ThIS IS YOUR DEATH

Hello. It is so nice you came by. I have been dying to meet you. It is time for the interogation and review of your life. It should be fun. Hehehe. Then you can get the heck out of here.

GRIM REAPER: My dear Carrie, what a pretty girl you are and just turning thirty. You have certainly spent a lot of time and trouble keeping that figure. I have always been a bit on the BONEY side myself. Too bad about the accident. You should have been more careful. Trying to dial your mobile phone while driving the highway was not smart. There was hardly a scratch left on the truck that hit you. Ah, but for a goul like me it has made you even more attractive-- a dead girl after my own heart, if I had one. Muhahaha! According to the records you were a real savvy working girl. Oh and you were the assistant to an old friend of mine, okay an acquaintance, Hal LeLuya. He was very close to you, wasn't he? Too bad about his heart attack. Too bad. Hehehaha.

CARRIE: What do you mean? What's going on? You can't mean what I think you mean.

GRIM REAPER: My dear girl, you have to face it, at least with what's left of your face. You have CROAKED, PASSED OVER-- your mortal life is TERMINATED.

CARRIE: (crying) This cannot be. I have a dinner engagement tonight. I have plans!

GRIM REAPER: Yes, you've had plans but we have plans for you, too. Did you check your astrological sign today? I know you did. "Today will be the start of a new direction in your life. Romance awaits in your future. Be confident." Ah, such sweet deception. You never put much mind in the providence of God. But, I am getting ahead of myself. Death cares little about the plans of mice and men. It is the great equalizer between the rich and poor. It comes to the saint and the sinner alike. Which are you Carrie? I think you know. Muhahaha!

CARRIE: I am a good person, that should be enough.

GRIM REAPER: Enough? I assure you that there are many so-called "good" persons in hell. Indeed, they constitute the majority population. You people so often get things wrong. There is a difference between being "good" and being "godly".

CARRIE: You have no right to judge me by your standards. You should not judge anyone. Each of us should only be true to ourselves. That is sufficient. You believe what you want and I'll believe what I want.

GRIM REAPER: Hehehe. Even now you resist. You are a strong willed girl, even behind your tears. But you are wrong. We all make judgments. While they should be made according to one's conscience, they should also reflect the TRUTH. Are you kin to Pilate who asked, "What is truth?" I suspect that your truth is very pragmatic with little regard for any objective reality. Those who fail to see beyond the veil between this world and the one you left are often at odds to appreciate the complete truth and reality. But I delay too long and risk allowing the cat out of the bag. I have questions for you. First, what is your faith?

CARRIE: Faith? Well, I'm baptized.

GRIM REAPER: Are you now? That is very well, but what is your faith?

CARRIE: I don't understand.

GRIM REAPER: Yes, you do, you understand quite well. (pause)

CARRIE: I believe in myself. There's nothing wrong with that. I have confidence in myself.

GRIM REAPER: So that is your faith? You are your own savior? I am afraid that just will not do. But, you answer honestly. My second question is this, what is your work?

CARRIE: I am a secretary to Randal Harris, before that to Hal Leluya, who you mentioned. It is a major publishing company.

GRIM REAPER: (shaking his head) I am not talking about the dirty book business.

CARRIE: We publish other things, too. And, what is dirty to you is art and sophistication to others.

GRIM REAPER:  You have rationalized it to yourself for so long that today you believe the lies. Your conscience is numb and impassive. Now for my final question. Answer carefully. What is the love of your life?

CARRIE: I love my mother, my kitty too, although I suppose you would find that silly.

GRIM REAPER: Love for animals is not silly. What is pathetic is that sometimes you people love your pets more than people. There is even a bumpersticker slogan that ridicules, "Save the whales, kill the unborn babies." Billions are spent on gourmet dog and cat food while people starve to death. That is the silly part. Okay, I think I have heard enough. (He opens a sealed envelope that suddenly appears in the air.) The Master has rendered a verdict. Are you ready?

CARRIE: You have no right! Do you hear me? You have no right to do this to me!

GRIM REAPER: I have not done anything. It is all your doing. You flirt with your current boss and seduced your former one into an affair that destroyed his marriage. Even your cat only has value because it amuses you. Otherwise, you would not even be bothered by having a pet. Your mother has not heard from you in over a year, you bad talk about coworkers in order to advance ahead of them. You are prissy about your appearance but negligent about your soul.

CARRIE: How can you say such mean things? I only do whatever the others are doing. That is how it works.

GRIM REAPER: Work? You could not even carry through with the great work of your life. It wasn't your scheming as a member of the firm, it was your baby. Oh, don't look shocked. We know everything here. Your adultery with Hal gave you a child. That was your great work of your life, even though ill-conceived in an act of sin. But, a child would get in the way. The scandal would break. Pregnancy did not fit your schedule and plans, did it? No, so you did what any sophisticated modern woman would do, you had your baby killed. Don't argue the pro-choice case here, such deceit stops at the doorstep of death. On this side we see it for what it really is, murder. Everyone is important, the unborn child, and even you. But, you are not God. And yet, you took upon yourself God's authority over life and death.

