When I first saw Him I was speechless.

My entire life I’d spent blaspheming, dissenting, philosophizing, apostatizing – and here it was, thrown back in my face.

It was the pudding in which proof was existentially embedded, tasting suspiciously like humble pie, surrounding me with sweet, spicy confusion and hot chocolate sauce of regret. When He looked up from his book and waved, I could have died. He was so cute. It entered my head that perhaps this was one of those dreams where I knew I was dreaming, but when He walked over and shook my hand I realized that He was definitely the real thing.

“Hey,” he said, “you made it. Congratulations, baby.”

I stood there like an idiot.

“Do you want to know how you died? You do, don’t you.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Everyone wants to know. It’s the first thing they ask – ‘how did I die?’ ‘what happened to me?’ ‘how come I can’t remember?’. I thought about posting a sign but I can’t be bothered. Actually, there was this one woman who didn’t seem to care – some kind of Satanist – she marched right up to me and asked where Hell was because she’d ‘rather spend eternity there than with a false God’. Just like that, I reckon she’d been practicing that line all her life. I said right back to her, ‘you know, baby, technically this is Hell’ and she just turned around and walked off. Haven’t been able to find her. Why are you so quiet?”

I glanced nervously from His face to the book He was holding, trying to think of something intelligent to say. I couldn’t, and shrugged. He grimaced.

“You were killed in a car accident. You were in the front passenger seat, next to your boyfriend, changing a CD – your last words were ‘I can’t stand this any longer, I’m putting in Ben Folds’. Then suddenly there was this huge trailer, and it was turning left and – well – it all gets very hard to describe, but Britney Spears actually managed to slice through your heart.”

It made sense.

“But that doesn’t matter,” He continued. “What matters is that you’re here now, with me.” He paused. “Do you see anybody else? …I thought we could get to know each other.” “Where is everyone else?” I coughed, finding my tongue. “The uh, dead people.”

He took a step back from me.

“…And why is this,” I coughed again, nervously, “technically Hell?”

Giving me an irritated look, He bent down and picked up the book, wiping off imaginary dust. “Practically every sect says that if you don’t follow their ideology, you go to Hell. Well guess what, baby, even I don’t believe in Scientology. So what must this afterlife be? Yes. Hell.”

We both stood there for a little while as I tried to think up what to say next. I didn’t want Him to smite me or anything.

“Nice book,” I said, eventually.

“You can read it if you like.”

I took it from Him and flipped through the perfect white pages. They were all blank. I turned it over but the cover was plain black, blacker than any black I’d seen before, and when I went through the pages again they were still blank.

“It’s empty,” I said slowly. “All the pages are blank.”

“Really?”

I frowned, and traced my finger down the spine. “I thought your book would be full of names, like – ”

“Like Santa,” He offered.

“I mean, no, like, well yes. Or the meaning of life or something.” I paused, and looked up at Him. “What is the meaning of life?”

“That depends on who you’re asking, baby.”

“I’m asking you.”

There was another silence, until finally He took a deep breath, and sighed. “You remember that time you wet your knickers in ballet? Now that was funny.”

I frowned, trying to remember. “What about it? It was – I was three years old…”

“And that time you got so drunk at your sister’s wedding that you tipped over the floating display, candles and everything? That was funny too.”

“I don’t understand - you haven’t given me a straight answer. What I want to know is, why did you bother? Why did you create me? What is the meaning of life?”

”Baby.” He slid His arm around my waist and winked. “I like to watch.”