MORNING COFFEE 31 - hereafter

MORNING COFFEE 31 - hereafter

By Susan Weber

Watch me stuff mortality back into the Kleenex box with all the soggy tissues from the bedroom floor. Fingers scuff the too small opening, my portal to the great beyond. Let me shed the mortal coil for a minute, slip into my cardboard diorama and have a look around. Over there, well-toned cloud dwellers sprout fine wings, death-perfected vocal cords sing halleluh. Revelers parade about on heffalumps, unicorns, I don't know. It all seems a bit far fetched.

In the Golden Age of Radio, families gathered around their consoles to inhabit stories sparked by words. Familiar voices, eerie sounds and music brought listeners into the time of their lives. Eventually television came along to cram its little shows into lo fi speakers, bulbous screens, and the skimpy imperfections of black and white. Untold vibrant fantasy was sucked into vacuum tubes to die.

Hunched in my shadow box, I decide eternity must be more like radio than TV. Vast, lush, brimming with provender and surprise. In mortal life we give ourselves to sleep and work and devoutly paying taxes. We yearn for the effervescent world. Surely some fraction of exquisite overflow seeps into the afterlife, waiting to wow us when we have time.

Public Domain photo by Russell Lee