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How was I to know that this little orange ticket would change my life. For the best or for the worse? I’m still deciding.

* * *

I had just finished server updates at the Riverview Ranch in Nice, France. My flight left four hours ago for my connecting flight in Paris that would then take me back to the United States. The new head chef, Francois, DuBais, ordered some new freezers and refrigerators that have network interfaces. It never seems to amaze me what they can put on the network these days. Anyway, these appliances pulled a network address just as they should, the display allowed me to see that address so I could configure them further. No problems. Then, I go to put them on the monitoring system so Francois can view temperature from his office.

Well, needless to say, this part caused me all kinds of trouble. It seems that the firmware on the appliances was too new to communicate with my monitoring server. Well, suffice to say, I missed my flight because all the server and firmware updates seemed to conflict with each other. I called Tech Support. I hate calling tech support even though I AM tech support. Other companies seem to always pick the lowest of the low, and the people who can least “Think Out Of The Box”. This last skill is Essential to a technician.

When I realized I wasn’t going to make my flight, I called and postponed it for eight hours, to be on the safe side. So now I have four hours to wait. I looked for the airport bar with the fewest people, asked for a martini, extra cold, and settled down to wait for boarding. There wasn’t much to do so I pulled out my boarding pass to make sure I was in the right place. Who would have thought two years ago, that I would be fixing computers in France. Not me.

You see, I was just out of college, fresh with Microsoft Certifications, and no real world experience. Of course I had hacked my way through various computer systems: Windows, Mac, Linux, SunOS, etc. But I wasn’t doing anything malicious. I just wanted to learn.

Applied Appliance Applications, yes I know that means the acronym is AAA, were willing to train so I signed on. It was all basic tech support for desktop computers. I always kept my nose clean and finished all my work orders either on-time or ahead of time. My boss kept saying to me, “You’d better stop doing that or you’re going to make the rest of us look bad.”

Look Bad? I couldn’t do that any more than they were already doing. Support calls that take me fifteen to twenty minutes to fix take these guy almost an hour. Like I said, I HATE tech support so I don’t want to be one of those lame techs who can’t get things done.

“Now Boarding flight Eee Zee Why Four Zero Six Six for Nice. Now Boarding,” came the voice over the speaker system.

I tipped my martini glass and drank down the last few sips. I hate flying almost as much as I hate calling tech support. Do you see a pattern here? I gather up my things, had my boarding pass ready and shuffled off to the gate. The well coiffured attendant almost looked like she expected the Pope to walk up. She was perfectly manicured, well poised, and, well, extremely beautiful. Her dark hair was cut into a bob just below her cheek line and turn slightly in towards her neck at the edges. “If I wasn’t on my way out of here…” I thought. I haven’t had a date since I started with Applied.

I showed my boarding pass and the attendant smiled, “Merci. You may board now.”.

Thank you,” I said and heading down the ramp. Halfway down, I tripped over the bend in the corridor, and fell to my knees. As I hit the ground there was a bright flash, and then silence. As I stood back up, there was another flash and I could hear the sounds of the airplane’s engines and voices behind me in the gate area.

I brushed off my knees, picked up my belongings and continued down the corridor. I noticed another attendant standing next to the bulkhead leading into the plane. Funny, she looks like the gate attendant.

“Monsieur, may I see your boarding pass please?” she asked pleasantly.

As I turned my boarding pass over, I noticed that something had changed on it. It was no longer orange. It was red. When did that happen?

“You may sit anywhere from the middle of the plan back to the tail. The seats are colored according to your ticket, ” the attendant said. “There are no assigned seats and our flight is small tonight, so please choose any seat you like, Monsieur.”

“Thank you,” I said through a courteous smile. I made my way to the back of the plan. I like to sit on the aisle seats even though that means I have to get up several times. Since this is supposed to be a small flight I wasn’t worried. Most passengers prefer to sit alone when they have the chance.

I put my carry-one in the overhead bin, and grabbed my book. Airline flights are about the only time I get to read any more, even though I hate flying. I buckled my belt, and finally relaxed. My eyes closed, my head slowly fell backwards to rest on the back of the seat. I think I slept, but I’m still not sure.

* * *

I felt a bump. I was thrown sideways against the seat next to me. “Ouch!” I shouted as my head hit something. “What’s going on?” I shouted again.

