Page 63 of The Next Person You Meet in Heaven
“That doesn’t change what you did.”
“How are you so at peace with this? All I feel is...”
“What?”
Annie searched for the word. “Heartbroken.”
Paulo thought for a moment. “I want to show you something.”
He reached inside his jacket pocket and removed a pipe cleaner rabbit.
“You gave me that already,” Annie said.
“Watch.”
Suddenly, the rabbit untwisted magically into five straightened pipe cleaners. Paulo took one and made a simple double-humped shape.
“This is the heart we’re born with, Annie. It’s small and empty because it’s been through nothing.”
He put it in her hand.
“And this...”
He took the four other pipe cleaners and twisted them to create a larger, complicated version, with lines crisscrossing the insides.
“This is the heart we die with. After the people we love. After all our losses. It’s bigger, you see?”
“But it’s broken,” Annie said.
“Yes.”
“That’s what ruins it.”
Paulo pushed the heart to Annie’s chest.
“No. That’s what makes it whole.”
Suddenly, the pipe cleaners glowed brilliantly and Annie felt a small thumping growing inside her.
“Paulo, what’s happening?”
“Thank you, Annie. For a minute, I got to breathe as you. It was amazing.”
“No, wait—”
“You have to go now.”
“I want to be withyou—”
“I’ll be right here. But for now, you have to live.”
“Live?”
“You were saved from dying once, Annie. You owe the world some saving in return. It’s why you became a nurse. And why you need to go back. To save someone else.”
“No, Paulo. Please!”
He let go of her hand. Annie saw pieces of herself disappearing, first her feet and arms, then her knees, thighs, belly, chest, decomposing all that she had reconstructed during the afterlife. The surface beneath her seemed to flatten and melt, and she heard two levels of sounds, as if multiple tapes were playing at once. Paulo was fading into the brilliant glow of the northern lights. Only his face was visible now, close enough to touch. He kissed her, softly, and she tried desperately to hold on to him, to lock him in her gaze, but her lids drooped like heavy curtains and everything went dark. Then Annie felt his two hands on her shoulders, pushing her from heaven to earth.
