It’s always about space with me, ultimately.

I was in space. Well, I wasn’t really in space, I was very much on earth. My brain was in a jar in some hospital somewhere, and my body was six feed under in some cemetery somewhere. But my senses were all plugged into a geostationary satellite twenty-two thousand miles above the Atlantic Ocean.

“Wow,” Saint Peter said.

“Wow, indeed,” I said, “I’ve been here eleventh jillion times, it always takes my virtual breath away.”

“I always wanted to be an astronaut,” he said, “Back when there were astronauts.”

I'm not often angry.  I'm firmly of the belief that strong emotion is like strong drink: It clouds your judgement and makes you do things you'll regret. However, as I was seated across from where I assumed I would be seeing the CSSF General; I fumed.

No, I didn't fume: I cursed violently and loudly, and I vaguely remember banging things about; my arrival on Earth was only slightly less ceremonious than being hoodwinked and shanghaied by a press gang.

They say your sins will find you out, and that they will. I know this from experience. No matter how smart or how clever you think you are, you can't outrun yourself. Can't outrun the judgement. I thought I could, but like so many who try, it all came out in the end.