https://youtu.be/YnCrWb-YNWc
Trudging through a featureless, colorless void, Justin James wondered when he would wake up from his dream. It was unsettling, feeling like all the matter in the universe had been ripped away, leaving only himself and a vast space of nothingness. The experience was somehow more nightmarish than the “true” nightmares he often had about giant spiders and nuclear warfare. Getting chased by a giant spider with globs of venom dripping off its mandible would be infinitely preferable to this depressing place, where he walked endlessly even though there was nothing under his feet except more of that dismal deep eigengrau.
Then, in the distance, Justin thought he saw something. A small blip of light, like a star. He wondered if his dreaming mind was introducing hallucinations to keep his dream-self sane. Quickening his pace, the light got larger and larger, and more details began to emerge. It wasn’t just a spot of pure light: it was a pair of gates!
Justin knew what had happened now. He had died, proceeded through limbo, and was now going to meet Saint Peter at the pearly gates of heaven. This was not a dream, it was the afterlife. He started running, eager to leave the void behind him.
Soon, he was standing at the gates, which were flanked by stout stone columns. But nobody was there to greet him, and when he pulled on the gates to open them himself, they didn’t move. Behind the bars of the gate, he could see a long, marble-floored hall, but it was out of his reach. Justin felt despair rise up within him, but he pushed it down. There was no way that he would be denied access to heaven. Not after all the good things he had done in his life. So he sat down with his back against a column and waited.
As he sat there, Justin thought he could see another figure emerging from the distance. Another lost soul on their way to their final judgment, most likely. Maybe this person would have better luck getting through the gates, or they could combine their efforts to force their way in. When the man finally got to where he was sitting, Justin stood up to greet him. “You must’ve died too, huh?”
“I guess so,” said the man, who was, surprisingly, just as tall and muscular as Justin himself was. “Do we get to go in?”
“I dunno. It’s locked.”
The man walked up to the gates and started rattling the gates loudly. “HEY! HEY GOD! IF YOU’RE IN THERE, OPEN THE DAMN GATES!” Justin winced at the man’s disrespectful tone, but admired his fortitude.
A head appeared above one of the columns and regarded the two visitors. “I’m not god, but thanks for the compliment.”
“We don’t care, just let us in, it sucks out here,” Justin called up.
“You don’t get to come in. The Hall of the Thirty Point Scorers is only for people who scored thirty points, not scrubs like you two bums,” the gatekeeper yelled back down, a smug look on his face.
Justin exchanged a look with his companion. The Hall of the Thirty Point Scorers? The concept of it was absurd on its face, but Justin felt some vague memories returning to him from the time he had spent alive on Earth in the company of other mortals. He had scored thirty points in an NBA game, 31 points in fact. If there really was an extra-dimensional realm which was only accessible to those who had scored thirty or more in the NBA, he deserved access to it. “But I did score thirty!” he shouted.
“I’ll need documentation, then,” the gatekeeper replied. “My notes say your career high is just sixteen, and your friend here, only 26.”
Justin went to grab his phone, then realized that his phone hadn’t come with him on this mysterious journey. In fact, he was totally naked, as was his companion. There was no way to prove the truth of his claims.
“Look what I found,” his companion said, reaching down to pick something up off the “floor”, which was just a transparent slab of solidity floating in the void. “Stat sheets from our games. Here’s yours.” Justin took the piece of paper that was handed to him and scanned through it quickly. He found his name with a “31” printed next to it in the points column.
“We got your documentation right here!” Justin yelled, prompting the gatekeeper to climb down an unseen ladder to take the stat sheets from them.
The man murmured to himself as he read them. “Justin James…31…Stanley Johnson…35…”. Then he looked up at his two visitors. “I apologize for the misunderstanding. My name is Carlos Delfino, and, as the appointed guardian of this realm, please allow me to welcome you to the the Hall of the Thirty Point Scorers, a place of ultimate peace and contentment.” The gates swung open, and as soon as the two men walked in, the gates vanished, being replaced with an infinite hall that was identical to the one that stretched in front of them.
Justin turned to the guardian. “I think you have another thing to apologize for.”
Carlos looked abashed. “I’m sorry for calling you a scrub. You aren’t a scrub.”
“No, I’m not,” Justin agreed.