Gate

It was a heart attack that did it. You thought you were too young for those, but somewhere between all the coffee and crap you were eating and what was probably an undiagnosed heart defect of some kind, you had one. You were helping a friend move his couch upstairs when it hit. You said "Wait a sec", put one hand on your chest, and it cut you down. 

Your first thought afterward was "Wait, that's me. There's life after death." You were standing there watching your friend frantically dial 911 on his phone and yell at the dispatcher that something was wrong with you, looking down at your own dead body lying on the steps. You tried to yell back at him and realized he couldn't hear you. You were already on the other side. The "you" that could have spoken to him was supine on the carpet and already going glassy-eyed. You didn't have time to be sad about leaving him behind. Grief takes a long time and you're all out of time, bucko.

Everything went white. Then dark. Then you heard something. A distant susurrus. You were no longer with him even in spirit. You were elsewhere. Then next place.

You open your eyes. It's dark. This isn't heaven. It's not that other place, either. It's somewhere in between. Somewhere in between. Somewhere in between.

You stand up. There are crickets here, evidently. Crickets, birds, bullfrogs. A whippoorwill cries in the distance. There's a river or creek or something nearby. Trees, too. Lots of trees. A full moon. A paved walkway curving through a forest. To your left, the trees open into an eerie graveyard. Headstones like broken teeth cast long cold shadows on grass wet with dew.

"Forward," says a soft voice from above you. You walk. The path is long. Stars are visible overhead. Wherever you are, it's near a river in some riparian area in a valley. Cool and humid. And soft, so soft. There's more than one moon.

"How long am I here for?" you ask.
"As long as you want," says the voice, "You leave when you leave. Some people take five minutes. Some take centuries. Just walk until you're ready to go."
"How long will that be?"
"That's up to you. Are you ready now?"
"No."
"Then walk."

You keep walking. You're tired but not quite ready to turn in yet. It feels like taking an evening walk when you can't sleep. You pass the graveyard. The path winds through cool humid woods and seems to go on forever. It *does* go on forever. As long as you please, sir. You keep walking. You walk and walk and walk. It occurs to you that you have no idea how long you've been here. Ten minutes? Ten years? A billion? Doesn't matter.

You come to a gate. Wrought iron, like a cemetery. There's a stone pillar with something like a bird bath. A glowing white liquid. You smell it and wince. It's astringent. Not pleasant. And you know what you have to do. The gate opens when you drink.
"What happens if I drink it?" you ask.
"You know what."
You pause a long time, staring at the liquid.
"Does it hurt?" You ask.
"Not really," says the voice, "But you will be surprised."

You drink.

It's not what you expected. You would have expected punishment, in a place like this. You thought someone would stretch you on a rack or beat you with rods or make you eat hot coals. That's purgation, isn't it? No. None of that. It doesn't hurt. But suddenly, you feel heavy. 

You look at your wrists and see manacles. Long chains. They're so heavy you can barely stand. And you realize, to your dismay, that you've been wearing them the whole time. However many minutes or aeons you walked that path, you had those onerous things on your wrists the whole time and had no idea. You look closer. Do they come off?

They do. In fact, they were never secure. You could have slipped them off at any time. The manacles are bigger than your wrists. Without a thought, you drop your hands and let the damnable chains slide off. You sigh and stand up straight. Oh, thank God!

"That's it?" you ask, still dumbfounded, "That's what happens here?"
The voice makes a noise halfway between a sigh and a guffaw and says, "Did you think I was going to hit you with a stick? You don't come here to get hit with a stick. You come here to lay your burdens down."