Chapter 3

Her eyes were closed as she felt something soft beneath her body. There was an odd, rhythmic sound and smell that made no sense to her at all. A calm breeze pressed across her back in a pleasant way, with no pain in her body of any kind.

She opened her eyes to see white spread out, which made even less sense than the sounds and smells. Her hands pressed down gently to feel the ground give in an odd way and pushed herself to her knees to see far more than white. Donna was on a beach of some kind, but lived nowhere close to a beach and had only been to one once in her life, which was nothing like what she saw before her.

Her head felt a little foggy from trying to make sense of something she couldn’t begin to fathom. With no pain in her ankle, she rose to her feet to get a better look as Donna tried to brush off sand that wasn’t sticking to her body. It wasn’t until that moment when she realized she was completely naked, but felt no need to cover anything.

There were swaying trees that seemed to dance to the sound she understood was from the waves and the scents were that of the ocean. A small hut could be seen at the base of the trees with no windows and a closed door, which worried her for some reason she couldn’t quite place.

She turned towards the ocean with a smile on her face as the sun warmed her flesh with no thought of burning. The waves hit the shore in a perfect rhythm of peaceful white on white, which told her there was something more than a little off about where she was. Her mind raced to find answers as she watched the water and shore meet in perfect harmony.

There was only one reason she wasn’t in the mountains and was in that place of contentment. The fall had killed her. She was standing on the beach with the answer to the oldest question in the world. Is there life after death? Donna could now swear there was, since she was proof, but would never be able to tell anyone.

The voice of her father, which couldn’t be her father, called out gently from behind. “This is a beautiful place.”

She turned with no need to cover anything, since there was no need. The man she saw looked just like her father, but it wasn’t possible. Her father was alive and mourning her loss, unless time doesn’t exist in this place as it does in the world of the living. He either was or had or was no longer among the living, but whatever it was, didn’t seem to matter.

He was wearing a white robe that covered everything, which was a little disappointing. Clothes didn’t matter in the afterlife. None of those petty things did.

She struggled to find the right words as her eyes moved back to his. “Is this heaven?”

He smiled warmly as he shook his head the exact same way her father always had. “This isn’t heaven.” She was about to ask for clarification, but knew there was no need. “Most people think in terms of alive or dead, just like you are. They don’t think of that state between the two.”