You've snuffed it and there's a heaven after all

[Tongs ya bas]

What will it be like?

I know exactly, right down to the last detail.

[Stan Doffarf]

Bradford Bulls will be Super League Champions in perpetuity.

[Futtocks]

12 minutes ago, Tongs ya bas said:

What will it be like?

I know exactly, right down to the last detail.

And who, exactly, is the young lady involved in this scenario/fantasy?

[Padge]

50 minutes ago, Tongs ya bas said:

What will it be like?

I know exactly, right down to the last detail.

It'l be hell.

[JDINTHEHIZZOUSE]

56 minutes ago, Tongs ya bas said:

What will it be like?

I know exactly, right down to the last detail.

Go on,I'm all ears

[Tongs ya bas]

16 Albert Street

It's a summer Sunday afternoon. A bluebottle glides around the sugar bowl on a living room table crowded with newspapers, my grandmother's knitting and a biscuit tin.

It's warm outside, but the fire is up the fire back and the teapot sits in a niche on top of the Yorkshire range oven keeping the tea hot, thick and stewed. My grandparents, my father, my uncle's and aunts and some of my cousins are dead. But here they all are.

My grandfather is sat on his chair near the window that looks out onto the backyard, his bald head haloed in sunlight, and smoke of a delicate shade of blue curls up from his pipe. He says nothing, but knows everything. At the side of the fire sits uncle Reg dragging on the remnants of a woodbine and massaging his sciatica in the warmth. On the masterpiece is the piece of flying bomb that nearly took out my Aunt Alma when she was in the Wrens. She sits on a stool no longer  looking defeated and pretending she isn't. She married an ass hole, who is also dead but significantly isn't here. Stood enigmatically by the kitchen door in a thick brown belted overcoat is benign but not to be messed with uncle Ernie, driver of the shunting engine at the pit. He never stands anywhere else, never sits down and never takes the overcoat off. My gran is, wearing a crooked borrowed pair of glasses reading someone's tea leaves. She now has one leg shorter than the other since she was hit by a bus after too many Jubilee milk stouts in the club. She has pure white hair still done in a style popular before the first world war, and she wears a pinny, despite the fact that Aunt Tilly, busy in the kitchen, does all the housework and cooking for her. Aunt Tilly is the backbone of the family. She smokes cigs in the Style Of Bette Davies: that trick where you blow smoke out and inhale it back up your nose. She hustled a lot, achieving people to get from under her feet and cracks jokes. Her husband, uncle Pete, whose real name is Sam is not present...probably at his allotment, but when he enters the house you hear him before you see him. He has hair like wire wool and an eye with a triangular pupil after a rock fall at the pit. He has huge charisma and is probably the most respected member of the family. 

The tea leaves being read belong to Aunt Amy, who died before I was born. She lived in China and the mantlepiece in the parlour is adorned with vases, brass ornaments and conch shells that she brought back. She was spoken of with reverence; how gentle and caring she was. And now I can see why.

Stood behind gran is uncle Ron: the reason my dad joined the navy. It was a disagreement over the ownership of a suit. I like him, but have a vague mistrust. Uncle Roy is next to him. He had a spell as field marshall Montgomery's chauffeur. He moved to Surrey in the thirties to find work and became a plate layer on the railway: another enigma. He came home from the war, discovered that his wife had borne a kid to an American chairman, and forgave her.

I walk through the front door for the first time since 16 Albert Street was demolished all those years ago.

Uncle Ken is murdering a Fats Waller tune on the piano. He's still got his overalls on and smells deliciously of newly sawn timber and putty.

He turns to me and tells me I'm just in time for the party.

 

[Northern Eel]

Lovely stuff Tongs ya bas. Not my words, but Shakin Stevens'.

[Padge]

It'll be full of embryos, since more of them fail to go full term than are actually born. 

 

[sfmedusa]

I doubt I'll be able to describe heaven, if it does actually exist once I've kicked the bucket...

[sfmedusa]

Just now, Johnoco said:

Yes, it is a bit of a long shot.

Actually, I think I'd be a bit disappointed (in the unlikely event that an afterlife with formalised areas like heaven and hell existing) if I only qualified for heaven.  Surely all of the best parties are in hell?

[Wiltshire Rhino]

Heaven! ?

[Old Frightful]

Given the last two RL Cup Finals, I'm beginning to wonder if I've croaked it already.

[Phil]

On 22/09/2017 at 10:03 PM, Johnoco said:

Yes, it is a bit of a long shot.

I see what you did there ??