The Choice of the Dead

by Harriet, age 12, from Great Britian

I sighed as I walked alone across the marshy moors, the clouded sky my only companion, and the biting wind one of my many enemies. I was used to loneliness, because I had no friends and my family were dead or so far away that they might as well be. And as for love? I was afraid of heartbreak so I had steered clear away from The L Word.

I often contemplated killing myself just to find out whether heaven
existed. I'd heard it described as God's kingdom, when I was a child, but I knew in my heart that when you were dead you were dead. There was no question, your body died and your soul went with it. I'd never believed in God. I'd never known what to believe in. It would have been so easy just to walk to the edge of one of the cliffs that edged the moors and stepped off it, as though I was about to take a stroll through the park, but instead plunging to a lonely end and having the furious waves batter my dead body over the rocks until I was nothing at all.
It would have been so easy to give up.

''Are you there,God?''I said aloud.''Can you hear me now? Do you listen
to me? Did you ever?''

I walked on, laughing wildly at the stupidity of my outburst.''Can you
save me now, God?''

It was then that I heard the whisper, carried to my on the raging winds.
''You are not alone.''it said,''you are not alone.''

I knew that God was talking to me, and that everything was true, but I
dared myself not to believe it.

''Yes I am.''I replied.''Yes I am.''

''You are not alive in the way you think.''the voice whispered.''Come
home,child,come home.''

I stopped and yelled into the wind.''Am I dead?''

''You must come home....''

I looked up, and saw a huge opening in the grey sky. A bright light
beckoned me, lighting my face with its brilliance. And then I laughed out loud, because I suddenly realised why I was so alone, why my family was never around, why I had no friends or lovers. I had died, a long time ago, and I had to go home, back to wherever I came from.

''I don't want to go to heaven,God!''I cried.''I came from nothing so
I'm going back to nothing.''

And I walked to the edge of the cliff, the light following me, and
without thinking I stepped over the edge into the black hole of Hell that
awaited me.