There are benefits to working a high-stress job. An impressive poker face is one of them.

Shirley is alone in the office, the thing with her face was giving her time to gather her thoughts. She’s drinking tea. It’s strange. This tea is perfect. She’d wanted to collect fancy teas since she was a child but never could afford the extra expense. Once, one of her foster parents let her taste some of their luxury teas. It was fruity like soda but without the fuzz and less of the sugary aftertaste that made her teeth sting. She’d been allowed one sip but even a decade later she was still dreaming of the flavor.

This tea tastes exactly like it.

She sips, blinking slowly as her mind continues to race at this startling news.

“A brain aneurysm.” She mimics the thing’s tone in her head, whose voice was also identical to hers, “That’s really what took me out in the end?”

Shirley’s thumbs fiddle nervously. That’s all her body gives away. Other than that, she looks as unmoved as polished stone.

“How could I have prevented it? I should have scheduled regular trips to the doctor. And I had a bit of a twitch in my left eyebrow last month. Was that a sign? Why did I agree to that double shift? All those hours killed me…” She puts her teacup down, “God, and what was it all for then? All that work--”

“It’ll pay off, Shirley. All reap the fruits of actions taken in life, good or bad.”

She startles as the thing with her face appears back in its seat, facing parallel to her. It’s smiling her consoling smile, the one she uses when she’s about to deliver some news, both good and bad. It’s holding a white-covered book with what had to be over a thousand deckled pages.

The first thing that comes to Shirley’s mind, she also says aloud. She hadn’t meant to, but the words slip through.

“You can hear my thoughts?” She gasps, the leftover fright making it hard to catch her breath.

“Our thoughts.” It says.

Because that is so much better than the alternative.

“And you are…?”

It puts the book down on the table and holds its hand out, waiting patiently for her to shake.

“I am Yu. The Judge of Character.”

Shirley doesn’t reciprocate the handshake.

“You’re me?”

It shakes its head, “No, I am Yu.”

“I just said that.”

“No, you didn’t. You said ‘me’. I said ‘Yu’.”

“As in… Your name is ‘You’? Y-O-U?”

“My name is Yu. Y-U.”

“That’s a very fitting name for… you.”

“Thank you!”

This was absurd. So much so that, despite herself, Shirley giggles as she finally reached over and firmly shook Yu’s hand, grins matching. Another perk of a high-stress job, an impressive level of adaptability.

“No. Thank you, Yu. I needed a laugh.”

Yu smiles, “You may have all you need and more while we wait. Are you hungry? What’s your favorite food?”

That was easy. Those chocolate chip muffins she used to buy at the bakery across from her apartment. They were the cheapest thing they sold, a dozen for five dollars. Overwhelming in sweetly bitter chocolate flavouring. Freshly baked each morning when she’d pick some up for breakfast before a shift, one for herself and the rest to share with her coworkers. It was no contest, they were her favorite by far.

She begins, “Well, I--” but she is swiftly cut off when muffins sprout from within the table like mushrooms growing plump in a bog. On a silver plate, the smell of them wafting under her nose, the same aroma as the bakery’s dozen she used to buy.

“I hope these are to your liking.” Yu smiles.

Hesitantly, Shirley plucks a muffin from the tray. Bouncy muffin bread breaks under her teeth and bits of melted chocolate nearly burning the tip of her tongue. It was glorious. This taste of home.

She could have happily eaten every last one of them and still had room for seconds. But Yu is watching her eat. Its expression was difficult to read. What was Yu thinking? What did Yu think of her?

Shirley pushes the tray in Yu’s direction.

She swallows and then speaks, “Want some?”

“No, thank you. They’re all yours.”

Yu retrieves the white book from the table. It’s eyes straying from Shirley, focusing on the flipping of the pages. Shirley turned her head away but from the corner of her eye, she continues watching Yu.

What is it thinking? What did it want from her?

She finishes the muffin in her hand, picks up two more but doesn’t bring them to her lips.

“It wouldn’t hurt to lighten the mood a little.” She thinks to herself.

With a half-smile, Shirley tosses one muffin into the air and catches it with her left hand, but not before tosses the other muffin into her right. Her foster siblings had loved to watch her juggle. Maybe Yu will like it too.

And when Yu looks back at Shirley, the face it shared with her lit up. It’s happy with her. Perfect.

