywhere. They lay their head on their pillow, their head sinking into its silky quality, and their noses inhaling the shampoo they used after the shower the night before. And they sleep.

But then they never wake up.

How incredibly morbid. How dare this happen. How dare they die, and leave behind their friends. Their family. Their lovely bakery snuggled between a coffee shop and a book store on the friendly part of town, on the busiest, best street. How dare they die and leave. And to never know what happened to them? How does one deal with that? One day, they are normal, and happy. They are tired, yes, but happy. It is hard work, but it is worthwhile. But then it is wiped out. They are gone, but to where is unknown.

The funeral is nice. The loved ones gather around, all sad and weary from the event. Everyone cries at all the right parts, laughs at all the good natured jokes, and is hushed into silence by the heavy words of the preacher. Then all will go silent for a moment, and every one will reflect what has happened. The preacher will speak softly, and say soothing words to the grieving crowd. They will say that the Baker- the one who perhaps owned a dog or a cat, who worked all day and had a good life- a good and wholesome life, is up in heaven right now. They are baking delicious baked goods with God and all his angels, no longer tired and worn down with the daily problems that come with humanity.

But truth be told, those are only just words to help console the crowd. No one truly knows what happens. No one knows that there are divisions. Gaps. Realms. Corners, edges, different planes of afterlife existence. That their are certain standards that need to be made to enter a certain afterlife. Its not just live a good life go to heaven. There is a certain criteria that is to be established for each plane. A certain factor that determines where some one will end up.