[ WP ] When you die , you do n't go to the afterlife of you 're religion , you go to the afterlife of the religion whose tenets you followed most closely , knowingly or not .

Christopher Hitchens pulled up his golden chair and scooted right up to me, face to face. Which, to me, makes little sense, as I was just skiing. Literally just now. 
 
 `` I'd like to preface this little situation with an apology up front. I am sorry you're here.'' Said Christopher Hitchens. He took out a cigarette and lit it unceremoniously. 
 
 `` Uh...'' 
 
 `` Notice the omnipresent white light, the kind of wispy glow to everything? Yeah, clearly this is how you imagined death.'' 
 
 It took a moment to connect the memories, you do n't really know death, even when it's just happened to you. The wire. Oh, shit, there was a wire fence, no wonder that slope said no entry. Fuck, I'm gon na kill Jeff. 
 
 `` What, um, are you doing here, then?'' I manage to ask. 
 
 `` That's preposterous. I'm not, this is n't defineably real.'' He flicked his cigarette directly onto the glowing white floor. 
 
 `` Okay.'' I could start with that. `` Am I in a coma or something?'' 
 
 `` Mm. Could be.'' He had a glass of whiskey now, clearly he was enjoying this. `` I have n't really made up my mind on it, was hoping to come to a more informed decision.'' 
 
 `` Well, if I'm dead, and you're dead, and we're dead together, and there IS an afterlife sorta makes sense you'd be here, but at the same time...'' 
 
 `` Did you, at all, follow my exploits? Just because I'm dead and appearing to you now does n't mean I was wrong, or that I'd abandon logic after crossing the big finish line. You exist, sure, at least as far as you can prove to yourself. You're the only one experiencing you, there is no outside perspective that you could n't have crafted within your own mind, just as easily this could all be in your head right now. People do it all the time and chalk it up to God. But also just as much that could have always been the case, every facet of your perceptions could just be the workings of a mind not actually tethered to a physical reality, but the other way around. It could be that yours is the only valid perspective, the actual hub and meaning of the entire universe, and it is as far as you know. So I really could just be a figment of your imagination and always was. Sort of egocentric, really. My money's on just being a coping mechanism to deal with the inherent trauma and inevitability of death. I could just as easily be Jesus or Muhammed.'' 
 
 `` You got me there.'' I conceded. `` Still, you're kind of a strange candidate in terms of first person I meet.'' 
 
 `` Well, most people have big questions, do n't they? They think that they'll get the answers on this side of the equation, kind of rubbish logic, that. I'm sort of an authority on the subject.'' 
 
 `` Well, do you have any answers?'' 
 
 `` No. I have fantastic questions.'' 
 
 `` Such as?'' 
 
 `` Right. So, if we're alive, and then dead, how long does that actual transition take? It might seem like it takes an instant from the outside, but at the same time, when we're under duress, time itself has a way of flexing, somewhat, our thoughts speed up to compensate. A small moment can be stretched very, very thin and very long. And there's no duress like death. So perhaps'eternity' from a personal perspective is an infinite division of a measurable moment.'' 
 
 `` I'm not sure I like that concept.'' 
 
 `` Barely dents the surface. What if, after billions of years of development, the human race creates a computer designed to analyse and experience the entire multi-dimensional spectrum of reality, from the big bang to the'present' to quantify it's meaning and trajectory? And that you can not'die', because you are an extension of the computer itself, analyzing and interacting with the data in the 4th dimension.'' 
 
 `` I had n't thought of that, either.'' 
 
 `` But maybe you did. Well, there'd be no way of telling, either way. If it can be asserted without evidence it can be dismissed without evidence. Exactly the sort of nonsense nobody needs. Could you imagine waking up remembering this? People'd think you lost your marbles.'' 
 
 We both had a pretty good laugh at that. 
 
 He got up from his seat and cashed the cigarette into the empty whiskey glass. 
 
 `` You know, here's one more and then I think I'll go. When you're born, there was a whole universe of events leading up to that, and it's like when the tape recorder of the mind first pressed'record'. You were n't alive during that time, there's no memory of it, to you it does n't exist, the tape does n't go back that far. But, when you die, when the tape stops, you're basically skipping the remaining events of the rest of the universe, even through the end, when the it collapses and all of that. So whatever properties of reality that brought us here to begin with may even occur again, perhaps even inevitably. So, as far as you know, it just flips to side B and keeps right on recording as if nothing in between occurred.'' 
 
 He put his hand on my shoulder. `` I wish I had an easy slice of'this is how it is' to sate your questions. Not today. Dying is a lonely thing, you're born alone, you live alone inside your own head, you die alone, like a rat drowning in a sinking cage. And that, that is the rough edge of it, is n't it? Do n't worry, you may or may not have all eternity to come to terms with it, if you do, take your time, if you do n't, waste none of it.'' 
 
 He put on his coat and turned to leave. `` Well, best of luck to you, maybe you'll wake up, maybe this is it forever. I'll leave you to it.'' And he left. Just like that. 
 
 Well, I was no closer to understanding where I was or if this really was the big blank. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked where I was. And that was a good start.
