“I wonder whether we all die forgetting something,” Henri Toutrec heard himself think as he watched a flock of ducks flying below. “Is it a sign that, in life, we sometimes molt in a sudden flutter?”
He rose even higher. At nimbostratus altitude, the long motion that had been carrying him toward the firmament came to an abrupt halt. His pointless commentary ended with that final journey.
Then a strange and unfamiliar environment appeared.
“Happy eternity, my friend! Do you have the password?” asked an angel watching him through half-moon glasses.
The celestial being had the face of a reader (perhaps yours). Dressed in a very loose white robe reaching mid-calf, he stood before a lectern made of chocolate ice. Behind the winged guardian stretched a stunning setting resembling the municipal library of a large city. It held books with crystal covers and pages of glass, flexible as water or some kind of gel. These books, in all sizes, opened and closed depending on where one looked. Above, floating fans with snowflake-shaped blades occasionally produced tiny rainbows.
“What?… You require a password after death has already passed?” Henri replied, more lucid at that moment than he had ever been in life. As he spoke, he pinched his finger to check whether he was truly dead. Pinching himself and feeling no pain amused him immensely.
“Come now, hurry up! I don’t have all day! Receiving lost souls with abacuses around their necks! Honestly, what a look you have!” declared the angel while lazily consulting several contradictory versions of highly rated holy books.
A rainbow thread gently brushed his flawless wings. Seeming to regret his rare abruptness, the being tried to become clearer, gentler. Reverent politeness.
“My dearest sir, we have the humble honor of introducing ourselves. For the moment, our august name is Potato Peels,” the angel announced in a hollow resonance and a tone that was, in the end, dignified.
“What a stupid name!” Henri reacted boldly.
“We share your opinion. But there is nothing we can do. Here, we recycle everything! Objects, languages, names, and lisps. We pay the price for the wastefulness of human and other forms of intelligence. Still, we do not worry. The Order of Angels allows us to change our identity at any time.”
“Wonderful! I also love adopting new styles. But if you change your name, how do you make sure another angel hasn’t already chosen the same tag?”
“If that happens, our nose begins to itch, and alerted by that phenomenon, we immediately change the name. That is all. I repeat: do you have the password?”
“Do you have any clues?… A history?” the good man asked in return.
“If we reveal anything about the password, your intuition and deductive abilities may sharpen. Who knows whether our august fingers might not get slapped,” replied Potato Peels, gently blowing toward a library shelf.
A precious little booklet then floated down in soft zigzags toward Potato Peels, who opened it to the desired page with the mere brush of a hand.
“But we must verify a few things...”
Then the angel began to read…
“The password was designed and approved by the Order of Archangels after the famous Patouchalapomme affair: a sleepwalking angel who, during one of his unconscious wanderings, ended up in Hell. Fortunately, still asleep, he found his way back. This safeguard also exists to counter clever intruders like you, who might use cunning to sneak into our peaceful realm. But if you are one of those, your name will be listed at the end of this booklet…”
Then he gently touched the cover to reach the registry section. The page was blank. There was nothing there.
Potato Peels turned blue with embarrassment.
“It’s empty!! No name! Neither yours nor any of your aliases! No one! It is not normal for you to be standing before us.”
Potato Peels reflected nervously.
“Didn’t you have some slight dishonest intention of deceiving us? You stand before us, you are not listed among the clever, and you do not know the answer.”
“If you’re having such trouble finding my name in your flying books, it must be because Father Tourabalais cursed me. Unless it was the flight of birds that diverted my soul. Tell me… those who come here, how do they know the answer?” asked Henri, with no hidden scheme or trickery.
The guardian turned blue with embarrassment. He could not blush, because regardless of emotion, blue is the color that betrays angels’ feelings. Breathing calmly, Potato Peels wondered how he might detect any possible deception. “Should I tell him that ‘Hou doudla dildli’ is the password?” the angel thought, gently rocking his angelic neurons with that childish key.
“This may become tedious, but I would very much like to stretch out eternity here. Could you help me avoid being roasted like a kebab to feed the devil?” Henri mumbled, trying to break the silence that chilled the heavenly air.
The angel laughed.
Henri had noticed that the angel never looked him in the eyes, but instead stared endlessly at his forehead while speaking.
“Do I still have eyes?” exclaimed Henri, nervously checking his eye sockets with his hands to make sure everything was still there.
“Ha! Ha! Ha! Hee! Hee!” burst out the angel, laughing.
A second laugh escaped the angel, who seemed to remain on guard and a little tense. He kept staring at the sculptor’s forehead. He must not laugh a third time, because if a seraph, archangel, or any guardian on duty laughs three times, a strange transformation occurs: he turns into a lotus flower and meditates on the seriousness of his little job for endless hours. So he made sure to remember his two previous laughs.
“But…! What is wrong with my forehead?… When I speak to someone, I prefer them to look me straight in the eyes!” exclaimed Henri loudly, with a very obvious lack of tact.
This almost childlike and highly emotional reaction from Toutrec tickled the angel, who had to avoid a third laugh… Shaken in his duty, but not yet undone, Potato Peels quickly regained his composure.
“Do not worry, sir, you still possess all your organs. When a soul speaks to us, even the purest one, we always verify its integrity by examining the forehead.”
“A third eye? I understand…” Henri interjected.
“Exactly! As long as you do not formally dwell in paradise, that eye remains visible. In short! We examine the pupil of that eye very closely. If it dilates, it is proof that our interlocutor is lying. If it contracts, he is deceiving us as well,” explained the angel satirically.
“That’s absurd! How can you tell what is true or false?”
“We recognize the truth by the regular blinking of that third eyelid.”
“And what if I tell you that I, Henri Toutrec, do not blink and that I wear a contact lens on my third eye?”