CARRIE: What? I am a good woman! No one can be forced to have an unwanted child! You have no right to judge me!

GRIM REAPER: You are right. I don't. But there is one who does have the right. The letter in my boney hand is quite clear in its directions, "Go to hell."

CARRIE:  Oh God, please no!

GRIM REAPER: Who is the god you beseech? If it was the Father of Christ and yours by adoption, he would hear and rescue you. But your faith as you made plain is in yourself. YOU call upon your own ego in a narcissistic petition. You hear yourself and yet are powerless to change your descent. Jesus came into the world to save such as you. Almighty God impoverished himself in becoming a member of the human family, at first no more than a baby in a manger. Every child is a reflection of the Christ child. Your response to the great overture of salvation and a promise answered was abortion. However, you had already aborted the life of the true God in your soul. Outwardly you were dress smartly and possessed charm and beauty; inwardly, you were a maggot covered corpse. You read Romances and the stock market page of the paper, but never the bible. You went to New Age workshops but never to church. You chanted mantras, but no heart-felt prayers. Everything was geared to earthly happiness, physical health, and material wealth. Your works are death and your love misdirected.

CARRIE: I did not know. I need another chance. Please!

GRIM REAPER: Nothing would change. You are who you are. You would find heaven repugnant. Hell is the home you have made for yourself.

CARRIE: Let me be the judge of that!

GRIM REAPER: Those grafted to Christ while still in the world find that this link is not broken by death. It is as if the elect in the world always carry a bit of heaven around with them. Death merely completes and brings to completion this unity. You breeched yourself from the Lord and ratified that separation again and again throughout your mortal life. There is nothing of heaven left in your soul to blossom and grow. Your sins have targeted the Gospel of Life itself.

CARRIE: I did not know. I thought hell was a fable made up by parents to keep children in line and by bigots to steal our freedom.

GRIM REAPER: Freedom? Your interpretation of the word is license and anarchy. You are your whole world. Your abuse of freedom destroyed a marriage, then your child, and now your soul.

CARRIE: I gave to the office charity local clothing drive. That should count for something.

GRIM REAPER: Yes, you did, and to a charity that funnels money directly into the pockets of Planned Parenthood and the abortion mills. You also made a great production show about it. Everyone had to know about your generosity. That will be your only reward. Even now, there is no remorse and no love in your heart for your dead child.

CARRIE: There must be something I can do, maybe a temporary punishment? You're not much to look at, but I could be your secretary, anything, but not hell, please!

GRIM REAPER: Muhahaha! While the offer is attractive, it simply will not do. You would bore quickly enough of my company and would plead for hell. There is nothing for you here-- no compliments, no presents, no physical satisfaction, no corporate advancement, no money, and worst of all for you-- only mirrors that show the truth.

CARRIE: There must be something else!

GRIM REAPER: Surely, but not for you? As I said before, there is no real love in your heart. Your life was the dream, this is reality. The divine light would amplify every wound and scar, not upon your damaged body, but upon your soul. That is why you see yourself so injured by the accident. The tragedy on the highway is not the REAL reason why you look so mangled. Your sins configured you to appear this way. It will be easier to live with the lie in hell.

CARRIE: Doesn't anyone care what happens to me? Somebody's got to help me!

GRIM REAPER: God cares, even I care, that is why you must go to hell. Your soul is darkened utterly and yet your nature cries out for the light. The fire of hell would seem sufficient illumination while the flame of God's love in heaven would be unbearable. You died in mortal sin. You failed to repent and to accept the mercy of Christ. This was your FREE CHOICE. It is not heaven that bars its doors to you, it is yourself.

CARRIE: Please, oh please, no!

GRIM REAPER: Could you tell your unborn child that you LOVE him? Could you say this and mean it?

CARRIE: That has nothing to do with anything! That is not the issue! I am.

GRIM REAPER: I thought not. And by the way, "I AM," is the name of God. You still refuse to understand.

A large black pit opens between them.

GRIM REAPER: It is time. Now your mind and heart will open fully to your identity. No one will push you into the pit. The curtains will part and you shall see yourself for who you really are. Goodbye to illusions.

A visible change takes place in Carrie and her smile is replaced by a snarl.

CARRIE: (chanting mechanically) I am sin. I am hate. I am spite. I am my own hell.

She leaps into the bottomless hole and disappears.

GRIM REAPER: Goodbye, my poor mother. I wish you had given yourself the chance to know me. Never did you suspect my identity. Too bad. "If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward" (1 Corinthians 3:14). Alas, nothing survived.

Pause

GRIM REAPER: Oh well, NEXT . . . Muhahaha!