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- Type: Heaven, located in This World.
- Origin: Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven is a Place on Earth”
- Admission: Belinda Carlisle and whoever it is she calls “baby”
Continue reading A Place on Earth
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It should be noted that, insofar as determining worthiness is concerned, weighed human hearts against a feather, even the Feather of Ma’at, is a dubious pastime. But for those who have passed this rigourous ordeal – sins, apparently, weigh down a heart, and a sinless heart weighs exactly the same as the feather – Aaru awaits in all its splendor. Well, once you get through all the demon-guarded gates between the place of judgment and Aaru itself, at any rate. Did I mention that the demons are described as being evil and wielding knives? And that there are at least 15, and possibly as many as 21 of these gates? Aaru proper is described as a rich and fertile series of islands, separated from each other by fields of rushes (or reeds, if your prefer). It is also the dwelling place of Osiris, the king (or pharaoh, to be precise) of the gods – and who can argue with a paradise that’s fit for a king?
Heaven, for Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan, is a purple series of regular cities, floating through an endless white void like the contents of an unusually serene and orderly lava lamp. Admission is fairly straight forward – you merely need to tell the gatekeepers what the meaning of life is. (By implication, this meaning is personal and different for each person, but can almost certainly be found in the lyrics of a popular song.) Everyone arrives in Heaven wearing whatever they had on when they died, only changed to a muted colour scheme of whites and mauves. Within its gates, the great and the good amuse themselves with pastimes such as charades. And God himself is a distant presence, although willing to intervene to assist those who petition him. He is, as Bill puts it, “a just and noble Creator.”
A Heaven that seems to have lasted for a number of years (at least, so long as you ignore all the other songs on the album – particularly ‘Run To You’ and ‘One Night Love Affair’), but a rather small one. Probably no larger than, say, a single bed.
Heaven is a place that is made up of dearest wishes, the things that will make us most comfortable. We see again those who have have gone there before us, and each of can choose the age we appear to be. The environment responds to our every wish, and we cannot come to harm even we wish to. It’s a vast dreamlike expanse, big enough for everyone to have their own private universe, should they want so much. Of course, there are common areas – and in these, people try to keep to a common imagination of Heaven. People are generally cooperative. There’s even work to do, for those who feel a need to be productive as a part of their happiness. And should you decide that perfection is too much for you, you can always choose to reincarnate.
It’s unclear precisely what the requirements are for entering Monty Python’s Heaven (as seen in “The Meaning of Life”). It may actually be that everyone goes there after death (which is notably arbitrary and enforced by a Grim Reaper who clearly does not enjoy his job), since despite strong Christian overtones, it inhabitants include the Three Wise Men of the gospels (who were not Christians). What is known about Heaven is that it resembles the kind of holiday resort that you really don’t want to go to, a sort of low budget, completely edge-free Las Vegas (presumably without the gambling). Not least because it is, in fact, Christmas every day in Heaven. So although you get awesome gifts each day, you probably don’t have time to enjoy them, what with the bad restaurant food and astoundingly banal cabaret performances held every night.
According to Dana Gould, in Dog Heaven, it rains bones at people time and cats run out of holes in the ground at 3pm each afternoon. Presumably, the ground in Dog Heaven is lose enough to dig easily but also moist enough to be enjoyably muddy. Dog Heaven is characterised also by its frequent trees and other vertical columns, each of which is covered in a vast array of canine-beguiling scents. There may not be be any such thing as People Heaven, but there must be a Dog Heaven. There must… …dogs deserve it.
Jannah is the Islamic version of Paradise, and for a Heaven, it’s surprisingly full of adult content and shameless hypocrisy: you basically get to indulge in endless materialism, gluttony and sensuality. You know, all the things you were told not to do in life if you wanted to ever get in here. At least, you get to do this if you’re a man. As with most medieval era heavens, there’s a curious division of the roles of women – either they’re virtuous former living people, in which case they apparently rank highly (whatever that means), or they’re houris, who appear to be angelic beings of pure lust (and rare skill). Physically, Jannah is like an unusually picturesque and tame wilderness – less red-in-tooth-and-claw, more Disney. It also contains both horses and camels, although it’s unclear whether these beasts are earthly critters admitted to paradise upon death or more angelic spirits like the houris (although hopefully less carnal in nature). Getting in requires the usual mix of good deeds and submission to authority (both mundane and divine). Unlike many religions, Islam does not require one to be Islamic in order to enter its heaven – virtuous Jews and Christians may still be admitted, although it is less clear what those who are not People of the Book can do. Possibly, there is a Heavenly library where they can study for the final exam.
Jellyfish Heaven, at least for non-Scyphozoaphiles, has little to recomend it. It is too hot to ski and too cold to surf, and to top it off, strongly resembles Los Angeles. On the other tentacle, it does not allow entry to the Church of Latter Day Saints, which is a relief for non-Mormon citizens of Utah. On the other, other tentacle, it’s also full of dead jellyfish, so presumably it’s kind of quiet. |
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