After I died I found myself on a shady path that led gently downwards through beech trees to a wide river. An old man met me as I stumbled out on the river bank and looked around me. He didn’t have a beard and his face was not particularly lined, but I could still tell that he was old.

“What happens now?” I asked, shielding my eyes with my hand. It had been dark under the trees and the afternoon light reflected from the river dazzled me.

“What happens now?” The old man repeated, seeming to chew the words around his mouth. “’What happens now’ is a good question, I like that question.” He gestured down the river bank. The river stretched on and on. Along the bank, for the first time, I noticed the others. Lots of them seemed to be casting fishing lines into the river. “Normally they ask ‘where am I?’ I get that a lot. I prefer ‘what happens now?’ because that one I can answer.” He smiled at me.

The old man held up a long fishing rod; I hadn’t noticed that he’d been holding it before. “This is yours,” he said, holding the rod out towards me. “What happens now is this: the sun will be going down soon and tomorrow will be a new day. Tomorrow, if you choose to, you can cast this rod into these rivers and wait for a fish. If, by the time the sun sets tomorrow, you’ve caught a fish then you’ll be taken to Paradise. Forever. If, however, you choose to fish this river tomorrow and you catch nothing… well if that happens then you’ll be taken to the Pit. Forever. Of course you don’t have to fish tomorrow, you can wait as long as you like. You can fish when you’re ready or never at all, it’s your choice.”

The old man then sat himself down on the river bank and gazed out at the light on the ripples as I railed and screamed. I shouted and I threatened. I waved the rod about and I flung it down at my feet. I cursed him, the river and the events that had led to my death in the first place.

I grew slightly calmer and began to outline the idiocies of the system: was it really fair that better fishermen stood a greater chance of salvation than people, like me, who had never held a rod in their lives before? Or was the river rigged? Would some divine agency lure the fish to my rod if I had led a worthy life? In which case why bother with the river at all? Why not simply tell me if I was worthy? What was the purpose of all this if not to torture me and the others on the bank?

The old man sat impassive throughout my tirade. When I finally lapsed into silence he rose, touched me on the shoulder, smiled at me and left. I never saw him again.

When night fell it fell quickly and absolutely: there was no light, no moon, no stars. I never saw or heard what had happened to the people further along the river bank: I had been hoping to use their fate as a guide to my own decision and I was disappointed. It didn’t seem to grow any colder though and, in the absence of anything else to do, I slept.

In the morning there were others further along the bank, I couldn’t judge how far. I could tell that one person at least was raving; I could see his arms waving frantically. Most sat motionless, their lines in the water.

As the sun climbed higher in the sky (was it the same sun I had known whilst alive? I had no way of knowing) I sat with my rod on my knees and I considered my options.

When the sun drew exactly overhead, I took my rod up and snapped it cleanly in two. I turned my back on the river and set off to explore the woods and the hills that rose up ahead of me. I didn’t know what I would eat, or even if I needed to eat in that place. I didn’t have any fixed destination or any idea what I would find. But I knew that I was free and that I had made my free choice.