Yu laughs, “It’s good to see you haven’t lost your spirit, Shirley! Most people take their death quite hard but you seem to have bounced back quickly.”

Without breaking her rhythm, Shirley smiled thinly.

“I prefer moving forward, not looking back. Can’t change what happened, no use blubbering about it.” She catches a muffin in each hand then places them back on the tray, “So what happens now?”

Shirley hadn’t put that much thought into what would happen when she died. She might have, if she had been given more time. But as it was, she had thought she still had her whole life ahead of her. No time to fret over an afterlife or purgatory or reincarnation.

“Is there a god I need to answer to? Gods? Goddesses? Were any of those religions right?”

“Your records say you’re agnostic. This is true?”

Shirley’s mind wanders further. Her first foster parent had been a religious woman. Ms. Winston had been her name. She had been catholic. Or maybe protestant? Shirley couldn’t remember. Ms. Winston used to rant about Jesus and the ten commandments whenever the children annoyed her. ‘Honour thy father and mother’ has been hissed at them through gritted teeth at least five times a day. She had dragged them to her church every Sunday and would pinch Shirley when she’d inevitably fall asleep during the sermons. That was as much interest as Shirley had ever taken into any kind of religion. But she’d worked with people of several religions. Dan Berkovich in the cubicle next to her was Jewish. One of her supervisors, Agnesa Prifti, was a Muslim woman. And she’d taken calls from people of many religious backgrounds. Comforting a frightened Hindu woman after she’d gotten into a five-car pileup while nine months pregnant. Desperately trying to stall for time while on the phone with a suicidal teen who’d just that evening been disowned by his family, who had chosen the doctrine of the Watchtower over their living, breathing child.

Somehow, even after years of exposure to different philosophies and worldviews, Shirley had remained on the fence. Neither believing nor disputing.

Shirley waits before she answers. Yu’s face gives nothing away, which Shirley finds slightly unnerving.

Against her better instincts, Shirley speaks the truth.

Shirley shrugs, “Probably. Never put a lot of thought into the matter.”

“Have your beliefs changed as you’ve spent time here?”

Shirley hesitates. Was this a trap? Was there a wrong answer?

“... Now that I know that there’s an afterlife or at least some kind of waiting period, I kind of want to believe in something. In someone.” Unbeknownst to Shirley, her face twists into something ugly. Wrinkles of bitterness and resentment made themselves known around her narrowed eyes, “But, honestly? I still don’t believe. After all I’ve been through, all I’ve seen, If there was a god behind it all... He’s one sick son of a bitch.”

That last part. She hadn't meant for it to escape her thoughts. What was wrong with her? She knew better than that. Hastily, Shirley’s hand clasps over her mouth. She babbles, “Sorry! I’m sorry, that was so rude of me--”

“You had no god in life so you will not have one in death.”

Shirley relaxes, studying Yu’s expression. They seemed indifferent to Shirley’s rant. Her curiosity bristles. Carefully maintain an air of aloofness, Shirley inquires further, “But if I had believed in a god?”

“Then they’d greet you in your image of them. Your idea of them specific to no one's beliefs but yours. Unique from any other god not because of the constraints of scripture but only the wants of your will, conscious of its influence or not.” Yu places the book onto the table. It’s flipped open to page 117. Chapter two, Proceedings & Precedent of Judgement.

Yu continues, “You have no want for a Lord to command you. So by your wants, no god of your design exists.”

“So… I was right?”

“All of you are right. Wrong, but also right.”

Shirley frowns but says nothing. The conversation goes on like this for a while. Yu asks questions and Shirley answers to the best of her ability. The questions are pointed, obviously centred around some overwhelming query that Shirley can’t seem to grasp, no matter how hard she thought. What did she like most about herself? What did she like about her life? Where had she wanted to live? What hobbies had she wanted to pursue?

What does she like? What does she want?

Yu flips through the pages of her book as they chat. Shirley wants to lean forward to peak at the pages but she restrains herself. Patience. She’ll get her chance eventually, or so she thinks. Yu asks its final question. Gently closing the book, Yu stands and gestures for Shirley to do the same.

Yu smiles, “Would you like to go back?”

“... Back?”

“Would you like to be brought back to life?”

Shirley wraps her arms around her stomach, suddenly overcome with nervousness, “Is that possible?”

Yu pauses. Movement for movement, it mimics Shirley’s stance. A self-conscious posture and an astute scrutiny in its eyes, “... Do you want it to be?”