Jason Masters

Bound To Heaven

I died of old age.

Were you expecting 'the end' at this point? That wouldn't be much of a story.

I landed in Heaven.

I knew it was Heaven immediately. Partly it was the brightness of the light and partly it was being greeted by Jesus himself.

Following hugs of greeting, we were joined by my older and previously deceased family members who I also greeted with enthusiasm.

But following these introductions, I turned to Jesus who was still standing nearby. It was obvious to me that I was wanted.

There was no fear in my heart. I was already in Heaven, so obviously I must belong there. I felt only anticipation over the task I would be assigned. It had to be something suitable to my unusual personality, but surely that personality was rare in such a place as Heaven? Surely the activities which it inspired were at least frowned upon even if not outright forbidden?

I had a lot to learn about Heaven.

"You have a task for me?"

"The Father does." His reply sent a thrill of anticipation through my body.

With a wave to my family – it wasn't goodbye since we literally had an eternity to be together, now – Jesus and I began to Travel.

I can't properly describe it as flying because there was no Superman-pose nor any attempt at even acknowledging aerodynamics, but it definitely wasn't walking either. It was instead a pleasant combination which covered incredible distances at equally incredible speeds.

As we moved, I pondered on the fact that, since God must have infinite energy, then in accordance with a transposition of Einstein's famous equation, it must be possible for God to literally remove any restriction on the speed of light, thus we might be covering parsecs of distance in mere eye-blinks.

We arrived at a temple, but not such as we might see on Earth. There was no roof. In Heaven, I realised, there was no need for one. Roofs were entirely decorative, here. As we descended, I could see three impressive-looking golden thrones at one end, with an intense radiance emanating from the middle throne. I knew from Whom that radiance originated.

As we landed not far away from the thrones, I could see a shining being who was obviously an angel kneeling in front of the central throne but as we approached, the being was dismissed, kindly but firmly. Without a word, it bowed, rose to its feet and left. We approached the thrones at last.

I instinctively knew what to do. I stopped just before the central throne, which was occupied by the Father. Jesus went to sit in the throne to the Father's right while I could see another being similar to the one which had just left, sitting in the throne to the Father's left.

I know you want me to describe God The Father. I can't, because there's no worthy frame of reference on Earth. I can say that He's the most beautiful being you could ever see, and looking at Him made me feel like I was the one person in the entire Universe who He had always wanted to meet.

Wanted. That was how He made me feel. Yet what service could I give to a being of infinite power and knowledge? To a being who needed no one? It was time to find out.

I knelt, bowed low and touched my forehead to the golden floor in respect before straightening my back. Then, remembering Eli's instructions to Samuel in the temple, I recited, "Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening."

He didn't beat about the bush but merely smiled in approval at me as He spoke. Plain, direct speaking suited me best and He knew that, of course. How could He not?

"There is a small but important disruption in Heaven, which your experiences on Earth have prepared you to deal with."

I felt a surge of elation. Did He mean my 'special' talents? Could they possibly be of use here? He only paused a moment before continuing.

"A young boy went missing soon after his arrival here. Of course I could find him, but it appears that his disappearance was intentional on his part and you already know that one of the rules which I impose upon myself is to never interfere with free will by my own action. I am far too powerful to allow myself even the smallest breach in my own rules, thus I need you to help me."

I could hardly hope… could I? Or perhaps I could. But I needed to know more.

"Then give me what knowledge and assistance you may, and I will do my best to help him for you, Lord."

A slight nod of approval.

"When he first arrived, he was greeted by family members but he immediately fell to the ground, crying and repeating that he did not belong here. You know that this cannot be true, yet he either believes it or wants to believe it. When his family tried to take hold of him to comfort him, he wriggled out of their grasp and ran away, eventually Travelling at great speed and no one had the will to catch him. He has not been seen since.

"His survival is not a problem of course, but his emotional state is of great concern."

There was a pregnant pause, but I had already discerned the reason for my being given this task.

"He is like me, isn't he my Lord? But he is so much younger and has not yet learned… what I learned too late for it to be of any use to me on Earth."

"Yes. He is."

For a moment, I could only kneel there as the weight of my emotions momentarily overwhelmed me. The memory of the pain… it still hurt so badly, even here. I lowered my head and placed my hands over my face as the tears flowed at the memory. The pain had almost led me to suicide.

