At this point, I realize this letter is really long and you’re still watching it auto-scroll on the magic amazing paper. I need a break from the recap, and I figure you can use one to process all of that so far. This is pretty life altering information as it is, but imagine being a religious devotee your entire life, dying, and finding out NONE of what you believed was the case. Holy shit, right? I know some Christians that are going to be pretty upset that they have to share their afterlife with everyone else because of the whole “no Hell” thing. Anyway, back to the story at hand!

After I asked my question, Judith gave me a rather long, appraising look and slid my file over to me. “Have a look for yourself if you like. I can give you the basics, but this will go into extensive detail from the moment you entered this life to your exit and arrival here.” The file itself didn’t seem to be overly thick or contain more than a few sheets of paper, so I couldn’t imagine how extensive it could possibly be until I opened it. That was when I discovered this amazing magical paper. As soon as I began to read, the text began to move along at my pace. As you can see yourself, its almost like the E-readers with the auto-scroll feature, but better. Each page had different information, and any time I made a decision in life that could impact the outcome in a major way, there were predictions, statistics, charts, and all sorts of information, followed by the decision actually made and how it impacted everything else.

To say I was impressed would be an understatement. I was also a little saddened. Some of the decisions I made, I thought I had made because they were the right ones, but to see my entire life experience broken down to raw data and the effects it had on others was humbling. Sensing this, Judith reached out and gently rested a hand on my arm. “No one ever lives a truly perfect life. There is no such thing, they didn’t create you that way. If it helps, they didn’t directly create you at all… any of you. Not the way many of you commonly believe.”

Lowering her hand, she gestured at the folder I was holding. “It isn’t about where you ‘fit’ so much as it is how much of an impact you made with your time and where the data falls. How well you learned, fulfilled your purpose. They didn’t create you directly, or to be perfect, but they did create life to evolve and learn. Over time, life has had many forms and evolved into many offshoots. Humans like yourself are the most complex, therefore impact the data the most, so a special division was created for you. Afterlife agents, like myself, were created to serve our purposes here. We do the assessments and evaluations, oversee our cases after death and into their next lives, counsel on concerns as they arise, and are likely inspiration behind stories of Angels that you’re familiar with.”

“So, you weren’t kidding about it all being an experiment.” I closed the folder and tossed it onto the table. She didn’t explain who “they” were, but I figured we’d get to that eventually. The angel thing made sense, too, in a weird way. Also, I noticed that for all the information being dropped on me at once, I was surprisingly calm and not at all freaking out or full of anxiety. It was almost as if I was having one giant “Ah-ha…” moment, and everything just clicked together. “The things I did mattered, even when I thought or felt otherwise. I clearly had a bigger impact on things and others than I thought or understood, and I gather that my early eject method wasn’t ideal and there is likely still some consequence to all of this which is why we’re still here talking about this and you haven’t done much assessing yet. It just isn’t eternal damnation in a Hell full of torture, fire, brimstone, and all of that.”

Smiling, Judith pointed a finger at me and winked. “Got it in one. We do have to have some consequence for our actions, though we try not to be horrible. You humans can be hard enough on yourselves and each other at times, there’s no need for us to continue that once you’ve died. We aren’t cruel, and neither are those who created you. We often try to help out as much as we can without directly affecting the data, although we’re not the ones that intercede on the Living plane. If you truly need to know where you ‘fit’, though, this would be where. Whenever we need something addressed between our plane and the Living’s, we send one of you as part of our… let’s call it a ‘work release’ program.” Reaching for my folder, she flipped it open and skimmed it as she continued.

“We sometimes need to communicate or re-direct someone who has been continually failing to learn and have had to continually repeat their lessons over and over. We aren’t able to directly interact with anything or speak to anyone, though, as we were never part of the Living plane ourselves. To work around this, we take on assistants. Those assistants are often returnees who, like yourself, have taken themselves out of the experiment early. Your term of employment as an assistant for us lasts for however long your life was meant to last this time around, and once it’s finished you get to re-enter life and try again at the lessons and purpose you failed at. I believe this is how you humans got the idea for spirits, ghosts, hauntings and such. As you’ve already discovered, you cannot be seen or heard most of the time, but you can still interact with things the same as you did when you were living. I’ll also be teaching you how to communicate with those we need you to be able to communicate with, and yes. Before you ask, in your free time you can try to communicate with your loved ones once you’ve learned the skills.”

That was all I needed to hear, I was on board.