StalinSays wrote:Many propers for leaving out any and all religiously themed aspects of the after life. Knowing that this distinct reality was say a 'christian' or 'muslim' reality would tarnish the story's efficacy (for someone like me).
Well, really, it was left
totally ambiguous. These people obviously think they're waiting to enter the proverbial "better place," but there isn't any evidence in the story lending support to that idea. All we know is that A.) the people are dead and B.) their souls/spirits/essences are waiting for
something to happen to them. The interpretation that that they're all queued up for heaven gives us the warm fuzzies, but is there any indication that the queue isn't waiting to be whacked with Allah's damning stick? Perhaps some bizarre side-effect of the nuclear blast has caused their consciousnesses to be momentarily preserved in the ionized air of the beach and the people who disappeared really did just
disappear into nothing?
I, personally, think they're all going to the "better place" and that idea gives the story a deliciously bittersweet quality. But, really, it's a lot more ambiguous than just which deity and which heaven: It's
completely ambiguous.
Anyway, I agree that this was a great episode. Both the story and the drabble succeeded in taking a scene of appalling death and destruction and shaping it into something sentimental or optimistic. Truly, there is beauty in everything, if one has the eyes to see it.