By Michael J. Cooper

The Narrow Gate

Death…Shakespeare called it the ‘undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.’ But where is that country and what is it like–it’s topography, it’s environment, it’s populace? Malick Crown dies with normal, mid-American Christian concepts of the afterlife; Biblical, heaven, God and all the rest. Instead he’s met by a dowdy woman in a faded yellow robe who challenges him, no, requires him to relive episodes of his life. No a do-over, no mulligans, but the ability to be there in real time and witness what occurred free from the editorial process of memory. First, he’s to select five that were pleasurable, then five that he regrets…then there’s more. To what end? How does this fit in to his ultimate destination? Is it determinant or simply a single part of a total process? Malick suffers the exercise–what does it reveal?