Happy Stories, Mostly

She decides to read for a bit and flips through a women’s magazine lying on the table. Not two seconds later, her jaw drops. All the pages are blank. What’s the meaning of this, she thinks. How uneven! How incomplete! What’s the point of being a creator at all if you can’t even supply what your creations need?

Whoever is writing this story of mine, she thinks, is obviously an amateur and doesn’t care enough about detail.

Fly away, flies, Tula says silently. It’s out there, waiting for each of you—the best garbage in the whole wide world.

Don’t worry, Tula wants to say. No one’s ever been with me, man or woman, and I’m perfectly fine, aren’t I?

If this is the way He treats his friends, Laura says in their room as she rips the crucifix off the wall, no wonder he barely has any.

She suspects the dream belongs to Sister Vina, who is from Naimata and lives in the room directly above. The dream must have fallen out of bed, thinks Tula. It must have slipped down her black hair and through the floor
into my grey head.

Someday you’ll come across an envelope that has your name on it. You’ll be speechless. You’ll break into a cold sweat and your heart will pound. After all, you’ve arrived. You’re here. Why is your prayer only getting here now?

Not one of us has ever seen God. Come to think about it, that is a bit strange, isn’t it? But who cares?

Something to remember: Ahmad disappears to pray about two or three times a day, usually at 12:00 noon and 4:00 p.m. Actually, there’s no point to it anymore—we’re already in heaven after all—but I guess habits are hard to break.

Remember, every minute you’re late will incur a corresponding reduction in your heavenly salary. Each minute you’re late also incurs a 0.33-point penalty, to be subtracted from your end-of-year point total.