It wasn't physical pain. That's far easier to deal with than the emotional pain I now remembered. The internal conflict I had faced had been an impossible one for a small boy to resolve alone, and the very nature of the conflict had practically forced me into fighting it alone, due to the supposedly moral attitudes of both the times and of my parents.

It was a battle which I couldn't win, and if this boy was like me, then he desperately needed help… my help.

A gentle touch to my cheek caused me to raise my head as the Father himself touched me tenderly. Then He took hold of the edge of his clothing and raised it to use to wipe away my tears.

I recalled the line from the Bible, 'He shall wipe away every tear from your eyes' and realised that it was literally true. Here was the creator and originator and owner of everything; the one supreme Being; the one Most Powerful, using His own robe to perform an act which some would consider demeaning or at least beneath them.

The Father glanced up for a moment and I heard a quiet step beside me. As I heard something placed on the ground beside me, the Father continued, "Your equipment has arrived." There was a short pause, then He smiled again (He did that a lot). "You didn't think I'd send you out unequipped, did you?" A rhetorical question, meant to amuse rather than as a genuine query.

I looked to the side to first see the retreating figure of an angel, then down to behold a cloth bag, very similar to a miniature sports equipment bag. There was obviously something in it.

Curious, I undid the zip and looked inside. I was pleasantly shocked, although not overly surprised considering the circumstances, at the contents. I closed the zip once again and pulled the bag strap over my shoulder, then stood up and took a step back.

"My Lord, if I may enquire, in which direction lies the portal to view Hell?" I knew that with the boy's desires, this was the place he was most likely to be found, and I knew that such a place must exist, from Jesus' parable of The Rich Man And Lazarus.

To my slight surprise, all three stood to their feet, turned their entire bodies and raised their arms to point out the direction. Obviously, this was a hugely important matter. I took a deep breath.

"I depart to my task." I bowed to the Three as they seated themselves again while smiling approval upon me.

I Travelled rapidly in the direction indicated, watching my surroundings below me as I did so. In a surprisingly short amount of time, I noticed a change in the vegetation. There was less and less of it as I approached what appeared to be a dark patch amid the sea of light surrounding me.

I arrived to a landscape which I suspected had been deliberately crafted as an indicator of what you were about to see if you proceeded. Bare earth, hard-beaten and red, was the only feature until you reached the Edge itself, where the darkness could be fully seen. I guessed that this was one of the less visited sections of Heaven.

I approached the Edge itself, noticing also that there was an almost indefinable yet visible Barrier between Heaven and the darkness. I tried not to approach that Barrier too closely. I had little desire to look down into Hell itself, and certainly none while there yet remained this Task for me to perform. I began to slowly circle the Darkness, looking around carefully as I did so.

I only needed to go about a quarter of the distance around before I spotted him. It could be no other boy, since he was beating against the Barrier and even at that distance, I could hear him calling out in a despairing voice, "Let me in! I don't belong here! I'm evil! Let me in there! Let me in!" He looked to be around ten years old. It was the same age at which I had very nearly killed myself.

I so desperately wanted to call out a reassurance to the boy, but I knew that doing so would almost certainly cause him to take fright and flee once again. Instead, I continued to circle until I was directly behind him before looking once again into the bag I carried, to confirm the position of the items I would need in case I needed to grab them quickly. Then I approached him, out of his sight.

In order to avoid any noise, I Travelled, although slowly, until I was directly behind the boy before I set my feet on the ground once more. Since the Barrier was non-reflective, there had been nothing to signal my approach.

Once I was too close for the youngster to escape, I made my move. I grabbed him around the waist, lifting him straight off his feet. He gave a small yell of shock, but gave no other indicator of fear. That was normal. In his state of despair, mere fear had no hold on him.

The boy wriggled around a lot, but I had a good hold of him. After he stopped struggling, I sat down on the ground with the boy in my lap as I spoke to him.

"This isn't a way into Hell. It's just a place you can see Hell. The Barrier can't be opened. It was made to be impossible to open. You might as well be beating against a brick wall for all the chance you have of getting through the Barrier." I knew that I must be speaking the truth, because otherwise how could Heaven be Heaven? Absolutes like this were part of what defined Heaven.

