The Celestial Gate

another as an African. She still remembers the time she was born with dark skin on a farm in South Carolina, back when black people weren’t even considered human and were branded as slaves. As luck would have it, she was born as a boy with dark skin who was the property of a cruel, fleshy white man. When she was seven years old, she was taken from her parents and sold as labor to another farm. She never saw her parents again and spent most of her life picking cotton in the sweltering sun. She had tried to run away countless times but was caught each time. Her back was a grid of scars that grew every time she was lashed with a whip. That lifetime was particularly difficult.

There were times she was born into nobility and others into poverty. Once she was even a free-spirited Comanche: she could still feel the wind on her face, riding horses bareback in the wild. She loved that reincarnation and would be more than happy to do it all over again.

The thing is that, regardless of gender, color, language, or where she found herself on Earth – she always found them, both Yam and Mor, even if it took an entire lifetime. On Earth, man calls this karma, but it’s more profound and powerful than words can ever describe.

“Run,” called the red-haired boy behind her, interrupting her train of thought. “Any minute now the trumpet will sound and it will come to a stop,” he said, short of breath.

“What will come to a stop?” wondered Yam.

The redhead responded with a mocking smirk, “Seriously? What’s wrong with you? Did you go senile in a past life? Don’t you remember anything? Earth stops turning.” His words were drowned out in the flurry and he raced ahead, disappearing among the runners.

It all came flooding back to her now. This was it! The single point on their eternal voyage that afforded clarity – an unobstructed view of infinity from the beginning of time. That single moment right before she returns to Earth and forgets it all again. The celestial administration likes to call it “The Draw,” possibly because they think it’s less offensive and more politically correct. But a draw is just a nice name for a distribution system that uses a lottery to assign each soul to a country. In human terms, it’s called fate.

Anise felt her stomach clench in fury. She remembered all the times she’d stood here, at this exact point in time, and searched for God, wanting to ask Him about the distribution system – this so-called draw – and explain just how unfair it was.

But as usual, God is always busy and never around when you need Him. And no sooner she’s back in heaven, then she’s sent right back on course, into the vortex and down to Earth. The whole thing is so efficient and organized that she never has time to stray off course and look for Him.

And so it plays on repeat, always the same. There’s a single point in time, up there in the clouds, while the race is in full swing and moments before they’re sent back to Earth, when the eternal wisdom of the universe is free, available and as clear as day. It’s so ironic that this exact point in time, the moment she decides to leave the line and go look for God, is also the precise moment she’s sent back to Earth again and stripped of all memory until the next round.

Furthermore, God is a firm believer in freedom of choice. He doesn’t like to make decisions for anyone, which presents another problem for the many different countries and diverse cultures on Earth.

Heaven is, of course, fully aware that a number of countries are considered blue-chip countries, like the United States and England for example. Countries with a relatively good standard of living, decent healthcare systems, sufficient food, and comparatively fewer life-threatening dangers. Of course, this is all relative. We’re talking about a confused and quite primitive human race, after all. In any case, in heaven, these are the countries that are always in high demand – countries where man can live in relative liberty and where very few go hungry.

There is, however, a great number of outcast countries that no one wants to come close to, countries like Sudan, Rwanda, and Syria, which are in a state of chaos and war more often than not, and where people die for no reason almost every day.

But God stands firm on His principles. He believes in freedom of choice, or at least that’s what He claims. And He is not willing to intervene in mankind’s mismanagement of Earth. The result is that there are no takers for the many outcast countries, while the blue-chip countries continue to amass popularity.

Since it’s not possible to send everyone to the popular countries, and since bureaucracy is the same everywhere and government officials in heaven are just as inefficient as anywhere else, The Draw was invented late at night by a not-so-talented angel on some burned-out committee.

Everyone around the table agreed that while it wasn’t exactly a mind-blowing idea, it was the best and only one they’d had all night. It was late, they were exhausted, and their snacks had run out. The committee decided that they would implement the system, just for now, as a short-term plan. They called it The Draw and adjourned the meeting by pledging to make a final decision at their next committee meeting.

But as usual, at the following meeting, in addition to the frequent lunch breaks and power naps, there were more pressing matters to address. No one wanted to take responsibility for a drastic change in the system. It would entail hard work and many more decisions – things that angels, just like humans, try their best to avoid, especially in a committee forum. And so it came about that The Draw remained in place right up until the present