He used to go into a little mexican town called Cochella to score a few spoons of brown heroin. They had to walk past the rows of fruit and vegetable stands and the graceful old ladies with the sadly worn faces like shoe leather.

And the exchange: People without name tags, dogs without dog-tags. But they would take the cash and hand over the H, without expression or any hint of judgement.

The desert at sunset, the experience as a whole, and the H itself almost religious, like the way most think of dying.

But the afterlife is different and somehow more like the heroin dealers of Cochella. No judgements made. No light or dark. No demons or gods. No feelings. Just a fact, and a lump of dead meat left in or on the earth, finally. And perhaps a few smart-ass kids armed with Louisville Sluggers beating the carcass into the sun, softening the bright red hamburger patties up for the rabid dog who will come along and chew long on the bits, leaving the remains for the shit swarming flies later that night, none of whom give a rat’s ass about the bible, yours’ or mine.