Blinding light, I am awake. I open my eyes, not quite sure I know where I am. Oh yeah, Heaven. I’ve been in Heaven for a long time. I am content. The gray walls look like the mist over the ocean right before sunrise. It is all very close together. It makes me feel safe. My bed tells me not to get up, so I lay for awhile. No one comes to bother me. Everything just comes to me. Humans are bothersome. They argue and move and talk too much. So I tell them to leave me alone. I do have one friend, but he doesn’t come into my room. He stays out my window. He doesn’t argue with me; he just listens and agrees.

In my Heaven nothing is very far away. I get up and walk to my friend in the window. Something is wrong. My friend is not the same. His eyes are all sunken and yellow. He has long gray hair all over his face. He looks like he has been waiting for something for a very long time. I do not recognize him. But there is something scary in the way I feel I know him. He stares and me. I start to feel trapped in his eyes. Why would my friend change? This is Heaven. I decide to get away from the strange new person in my window.

I have a book God gave me when I arrived. It always changes. My book also covers me when I sleep, so I have to fold it back up to read it. It is always different. Today there are pictures of big red balls. I like them. But they don’t keep me from worrying about where my friend in my window has gone, and why there is a strange new one. In Heaven there isn’t worry. What’s going on? I go over to see if my friend is back. He’s not. This makes me angry. “Where is my friend?” I say. He doesn’t answer. This is Heaven! My friend stays the same! I go back to sit down and see what’s in my book now. Suns. I sit for hours looking at the suns.

Food appears at my door. God takes care of his children. I don’t want to stop looking at my big white book, but I feel a tugging that compels me to get up and eat. The food is wonderful, just like everything else in Heaven. Feeling reassured that God fixed everything, and my friend is back in my window, I go to talk to him. When I look, I am upset to see that my friend has not returned and the stranger is still looking back at me with his sunken face. I am confused. Why hasn’t God fixed this yet? Maybe God is very busy. I will wait. I start to walk back and forth. Every now and then I stop to see if my friend is back. He never comes. I get more and more frustrated. I yell, but the man in the window never answers me. I don’t believe this. In Heaven you are happy. God has never done anything that makes me unhappy.

God heard me and sent one of his helpers to my Heaven. I hear a big click and the helper walks in with a jacket. God brings me this jacket sometimes to help me calm down. I try to tell the helper that I don’t need the jacket. All I want is for my friend to come back to the window. The helper tells me there is no one in my window. He doesn’t even call it a window. This can’t be. I tell him he’s wrong and that God needs to come and fix it now. I start thrashing and screaming as the helper tries to put the jacket on me. I hit the helper on the face and he crumples over and runs out of the room.

I know I have done something wrong, but they need to understand that the man in my window isn’t right. I decide to fix it myself. I try to wipe away the stranger with my white book. But he doesn’t go. I try splashing water on him to make him go away. I scream and yell but nothing works. The helper is back. There are two of them now. I have never seen two. I am scared. They slowly walk in the room. I try and tell them again and again that I just want my friend back. They don’t listen. Why don’t they listen? They get on either side of me with the jacket. I don’t fight this time. I must need the jacket if they are giving it to me. The jacket is tight. But it’s white like my book so I see pictures of a field with blue. The field changes to orange, and I look up, losing hope that my friend will be there staring back at me. I see the stranger, and I rise in anger. This is not how Heaven works. God was supposed to come and make everything right. Has God forgotten about me?

The stranger stares at me. The way he looks at me makes me crazy. I get up, not sure what I’m going to do, but I have to do something. I start to run at my window hoping to somehow stop him from looking at me anymore and get my old friend back. My legs are numb. I have never tried to get out my window, but I can’t live with him in my window any longer. I run toward him. He stares at me the whole way. He has no right to come to my window and make my friend go away. Another step to the window. I hit the window. It feels like I run into a brick wall. I fall backwards. The window shatters into a million pieces.

Blinding light. I wake up, not sure where I am. Oh yeah, Heaven.