The Five People You Meet in Heaven
A Novel
Chapter One
The End
This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end,
with Eddie dying in the sun. It might seem strange to start a story
with an ending. But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't
know it at the time.
The last hour of Eddie's life was spent, like most of the others, at
Ruby Pier, an amusement park by a great gray ocean. The park had the
usual attractions, a boardwalk, a Ferris wheel, roller coasters,
bumper cars, a taffy stand, and an arcade where you could shoot
streams of water into a clown's mouth. It also had a big new ride
called Freddy's Free Fall, and this would be where Eddie would be
killed, in an accident that would make newspapers around the state.
At the time of his death, Eddie was a squat, white-haired old man,
with a short neck, a barrel chest, thick forearms, and a faded army
tattoo on his right shoulder. His legs were thin and veined now, and
his left knee, wounded in the war, was ruined by arthritis. He used
a cane to get around. His face was broad and craggy from the sun,
with salty whiskers and a lower ... read full excerpt from The Five People You Meet in Heaven ebook