I tried to open my eyes. It felt like they were taped shut, but the tape was barely holding them closed. With much effort I eventually opened my eyes. I was still sitting in my seat. I reached up to rub my forehead where I was it, by what I still don’t know. Looking around I could see that I was still sitting in my airline seat, but, well… there was no airplane around me.

All I could see was a whiteness. A white and, yeah I know this sounds so cliche, but it was a white and never ending nothingness like you see in the movies when someone goes to heaven. There was plenty of light to see by, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

Tentatively, I unbuckled my seat belt, and slowly stood up. The overhead bin was gone so I didn’t have anything with me but my clothes and my book. “I wonder what I bumped my head on if there isn’t anything around?” I wondered out loud.

“You bumped your head coming through the portal,” said a guy’s voice behind me. “We do our best to bring you here without injury, but, well, we aren’t one hundred percent successful yet.”

I turned around and gaped. Standing in front of me was an older man with white hair with a beard and mustache that were also white. He was wearing a white robe and had a glow around him.

“Um… uh… God?” I asked not sure what was going on.

“God? Who? Me?” said the man as he looked around. “Oh,” he chuckled. “No I’m not God. I’m Frank. It’s very nice to meet you,” he said as he extended his hand. As he walked forward I noticed the glow stayed behind him. The glow, it appeared, came from the headlights of an old station wagon.

“A station wagon?” I murmured as I shook his hand absentmindedly

“Well how else do you expect to get around here,” he answered.

I couldn’t figure out how what to say. I was flying to Nice, France and now I’m… well…

“Frank, where am I?” I asked.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” he replied. “I’ve been trying to figure that one out for a long time.”

“How long have you been where ever this is?” I asked looking around and starting to walk behind the station wagon.

“Oh about thirty years I think. The only judge of time I have here is my hair. It was jet black when I got here and I was fifty then. I still feel like I did when I was fifty, but my hair turned white,” he said. Frank started to walk to the driver’s side of the car.

“Want a ride?” he asked.

“A ride? To where?” I asked back still astonished at what this was.

“To Camp. Well that’s what we call it. It’s not really a camp, but, well, what else CAN we call it,” Frank said. “It has tents, campfires, ice chests that always seem to have food in them. It’s like we’re camping all the time. But it doesn’t ever get cold or hot. Everything is always perfect.”

Everything always perfect, I thought. There is only one place that is supposed to be like that. “Is this Heaven?” I asked.

“Heaven?” Frank repeated. “I don’t know if it’s heaven or not. It could be more like Hell because nothing changes and we don’t have much to do. That sounds more like Hell than Heaven. But we get by.”

“What do you do here other than eat and sleep?” I asked

“Well we will occasionally get an letter in the Inbox on the picnic bench. It will tell us to watch for a flash of light and go pick up the person that is there.” Frank and I had entered the car by the time and started driving. There was no sensation of driving or moving. No bumps in the road. No sound of wind going by the windows. Nothing.

“Other than that,” Frank continued, “there isn’t much to do.”

Not much to do. “Great, what’s next?” I thought.

* * *

Frank drove on for about five or ten minutes more. It’s really hard to judge time here with the light always the same and no way to keep time. I don’t wear a watch and my cell phone doesn’t seem to want to turn on.

Up ahead, I noticed some darker patches in the lightness. “There the Camp,” said Frank as he started to slow down. Frank parked near one of the tents, turned off the ignition, and got out of the car. “Here we are. Let me introduce you to everyone.”

As we got out of the car, people started to congregate around the single picnic bench in the apparent middle of the camp. It was the biggest picnic bench I have every seen. “Frank, that bench looks like it could seat about thirty people.” I said incredulously.

“It does,” Frank said. “When I got here it was big enough for the eight of us here. Every time someone else shows up it seems to have expanded the night before. We don’t notice that it has grown any more.”

As we made it to the picnic table others started to show up. They were people from all walks of life. Some wore business suits. Others wore jeans, t-shirts, coats. Still others had clothing from a variety of nations. There didn’t seem to be any reason or rhyme to why any of us are here.

“Well, Everyone,” Frank began. “Here is our newest member. Everyone please meet-”

“I’m glad you are all assembled now,” boomed a voice from overhead. “Now we can begin.”

To be continued in 1.08.

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This story is copywrite 2007 by Will Shattuck and released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.