An Hour of Absolute Faith

The man’s wife was waiting at the table, she waved him over excitedly. They ate and talked about their plans for the day. She wanted to visit the eiffel tower, he wanted to try snails for the first time. “Listen honey, I think we should just ca--” something caught the man’s attention just behind his wife.

     Her brow furrowed, “Honey? Are you--”

     A man in a suit screamed something in french. The sun reflected off of something metal in his hand. What could that possibly be? It looks like a detona---

     His next thought was stopped short by an ear-shattering blast. Shards of glass and granite cut his face. He watched as his wife’s body soared over him, her face perplexingly peaceful. Strangely, he felt no pain; only tingles of things hitting his skin. Everything slowed. So this is what death feels like? I guess this is okay, then. At least I was happy. He waited as the ground slowly approached. Finally, he hit the floor. He watched as his left arm slowly faded away into nothingness, then all was engulfed in a glittering blackness as the man breathed his very last breath.

     He awoke with a start, still on the floor. He looked around, dust was still settling. Standing in the middle of the crater was a small woman in a fuzzy pink dress. “ooooo, hello everybody,” she began with a thick midwestern accent, “that one sure was a doozy, wasn’t it?” She smiled radiantly. Definitely a little too chipper considering the circumstances. The man balled his fists and dug his nails into his palms; he had sensation back. Maybe he wasn’t dead after all.

     The woman in pink cleared her throat, “Well hello, everybody. Allow me to begin by saying that my name is Rosemary and I’m your super special greeter! Now isn’t that just swell?”
Somebody finally spoke up, “What the fuck?”

     “Well,” Rosemary began, “some nasty man came in here with a pretty big bomb and...poof! Here we are. Anything else? No. Good. Now, let’s begin.”

     The man’s mind swam with more questions than answers.

     “There were so many of you, we had to divide the numbers up pretty significantly. Sorry if we split anyone up, we just had to organize so quickly! Now that we’re settled, I have some logistics I need to cover with you. Since there are so many of you, I’m gonna do this in one sitting. There is a man outside with a black apron. You can’t miss him, he’s about seven feet tall and he’s carryin’ a yellow legal pad. You need to name one person in your life that you have always had absolute faith in. If you’re telling the truth, you can go back and spend an hour with them. One person. One hour. Choose carefully.” She put her hands on her hips and waved her finger in what appeared to be an attempt at being firm. “Oh and one more thing I should have mentioned at the beginning,” she said with a smile, “you’re all dead. Now ain’t that a hoot?” She giggled and disappeared in a flash of pink smoke and bubbles.

     Silence.

     Nobody breathed. Nobody moved.

     Rosemary reappeared as fast as she had left. “Oh, and one more thing. Goodness, I’m a hot mess with none of the hot,” She said to nobody in particular. “If the person you list is already dead, or if your faith has ever faltered in them...you can’t see anybody and it’s straight to oblivion with you! Buh-bye now!” Pink. Bubbles.

     The man took a breath, walked outside and found the person in the black apron. “Do you know?” the aproned-giant inquired. The man took a deep breath, took a step forward, and closed his eyes.

“Yes.”