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Escape from Heaven
A Novel by J. Neil Schulman
Chapter 29


It’s hard to explain the full impact of the changes on planet earth over the following days and weeks.

As a mortal I lived through the American tragedies that were the assassination of the Kennedy brothers and Dr. King, the murder of John Lennon, the Challenger disaster, the Holocaust at Waco and the retaliatory Oklahoma City bombing, race riots in my home town, earthquakes and torrential storms, and the sneak terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As Reverend Chill had correctly explained, these were catastrophes that cause immense grief but there were also happy eucatastrophes of equal magnitude.

Put the emotional power resulting from all these catastrophes together within a period of a few days and you begin to calculate the eucatastrophic joy that was the opening day of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis as earth’s first public transit station to New Heaven.

Gone forever is the mortal Halloween’s ghoulish disinformation about decay and annihilation as millions of the resurrected stream back through the tunnels for reunions with their mortal loved ones and friends back on earth.

Gone is the pain, suffering, and fear of dying, as still-mortal friends and relatives are given round-trip tickets for their astral bodies to accompany departing souls through the tunnels, while ministering angels gently guide voyagers out of their discarded flesh at a freely selected moment of expiration.

Resurrection parties are now bigger deals than weddings and bar mitzvah’s put together. In case you’re looking for a good investment, the catering business in New Heaven is a boom industry. And while still-mortal guests really can’t leaving their old bodies behind for more than a few hours at a time, most do take the tour of the Celestial Palace before catching the tunnel home.

Gone are earthquakes, tropical storms, and the necessity for airport security as people who refuse to be peeped by other passengers are now politely informed they just aren’t welcome, and guardian angels monitor tectonic plates, moderate weather, and fly escort to airliners in flight.

Gone is the planetary feeling of being orphaned, as we learn of our full genealogies with the click of a mouse, and gone are silly arguments about history as kindergartener and doctoral candidate alike can go on the Internet and find links to the Tree of Knowledge’s store of downloadable books, movies, and musical compositions lost for ages—and we can even send email to the original artists and participants.

Yes, there are parental controls in place on the Tree of Knowledge. Some things you have to get in your own sweet time when you’re ready for them. But the amount of new information available to the human race is enough to take several lifetimes to absorb, anyway, enough to quench the thirst of the driest scholar.

Gone is tyranny and grinding poverty as even the poorest soul in the darkest dungeon can pray for liberation and find a powerful ally in his cause.

Most important, gone is the Berlin Wall separating God and his children on earth, as the inventor of all is once again welcome to take a stroll with his wife through their own back yard.

Of course you already knew all this, didn’t you?

+?~

Okay.

I’ve been telling you this story for enough hours that I hope you’ve developed some affection for me, personally, and I hope you won’t be bored when I bring you up to date on my personal story.

There was a big royal ceremony at the Celestial Palace where all of us who worked on the campaign lined up like at the end of Star Wars, and the Trinity handed out medals, with our favorite piece of music playing while we walked up to the throne and lined up.

I’m leaving the radio business. I just got hired as a talk-show host for a new telepresence network that Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates are founding.

You should see the “A” list for future interviews in my Rolodex now.

I’m now engaged to both Estella and Sophia. There’s no law against it and to answer anything else you have to say about it: it’s none of your business.

A lot of the members of the Party of God have decided to buy houses on earth. I’ve stayed in close touch with everyone I worked with on the campaign, and even Manchu Ellins has turned out to be a good buddy. George Bernard Shaw bought a town home just a few doors away from mine, and the dinner parties we’ve been invited to at his house have been legendary.

Elvis is back in the building.

Old Blue Eyes is back in town.

O.J. and Nicole are back together.

Children now live in a nation where they are not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

The Rams are back in the City of the Angels, where they belong.

And my daughter, Felony, has signed J. Neil Schulman to write and direct the movie version of this book.

Not for nothing have we returned this planet to its original name.

Eden.

#

Next in Escape from Heaven is Chapter XXX.

Escape from Heaven is
Copyright © 2002 J. Neil Schulman &
Copyright © 2010 The J. Neil Schulman Living Trust.
All rights reserved.


My comic thriller Lady Magdalene’s — a movie I wrote, produced, directed, and acted in it — is now available for sale or rental on Amazon.com Video On Demand. If you like the way I think, I think you’ll like this movie. Check it out!

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