All Their Tomorrows

He and Maggie went trick-or-treating together for Halloween. Ian knew his friends thought it was stupid, that he and Maggie were too old, but when you’re with the girl of your dreams and have the opportunity to walk in the dark, holding her hand… well you’d be mad to let that pass.

Maggie’s laughing eyes gazed up at him as he adjusted her whiskers and ears; the black cat costume clung to her curves, doing nothing to hide her beauty. Plans for a future together were already forming in his mind. 

Those plans for college and marriage evaporated in blinding headlights. An out of control car, driven by a drunk driver, mounted the pavement, leaving them only seconds to grasp hands before death overtook them.

Maggie was laid to rest in her hometown; hers was a beautiful plot on the side of a hill. Two days later, Ian’s body was interred some kilometers distant. Reverend Peters, who tended the two communities, conducted both services.

Car cameras that night captured a ghostly image illuminated by moonlight, as it floated beside the country road that connected the two towns. None of those witnesses however, saw the spirit hover over the cemetery on the side of the hill, or saw a hand reach out from Maggie’s grave to welcome her love to his new home.

Reverend Peters returning to the manse after a late call out, saw. He was unnerved, but not fearful. God, heaven and life after death were as natural to him as breathing. It seemed souls didn’t go straight back to their maker as he had presumed, perhaps they too had to wait for the Rapture before meeting God. 

No one would believe him of course, but he would swear on a stack of bibles that he saw Ian McNally enter a grave, miles from where he had laid him to rest that very afternoon. Reverend Peters thought of young Maggie Stewart and smiled. She and Ian would spend eternity together. His God was indeed a merciful God.