Heaven had three cubicles. 

Some called it Purgatory, and a handful called it Hell. Regardless of its name, these three cubicles had no end of visitors. 

Shasa was 12th on the list for the day. She arrived early, and sat perched at the edge of her seat, feet tapping out a flurried rhythm. 

At 9.55am, the cubicle she had been assigned to powered down, the previous session concluded. 

A faint wail seeped through the heavily sound-proofed walls of the cubicle. The cry was muted, but the raw grief it carried was palpable. 

Shasa’s face crumpled, her face mirroring the pain that guest 11 must have felt. 

At 10 am sharp, the door to the cubicle opened. 

Shasa glanced at the woman’s puffy, bloodshot eyes, and lowered her gaze. She nodded, and the woman nodded back. 

Shasa entered the newly vacated cubicle, focusing her attention on the cylindrical tube that occupied the centre of the room. 

Her facial muscles tightened, as if pulled taut by lingering threads of suffering. 

The door slid shut behind her, and the cylinder lit up. 

She drew in a deep breath, and before she could exhale, Bru appeared within the cylinder. 

“Bru,” she said, her voice cracking. 

“Shasa,” he replied, his tone as warm and loving as it had been in life. “How are you, my love?”

Tears slid down her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them. They would keep coming for the hour, from experience. 

“I miss you. I can’t…” she bit her lip, remembering her promise to him to stop saying that she couldn’t live without him. “I don’t know how to live without you,” she finally said. 

“You have before. You can again. Love, I want so much to be there with you. I-” Bru broke off, and swallowed his choking grief before he continued. “I need to know you’re going to be okay.”

Shasa shook her head. “How could I possibly be? Without you?”

Bru was silent for a long time. His hand was pressed hard against the glass of the cylinder, as if by sheer force of will, he could reach through the glass and feel Shasa’s skin against his once again. 

“Remember our dream?” he finally asked. 

Shasa nodded, sniffling. 

“You are meant to accomplish big things, lovie. You are meant to create beauty. To bring beauty to others. You have to live on.”

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“We were supposed to do that together,” Shasa mumbled. 

“And now you will have to do it for me,” Bru said urgently. “You’re still alive.”

Shasa’s tears renewed their vigor. “It’s…it’s not fair,” she stammered through her tears. “You left. You can’t tell me that I have to-” she broke off, unable to continue.

Bru stared helplessly at Shasa’s shaking shoulders. He would have paid all he had for a body to hug her with, if that had been an option. 

But it wasn’t, and all he had was his voice, and his visage. 

“Hey, you’re going to go on that world tour we talked about,” he said, struggling to keep his voice steady, to infuse some lightness in his tone. 

“Start off in a forest, any forest you want. Walk the forest trails, find the flowing rivers. You will feel me, right there with you.”

Shasa’s sobbing eased. She wiped her tears with her sleeves, and looked up at him. 

He saw the touch of hope in her face, and continued, heartened. 

“Sit by the river, and read me stories. Even the smut I know you like. Sing me songs you’ve written. Paint the plants you see. Have picnics in the woods.”

A small smile crept onto Shasa’s face. 

“I’ll grab my camera,” she added in a shaky whisper. “I’ll take photos of foxes, squirrels, birds. Make friends with the wildlife.”

“Achieve your lifelong dream of taming a rat,” Bru added, the lines around his eyes crinkling. 

“And in the evenings, I’ll watch the sunsets.”

“We’ll watch them together, and head back home,” Bru said. “Back home, we’ll cuddle and…” Bru trailed off, stricken. He would never be able to touch her again. They would never again cuddle under the covers, warming each other. 

“We’ll cuddle,” Shasa took over, voice firm, “and fall asleep in each others’ arms.”

Bru’s own tears were trickling down his face. He hoped it wasn’t too visible on his hologram. 

For the first time since Bru passed away, their session wasn’t filled with despair and sorrow. For the first time since Shasa had begun visiting Bru in ‘Heaven’, there were smiles on their faces, lightness in their hearts. 

The hour was over quicker than Shasa was ready for. At 10.55am, after saying their goodbyes, the cylinder powered down. In the darkness, Shasa let her tears fall freely. At 10.59am, she wiped her face dry and began to pull herself together. At 11am sharp, the door slid open. She left the cubicle, nodding her greeting to the next guest.

While signing out, she had to decide what memories of the chat she wished to keep. Bru had chosen to upload and store as much of his personality as possible, and as many of their memories together as could fit. That left them with only around several months’ worth of memory space for their chats in the cubicle. She had been visiting Bru twice a week for the past two months, and they had been storing every moment of every conversation. 

She once again opted to retain every moment of the most recent conversation. 

She dreaded the day that their allotted memory space would run out. She couldn’t imagine erasing any of their moments together. Not any memory that they had made together in life, or any time they had spent together after Bru’s death. 

Erasing parts of Bru’s personality would free up more space than erasing specific memories, but that was unthinkable. She would not lose any more of Bru than she already had. As it was, there were already moments when she could feel the difference between the afterlife Bru and Bru as he had been alive. 

If only they had more storage capacity for the dead. But storing a person’s consciousness, even without complete personalities and memories, took up tremendous data capacity. 

She shook her head. At least they had Heaven, she reminded herself. At least Bru had died after its creation.

She took the long route home that day. She had a lot to work through.

Maybe, when she was home, she would pick out a forest somewhere in the world, and book a ticket out there.