Victims and Perpetrators

Somewhere in heaven a newer resident excuses himself from the eternally blissful proceedings and heads over to a small empty chamber where he seats himself in an ethereal recliner and turns on a celestial supreme definition television. Using on screen menus, he tunes in a terrestrial channel - Earth, America, California, San Quentin, and views another chamber, the one labeled “death”.

Still a novice, he struggles to overcome his impatience as a nurse fumbles several minutes with a syringe. He reminds himself that a half hour devoted to viewing this capital punishment, which some earthlings claim is for his benefit, does not diminish eternity. The ritual ended, he turns off the TV and returns to the main proceedings. Noticing his return, a fellow newbie asks, “How did it go?”, to which the TV viewer responds, “Mission accomplished”, and then they try to high five, laughing as their hands pass through each other.

Later, a man who came to heaven two thousand years ago pulls the “vindicated” one aside and asks him how he feels about the ritual he watched. Admitting confusion, he answers that he doesn’t know how he feels. The ritual actually seemed senseless to him, primitive, irrelevant and happenstance. He admitted to wondering why earthlings see it as so simple - victims are good and criminals are bad. Even as a newbie, he noticed that heavenly residents include both victims and perpetrators, and he had even heard that some of both kind might never make it to heaven.