He turned his head to look up at me, tears still running down his face.

"But I have to get in there! I don't belong here."

"That's not true," I replied, "and even if it was, some decisions are permanent and irreversible. Allowing you to enter Heaven is one of those permanent and irreversible decisions. You're here for the rest of eternity, no matter what you think or do."

He began to cry again. I continued to hold onto him, just in case, but allowed him to cry himself out. Finally he managed to control his voice again.

"How can I be here? I'm bad! I…" he hesitated before deciding that he had nothing to lose, "I like bad things!"

I unzipped the bag and dived one hand inside, found what I needed and pulled it out.

"Like this, you mean?" I dangled the metal handcuffs in front of his astonished gaze for only a second, then I closed one cuff around one of his small wrists. It fitted perfectly, of course.

With barely a pause, I pulled his hands behind his back and fastened the second cuff before diving my hand into the bag once more to retrieve the ankle cuffs.

The boy was too astonished – stunned would be a better word – to fight me as I fastened the ankle cuffs to hobble him. I guessed that these were no normal cuffs, so the boy was probably in for a surprise if he decided to run away once again. I let go of him and sat back as he struggled to his feet, looking accusingly at me.

"No! This is bad! It's… it's sinful!" He protested insistently.

"Who do you think gave me this stuff to use on you?" My reply was quiet but pointed.

I knew who the boy would think of first.

"No, he has no influence here. He was banished long ago and can never again enter here. Think again. There is only One, and you know Him." I took a guess and continued, "You prayed to Him many times to take away these feelings you have."

The boy just stared at me in disbelief for a moment before protesting again.

"No! No! That's impossible! He wouldn't…" a pause, half-uncertain. It was the first crack which I had seen in his emotional barrier.

"NO!" He turned away and looked to the sky and I knew he was trying to Travel, but he stayed exactly where he was. Until I removed the leg cuffs, they hobbled his ability to Travel at least as much as they kept him from walking properly.

After a moment of attempting to Travel and failing, the boy looked at me again, in disbelief.

"You can't Travel, can you?" I rhetorically asked him. "Who in Heaven do you think has the ability to create leg cuffs with that feature, hmm?" The look on his face, while still astonished, told me that I'd finally convinced him.

While he came to terms with his realisation, I decided to get to know him.

"My name's James," I began. "You?"

There was a slight hesitation before the reply. "Peter."

I figured out almost right away what to say next.

"I bet you got teased a lot about 'Peter playing with his peter.' Am I right?"

Peter nodded, looking rather resentful at the memory as I continued.

"And I bet the worst part is that you can't deny it because you do play with your penis?" I saw him begin to blush and deliberately deflected some of his shame for him. "But then, practically all boys do. And you're here, so as far as sin is concerned, it can't be that bad." I smiled at him, then I stood up.

"How about we go see God and have a good long talk about all of this? Then you can say hi to your family properly. After that… I'm sure that even Heaven allows you your privacy if you want it, so maybe you'd like to go somewhere a little more private with me, and have some fun of the kind you like? After all, this bag still has lots of stuff I haven't used on you yet." I grinned at him.

Peter looked hopefully at me.

"Would we be allowed?"

I could feel my smile broaden.

"Why not? In Heaven, possibly the most important rule after 'Love God' is not to interfere unnecessarily with free will, and since you want to do this, I'm actually following your will rather than interfering with it. Anyone who wanted to stop us would be the one interfering."

For the first time, I saw Peter's expression change to something hinting at the possibility of a smile. Then he looked anxious again as he thought of a difficulty.

"I can't Travel with these things on." He shook his bound hands and kicked against the leg cuffs, jingling the chains.

"I can." I slung the bag over my shoulder, picked Peter up and looked into his eyes. For just a moment we exchanged a look of warm, relaxed, friendly companionship. I remembered one more line from the Bible: 'Perfect love drives out all fear.' Possibly for the first time he could remember, Peter was without fear.

"Shall we go?"

Peter nodded. I looked up and we rose into the air until I could see where I wanted to go. Then I Travelled, holding my little soul-mate to me. The best part was that we had literally forever to get to know each other.

Eternity had begun to look a lot more interesting than I had ever imagined it could.

The End