[ WP ] When you die the afterlife is an arena where you face every insect and animal you killed in your life . If you win you go to heaven , lose you go to hell . Your job was an exterminator on earth .

“ But I ’ m a Buddhist! ” Most details of my life are foggy now and fading fast but I find this fat piece of truth, and I cling to it. It seems crucial. Especially given the circumstances. “ I don ’ t kill animals, dude. I ’ m vegan. I don ’ t even wear leather. ” 
 
 “ Really, ” the little man replies dryly. He ’ s a bureaucrat, not inclined to grant clemency or points for creativity. He holds up a page from his pile. “ Why then, if I might enquire, did you employ as an exterminator? ” 
 
 “ An exterminator?! ” I press my fists into my eyeballs trying reassemble the slippery pieces into something that makes sense, but it ’ s jumbled and random and mostly blocked by the impression of muddy grass against my face, squeezing, relentless spasms in my chest, the pair of large orange work boots planted close to my face. There ’ s a big truck wheel nearby, the acrid stench of burning plastic. The construction site, the development, the wetlands, the plan, the movement – it comes back over me in a wave of clarity. “ No no. ” I open my eyes. “ You ’ ve got it all ass backward, dude. I posed as an exterminator, sure. We all did. We ’ re activists, committed to the cause. They ’ re demoing that stretch of forest. Clearcut. For what? Another neighborhood? Another mall? It has to be stopped. Don ’ t you get it, man. We ’ re saving the planet not harming it. ” 
 
 “ Hm. ” The little man is unimpressed, adjusting his spectacles. “ You were an exterminator, ” he continues, reading from the page. “ You may have been a so-called Buddhist or an activist or whatever else you want to call it, but you were definitely an exterminator, it says it here, and thereby herein consigned by inter-existential jurisdiction and the mechanics of your own psyche to confront those you have harmed in a final grand battle for immortality. If you win: heaven. If they win… well use your overactive imagination. Do you understand? ” 
 
 “ Buddhists don ’ t even believe in heaven and hell, only reincarna— “ 
 
 “ Enough! ” The little man throws open the door of the cell and in the same deft motion propels me into the blinding arena. For a moment I ’ m overwhelmed by the light, the roar of the crowd, and I feel myself falling backward, emerging again to my own struggling, rasping breath, my face flat on the slick mud in the rain, the pain in my back, my neck. The fat orange work boots have shifted and the man leans over me, looking down. “ There ’ s another one over hear, ” he calls. “ He looks hurt pretty bad. ” He leans closer, adjusts his spectacles beaded with rainwater. “ Dumb fuck, ” he says softly, to me or to himself. “ Chain yourself to a swing yarder. What ’ d you think was going to happen? ” 

