https://youtu.be/FmmI2bgBsKw
The lanky man sat up from his position lying prone on the floor. He looked around a little bit. Then, as if the scene was too much for him, he closed his eyes and lay back down again.
Lying there on the hard marble floor, knowing what awaited beyond his eyelids but refusing to accept it, Jerami Grant willed himself to return to the sleep that he had apparently just awoken from. But, two minutes later, he was still awake, and that uncomfortable surface was still beneath his back. So he sat up one more time, opened his eyes to the same unwelcome scene, and then, slowly, got to his feet.
He had died, and this was the afterlife. There was no other explanation.
The place didn’t quite match his idea of heaven, but some parts of his surroundings were at least faintly reminiscent of the typical Christian portrayal of the afterlife. There were a lot of clouds above him, for one thing. For another, the sun was very bright. Finally, the walls and windows, which seemed to extend in either direction to form an infinite hall, were certainly very churchy. Yep, his mortal life had come to a regrettable conclusion, and this was his reward.
Jerami began to walk, hoping to encounter an angel, or Jesus, or just another immortal soul who had been granted access to the place. He walked and walked and walked. But, as time passed and his solitude grew more and more pronounced, he decided that he was never going to find anybody. Of course the creeds of man had been incorrect about the nature of the afterlife! How could they have possibly been correct?
But then, he heard footsteps. Coming towards him. So he turned around and saw that there was, miraculously, another being standing there.
“We’ve been expecting you, Jerami,” said the olive-complexioned man, who was holding out a folded white robe similar to the one that was worn on his body. “I know you must be confused, so I will explain a bit further. You have been accepted into The Hall of the Thirty Point Scorers, and I am the officially appointed guardian of the Hall, Carlos Delfino.”
Jerami put the robe on. It was sublimely soft, more luxurious by a factor of ten than any garment he had ever donned in his life. “So I’m not dead?”
“Dead? You are not dead,” Carlos replied, looking confused. “If you were dead, you would be significantly more decomposed than you currently are.”
Jerami shook his head, as if rattling his brain in his skull would somehow bring order to his jumbled thoughts. “So it’s a dream, right?” he asked, thinking of how he had tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t. Of course being in a dream would prevent one from going to sleep.
“No, not really,” Carlos said. “It’s better not to think about it too hard. It doesn’t matter WHAT the Hall is, it matters THAT it is.”
This enigmatic description didn’t adequately answer Jerami’s question, but he could sense that no further information would be supplied. He was about to say more when he heard more footsteps, this time at a running pace.
Soon, a lanky, long-haired man was standing with them. He was naked, and his arrival was apparently very disturbing to Carlos.
“You are not on the approved list!” Carlos yelped. “Go! Leave now before the Overseers cast their terrible judgment upon all of us!”
“Chill out Carlos, I just wanted to talk to Jerami for a bit,” said the unknown visitor. Carlos was frantically mumbling to himself about “certain punishment” and “faulty dimensional barriers” as the man turned to Jerami and held out his hand to shake. “Congratulations, Jerami. You’re OFFICIALLY off my channel, as of right now.”
Jerami shook the man’s hand, but had no idea what he was talking about. He was starting to wish that his peaceful solitude had never been broken. “I don’t get it. What channel?”
“The DownToBuck highlights channel on YouTube, of course,” responded the man. When Jerami didn’t react positively, the man seemed to take offense. “You’re telling me you don’t search your own name on YouTube? I’ve been uploading your vids since you got to the league, man. You even got some dunkilations.”
“Oh, I probably saw your videos then, uh, once or twice,” Jerami lied.
“Well, my channel is for scrubs only, and you’re not a scrub anymore, so, congratulations!”
“Thanks…I guess.”
During this odd conversation, Carlos had recovered himself. He was consulting a scroll of parchment that was glowing green. The long-haired YouTube guy, seeming to realize that he was in some kind of danger, turned and started sprinting away. However, before he had made it a few steps, his entire body exploded into a finely-granulated mist of blood, bone, and muscle, leaving a diffuse red splotch on the pristine marble.
“Sorry you had to see that,” Carlos said to Jerami. “The Overseers are very particular, though. Now, where’s my mop?”
Jerami ambled away, thinking that if he never saw anybody ever again in The Hall of the Thirty Point Scorers, that was just fine with him.