Up Above the World So High

There was a sudden blip in the universe. Queen Elizabeth II, the supreme monarch of England, had left her corporeal body and ascended to the heavens above. Except she found herself not in the heavens, but in space. It was cold and dark. The Queen tried to open her eyes but quickly realized that they were already open. Ah, there’s no light in space, she thought. She might as well have been blind, for all the help her eyes were to her now. She was used to being kept in the dark though, she reflected. Suddenly, there was a pop near her. She stiffened (or did whatever abstract entities do when they are startled).

          “A pop? I thought sound doesn’t travel in space,” she thought.

          “It doesn’t,” said a voice in her head, “I made that noise in your head.”

          The Queen sniffed, (or did whatever abstract entities do when they are disturbed). She didn’t much like hearing another voice in her head. It interrupted the flow of her very important thoughts.

          “Why?” she thought.

          “Oh, I like it,” came the voice, “Pop! Pop! POP!”

          “Stop that!” she (almost) exclaimed.

           There was silence for almost an entire minute. Reluctant to break the silence first, the Queen felt her curiosity get the best of her.

          “Who are you?” she thought.

          “My name is Neila,” said the voice immediately, “I came to invite you to a tea party.”

          “Tea?” The Queen’s ears would have pricked up if she’d still had them.

          “Yes, would you like to come?”

          “Sure! Um... I mean, yes, of course. But, can I actually drink tea if I’m dead?”

          “You can think that you’re drinking tea, and that amounts to pretty much the same thing,” said the voice.

          “Okay,” thought the Queen doubtfully, “but I don’t know how to-”

          She suddenly found herself at a small round table. There was a steaming kettle and a couple of cups. She also noticed the sugar cubes and the small packets of dairy creamer. With a start, she realized that she could see now. She also felt warm. Very warm. Startled, she realized that she was close to the sun. Extremely close. The sun looked huge, like an angry mass of fire. 

          “Could you possibly turn down the heat?” she addressed Neila in her thoughts, sweating (or doing whatever abstract entities do when they are hot).

          “Okey dokey,” came Neila’s sing-song voice.

          Before she knew it, they had moved to another location. 

          “How are you doing that?” thought the Queen, looking at the earth below her.

          “Oh, you just have to think it, and it happens” Neila remarked. 

          The Queen shrugged (or did whatever… well, you know the drill). She wondered if she was just “thinking” of Neila in a death-induced dream as well.

          “You definitely aren’t,” Neila voiced immediately.

          “Right, what about the tea then?”

          The sugar cubes which had previously been melting when they were near the sun had now coagulated into a single mass. The Queen didn’t really feel like touching it. Add to that the fact that she had never made her own tea before, and she really was in a spot of bother.

          Neila, who the Queen now understood was just a dot of darkness, spoke again. “Think of how you want your tea to be.”

          The Queen shrugged and tried to picture a nice, warm cup of tea. Oh, the luxury that being alive had been! She could have just had someone make-

          With something of a jolt, she realized that the cup that had been empty just a few seconds ago was now full of hot steaming tea. Just the way she liked it. She gasped (or did whatever...  you know).

          “Just think of drinking it now,” Neila instructed.

          The Queen calmed herself down. Composure, poise, tranquility, she thought.

          “Yes, all that. But for Flor’s sake, get on with it,” Neila’s voice broke in.

          “Whose sake?!” The Queen felt quite faint.

          “Flor’s. The creator of this universe, of course. They are the sweetest.”

          The Queen tried to calm herself down again. Composure, poi-

          “Just think of sipping the tea.” The Queen could have sworn she heard a sigh inside her head.

          She focussed on thinking of drinking the tea. To her surprise, she could actually taste small sips of tea on her tongue slipping down her throat. The teacup started emptying of its own accord without her having to move a muscle. Not that she had any anymore anyway.

          The Queen was now feeling adventurous. She tried thinking of a cookie. And lo! She could already taste a cookie in her mouth. It was almost tangible. Had she thought being alive was a luxury? No, siree!

          “Do we even need this tea table to have tea?” she thought with contempt.

          “No, but we like to preserve appearances here, you see,” came Neila’s affronted reply.

          The Queen thought it wise not to comment on the topic any longer. She gazed at the earth below her. It was being lit by the sun’s rays. The Queen sighed (or did whatever).

          “Everything the light touches was once my Empire.”

          Make no mistake, it's not like she was proud of it.

          “Who were you, Mufasa?” Neila burst out laughing.

          The Queen frowned, (or did whatever). She didn’t know that even entities in space knew about The Lion King. One had to hand it over to Walt Disney, though. Those Americans sure knew what they were doing. 

          “What does one do once one’s dead?” she thought, when Neila’s laughter had subsided enough that she could get a thought in.

          “Oh,” Neila was serious again. “There are multiple things one could do. You could either stay here and think of whatever you wanted. Or…” Here, Neila seemed to consider. “I guess you could come with me to meet different people in space.”

          The Queen shuddered at the thought of spending more time with this hyperactive child of a dot of darkness. But, well, staying in one place potentially forever did not seem any better. God knows, she had done that enough during her lifetime. Especially those last couple of years of COVID, that pesky virus. She wondered vaguely if she should have thought “Flor knows” instead of “God knows.”

          “Yup,” intruded Neila again, “You know what, maybe we can hula hoop with them next.”

          The Queen didn’t even want to know anymore, but she had made up her mind. She might as well have a more interesting afterlife than her life had been.

          “Take me with you,” she thought.

          There was another blip in the universe. Two dots of darkness had melted into the darkness elsewhere.