"Oh."

"Oh?"

The door opened.

"This isn't where we left off."

Footsteps through the door, one pair clacking and sure, one pair somewhat less so. Two pairs of eyes look around the room as though they haven't been there before, although of course they have.

"Are you sure?"

"Was there anywhere else?"

It's a room of mirrors, or so it seems, although the closer they get to the walls the more they realize that these aren't mirrors, they're walls of glass. Soft-paned glass, cold to the touch. They can see the sky outside, which unnerves them.

"Is this heaven?"

"Are you asking me to believe that heaven is a room made of glass?"

"Well..."

It didn't make sense, to be true, but they were dead.

"This would have to be one place or the other."

"Presuming one or the other exists."

Fidgeting. The door was still where they had left it, but the sky was not where they had left it, or perhaps it was just the clouds moving.

"If this is heaven, shouldn't there be wind?"

"What?"

"The clouds." Point. "They're moving."

"So?"

One stared at the other.

"Never mind."

They had spent most of their life, or what they could remember it, wrapped in confusion and locked in an enigma to which every clue left as soon as it had entered their thinking. Why should the afterlife be any different? If this even was the afterlife, and they weren't convinced that it was, each in their own way, which differed not a whit from the other except in the level of irritation.

Hand by hand along the wall until they reached a second door, the knob of which their hands touched at the same time. There was an awkward moment in which one of them might have said something intelligent and insightful, but they looked at each other instead and chose to view it as awkward, rather than as a moment.

"I wouldn't touch that if I were you."

"Why?"

"Not after what happened last time."

"What happened last time?"

"Don't you remember?"

"Opening a door?"

Pause. "Which door?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't you remember?!"

"No!"

Longer pause.

"I'm going to open it."

"No you're not." Tired.

"Are you sure?"

"Of what, exactly?"

Longest pause yet, inasmuch as they weren't doing anything for which they should be pausing. There was a memory of someone playing a flute somewhere that had some sort of significance neither of them wanted to admit they couldn't remember.

They also couldn't remember why they were supposed to be afraid of what lay beyond that door.

"I'm going to open it."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"Aren't you happy right here?"

"Are you?"

"I..." Pause, mouth open. "I don't know."

"It can't very well be worse."

"It doesn't have to be better."

"I'm going to open it."

One hand that did not tremble turned the doorknob. One of them took a step through. And then was falling, out of sight.

"Oh dear."

"What?"

Silence.

Go to the top! For you have reached the bottom.