“You did not blink at all. However, your pupil dilated when you said ‘blink’ and contracted immediately at ‘contact lens.’ Also, you are using a pseudonym.”
Henri, thoughtful and making sure he had heard correctly, touched his head, searching for a hypothetical third ear.
Flustered. Suddenly mute.
— Let us forget the password for the moment, Mr. Toutrec. What is your real name? Uh… I mean your doubles, or perhaps your multiple personalities, insisted the angel, who, resuming his interrogation, flapped his wings to fend off the waves of heat Henri was giving off. The snowflake fans were no longer sufficient.
— I forgot! sang Henri, as though he were about to play a prank.
— Ah! Your lapse of memory is feigned, because your pupil…
…Potato Peels did not have time to finish.
— To know my real name, just blow on your books. They’ll answer you, snapped Henri.
— Your name! the angel barked, raising an arm toward hell.
A gesture of authority that made Henri resemble a toddler wetting his pants. Afraid of causing further offense, he quickly and discreetly checked for dampness. Then he revealed his first and last name.
— Pen Name, replied the mayor of Toy Toy City.
— What? said the angel, asking him to repeat.
— Pen Name! My first name has always been Pen, and my surname has always been Name. That is, until I changed it. It is not ugly, as they say on Earth.
Clearly, the angel was holding back laughter, because he simply had to.
— You find that funny? If I had been baptized Potato Peels, I wouldn’t laugh so much. And… and… I would feel terrible in my potato skin. There! And… please, one last wish before I begin to feel roasted—call me Henri, because that is the name I died with.
— Please forgive us, Mr. Pen Name and your other aliases. We simply needed to let off steam. My colleagues and I make fun of our own names so often. Mocking yours came naturally—it was an irresistible temptation. From now on, we will do our best not to split our sides. After all, a heavenly rule clearly states: “No welcoming angel on duty shall laugh more than twice.”
— Why? Laughter is good for your health! And for holiness?… interjected Henri, clearly sensing his counterpart’s weakness.
There was a brief pause, as though they were studying each other.
— The truth is, we have no idea why the bureaucratic angels even wrote that into the code of ethics. We admit it is rather odd—and foolishly enough, we have now revealed it to you.
— It is the same down on Earth. So much bureaucracy!
— Since we are confessing, Mr. Henri Pen Name Toutrec, we had never once stretched our zygomatic muscles while on duty. In fact, we are merely the new shift. We had to intervene—wings up—at the very last moment. A special dispensation from the archangel on call for a fluid audit. In any case! I shall also mention in my report that that silly “Pen Name” joke did tickle my uvula… But I did not laugh a third time.
Potato Peels gathered himself and became serious again—almost austere. He wore the expression of a tragic actor in a macabre role. He was trying to remember something.
— We forgot one tiny detail. We must review your life before sending you to hell. We are obliged to let you recount it—rather like offering one final cigarette to the condemned. Pretend you are meeting your psychologist for the last session.
Henri commented...
— On Earth, when you meet a psychologist for a final session, it is usually for one of two reasons. Either you are out of money, or between appointments your shrink has joined a cult. So here is my life story—no emotional dumping and no payment either. Where should I lie down?
— Tone down your antics. We refuse to laugh. Pfff…! Especially since violating that regulation would have consequences we are not eager to face. What are you waiting for, Mr. de Plume? barked the angel.
(Since the reader’s and narrator’s perception of time differs from that of angels and other eternal beings, the following summary is indispensable.)
Henri was born on the twenty-ninth of February. Unremarkable. His alcoholic parents both suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Another triviality. Baron and Baroness de Plume forgot him in an old orphanage after themselves being rejected from an adoption process. Henri was four years old at the time—and it was his first birthday.
For years, the orphanage administration tried to find Henri a foster home. Despite his crippling shyness, Henri managed a few clever tricks to avoid being chosen. In front of prospective parents, he would call the director “daddy”—but only after taking a powerful laxative he had stolen from the infirmary. Cleverly, he managed to remain off the radar for quite some time… but he never forgot Marilyn. One day, when all the orphans were being photographed to support a loan application, someone finally noticed Henri. It seemed odd that, at twenty years old, he was still wearing a diaper. He only wanted to blend in among the younger orphans. That night, a photograph of Marilyn hidden beneath his pillow absorbed his sobs…
Feeling rejected, bundle in hand like Chaplin and savings in his pockets, he ran away.
After several days of walking, he arrived at the foot of a giant dune. There, an old man was playing with a small shovel, building magnificent sandcastles. With a pocketknife, Henri carved a tiny toy catapult from a dead branch. They took to each other immediately.
The old man, a billionaire with no heirs, was designing entire cities on that immense mound. He asked Henri for a second toy, then a third.
When his old friend died, Henri inherited his shares, investments, properties—and above all, the man’s shovel. Then he founded a toy factory.
You know the rest…
At the end of his story, Henri turned his back to the angel and said:
— Which way to hell? Left? Right? Down?… I do not even see the slightest hint of a pitchfork.
Feeling rejected, bundle in hand like Chaplin and savings in his pockets, he ran away.
After several days of walking, he arrived at the foot of a giant dune. There, an old man was playing with a small shovel, building magnificent sandcastles. With a pocketknife, Henri carved a tiny toy catapult from a dead branch. They took to each other immediately.
The old man, a billionaire with no heirs, was designing entire cities on that immense mound. He asked Henri for a second toy, then a third.
When his old friend died, Henri inherited his shares, investments, properties—and above all, the man’s shovel. Then he founded a toy factory.
You know the rest…
At the end of his story, Henri turned his back to the angel and said:
— Which way to hell? Left? Right? Down?… I do not even see the slightest hint of a pitchfork.