The Five People You Meet in Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

others die? Why people feel they should ?
    "It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.
    "You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not.
    We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.
    "It is why we are drawn to babies . . ." He turned to the mourners.
    "And to funerals."
    Eddie looked again at the gravesite gathering. He wondered if he'd had a funeral. He wondered if anyone came. He saw the priest reading from the Bible and the mourners lowering their heads. This was the day the Blue Man had been buried, all those years ago. Eddie had been there, a little boy, fidgeting through the ceremony, with no idea of the role he'd played in it.
    "I still don't understand," Eddie whispered. "What good came from your death?"
    "You lived," the Blue Man answered.
    "But we barely knew each other. I might as well have been a stranger."
    The Blue Man put his arms on Eddie's shoulders. Eddie felt that warm, melting sensation.
    "Strangers," the Blue Man said, "are just family you have yet to come to know."

    W ITH THAT, THE Blue Man pulled Eddie close. Instantly, Eddie felt everything the Blue Man had felt in his life rushing into him, swimming 29
    in his body, the loneliness, the shame, the nervousness, the heart attack.
    It slid into Eddie like a drawer being closed.
    "I am leaving," the Blue Man whispered in his ear. "This step of heaven is over for me. But there are others for you to meet."
    "Wait," Eddie said, pulling back. "Just tell me one thing. Did I save the little girl? At the pier. Did I save her?"
    The Blue Man did not answer. Eddie slumped. "Then my death was a waste, just like my life."
    "No life is a waste," the Blue Man said. "The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone."
    He stepped back toward the gravesite and smiled. And as he did, his skin turned the loveliest shade of caramel—smooth and unblemished. It was, Eddie thought, the most perfect skin he had ever seen.
    "Wait!" Eddie yelled, but he was suddenly whisked into the air, away from the cemetery, soaring above the great gray ocean. Below him, he saw the rooftops of old Ruby Pier, the spires and turrets, the flags flapping in the breeze.
    Then it was gone.

    SUNDAY, 3 P.M.

    Back at the pier, the crowd stood silently around the wreckage of Freddy's Free Fall. Old women touched their throats. Mothers pulled their children away. Several burly men in tank tops slid to the front, as if this were something they should handle, but once they got there, they, too, only looked on, helpless. The sun baked down, sharpening the shadows, causing them to shield their eyes as if they were saluting.
    How bad is it ? people whispered. From the back of the crowd, Dominguez burst through, his face red, his maintenance shirt drenched in sweat. He saw the carnage.
    "Ahh no, no, Eddie," he moaned, grabbing his head. Security workers arrived. They pushed people back. But then, they, too, fell into impotent postures, hands on their hips, waiting for the ambulances. It was as if all of them—the mothers, the fathers, the kids with their giant gulp soda

    30
    cups—were too stunned to look and too stunned to leave. Death was at their feet, as a carnival tune played over the park speakers.
    How bad is it ? Sirens sounded. Men in uniforms arrived. Yellow tape was stretched around the area. The arcade booths pulled down their grates. The rides were closed indefinitely. Word spread across the beach of the bad thing that had happened, and by sunset, Ruby Pier was empty.

    Today Is Eddie's