Kennedy: Where the hell are we?
Lewis: You must be a Catholic!
Kennedy: You could tell by the accent, eh?
Lewis: Yes. I sayāarenāt you President Kennedy? How did you get hereāwherever here is?
Kennedy: Ex-President, I think: I seem to have been assassinated. Who are you? Andāto return to my first questionāwhere the hell are we?
Lewis: Iām C. S. Lewis. I just died too, and Iām pretty sure youāre wrong about the location. This place just feels too good to be hell. On the other hand, I didnāt see any God, did you?
Kennedy: No.
Lewis: Then it canāt be heaven either. I wonder whether weāre stuck in limbo.
Kennedy: Ugh! Do you really think so?
Lewis: Actually, I think it more likely that itās purgatory, especially if we end up getting out of it and into heaven. I did a bit of speculating about such places as a writer, especially in The Great Divorce. I donāt suppose youāve read it? No . . . well . . . But surely you should be familiar with such concepts if you were a Roman Catholic.
Kennedy: Well . . . I was more of a modern Catholic; I never bothered about transcendental mysteries or mythology. I was too busy trying to take care of the world I lived in for escapist thinking. āOne world at a time,ā as Thoreau put it.
Lewis: You can see now that you were wrong, canāt you?
Kennedy: What do you mean?
Lewis: Why, first that it isnāt mythology. Itās real. Wherever we are, here we are, large as life. And second, that the rule isnāt āone world at a time.ā Here we are in another world talking about our past life on earth. Thatās two worlds at a time by my count. And while we were on earth we could think about this world too; thatās also two worlds at a time, isnāt it? Finally, itās not escapism. In fact, not to have prepared for this journey while we were living on earth would have been escapism. Donāt you agree?
Kennedy: Hmm . . . I suppose youāre right. But look! Someone else is coming. Can you make out who it is?
Lewis: Why, itās Huxley! Aldous Huxley. Aldous, welcome. How did you get here?
Huxley: Same way you did, Iām sure. I just died. Oh, I say! Kennedy and Lewis! What good company to die ināor live in, whatever weāre doing. Where is this place, anyway?
Kennedy: Thatās what weāre trying to figure out. Lewis thinks it may be some sort of limbo or purgatory. Iām just hoping itās not hell.
Huxley: Well, youāre both wrong. Itās heaven. It must be heaven.
Kennedy: Why?
Huxley: Because everywhere is heaven, if only you have enlightened eyes.
Lewis: Even hell?
Huxley: Oh, this is going to be fun! Lewis, youāve lost none of your cantankerous penchant for Socratic questioning, have you? I remember you made Oxford a regular hornetsā nest when you debated back on earth, and now youāve shipped your hornets to heaven. This is a nice challenge.
Lewis: Then reply to it. If everywhere is heaven, then either hell does not exist, or hell is part of heaven. Which way will you have it, Aldous?
Kennedy: Wait, please! Before you two take off, could you give me some assurances about this sort of debate? I was a debater too, but we politicians confined ourselves to the concrete and tangible. Iām not at all convinced you can do anything more than talk through your hat about things youāve never seen.
The question of method: how can we know?
Lewis: So you want an assurance that there is some method of really finding the truth about things we canāt see.
Kennedy: Yes. Before you take off, be sure you have a plane that can fly, and can get back to earth and land. Lewis, you said you wrote a book about heaven. How the hellāhow in heavenās nameāhow on earthādo you know anything about heaven? Have you ever been there?
Lewis: Yes, indeed. Iāve been in and out of the back doors of both many times.
Huxley: You see, Mr. President . . .
Kennedy: Please call me Jack.
Lewis: That will be rather confusing. My friends called me Jack.
Huxley: Suppose we let rank have first choice. Would you mind if we called you Lewis?
Lewis: If you please. Clarity seems to be the thing here, not titles.
Huxley: Fine. Now Jack, Lewis meant that remark about heaven spiritually, not literally.
Kennedy: Oh, well, if thatās all you mean . . .
Lewis: No, wait. Letās not get bogged down in the swamps of āspiritual senses.ā Letās use words as literally as we can. I have not been in either heaven or hell literally.
Kennedy: Fine. Then how can you possibly know anything about them?
Lewis: Iāve been told.
Kennedy: What? What do you mean?
Lewis: Do you know anything at all about Tibet?
Kennedy: Of course.
Lewis: Have you ever been there?
Kennedy: No.
Lewis: Then how do you know anything about it?
Kennedy: Oh, I see. Iāve been told. But th...
