Charles Darwin died on April 18, 1882. He was buried at Westminster Abbey after an extremely small funeral: friends and family only. Some eulogies were given, but Darwin did not stick around to hear them. Instead, he headed towards the light, wondering what could lie beyond this life.

He found himself in a dark room, with a chair, table, and large reflecting glass on one side of the room. A single light hung above his head, swinging ever so slightly. Darwin pulled at his beard quizzically. He still was not used to the idea of light coming from a small glass orb. Alas, something to find normal in its own time. Truly, the question nagging at Darwin possessed no answer yet: where was he?

As if he had heard Darwin, a man entered. He dropped a stack of papers on the table haphazardly.

“Name?”

Darwin looked up, responding barely audibly at first. “Dar–D-Darwin,” he stuttered out loudly enough for the man to hear finally.

“Alright, yes. You’re in here.”

“Where exactly are we, may I ask? I cannot seem to recognize my surroundings,” Darwin said.

The man scribbled something silently and walked out without as much as a word to Darwin. Darwin peered up at the light quietly, hands shaking. Again, his mind wandered to the same question: Why was he here? Was this some sort of hellish test? Had he been forsaken? What had he done to be placed in here?

The door burst open again, allowing in a different man. He had a smiling face, yet cold, calculating eyes.

“Mr. Darwin. Well, I gotta say it’s quite a pleasure to meet you. Your reputation precedes you,” the man said quickly.

Darwin stood, extending his hand.

“Hello, Mr. …?”

“Call me Jay.”

“Well, Mr. Jay then. What am I doing here? I am dead, am I not?”

Jay shifted in his seat. Rather, the seat shifted around him. Darwin blinked, his depth perception confused.

“Darwin, you’re in Conference Room B. It’s a place people like you go when they die to be examined further before granting them access to either heaven or hell. Sort of a room for the judge, jury, and executioner–that’s me–to occupy. We’re here to discuss your radical idea; I believe you call it ‘evolution’,” Jay said, quite too happily for Darwin’s taste.

“Hell?! Evolution? I–” Darwin sputtered, confused.

Jay laughed and sat back in his seat.

“That’s right, Darwin. You’re on trial now. Let’s begin.”

Jay’s eyes glowed a brilliant golden, blinding Darwin. The room melted as a chorus of colored lights whirled around them, placing them gently in a forest. Jay sat on a mossy log and Darwin was unceremoniously plopped on the ground.

“We begin here. Let’s review: You say that animals, all animals, are ‘evolved’ from the same organisms, existing deep in the past.”

An animal Darwin could not name crawled out of the ground, balking.

“According to you, this thing theoretically ‘evolved’ into horses, snakes, and every other creature.”

The animal began changing in front of the men’s eyes. It split, many versions of it appearing, side-by-side. Each of these animals warped and shifted, becoming animals that Darwin knew: an anole, a finch, a tortoise, and others. They scattered, exploring their new environment.

Darwin grew restless on his piece of ground.

“Jay. I do not understand. Why are you reviewing my work with me? What is the end goal of this?”

A new, thunderous-yet-kind voice announced itself, laughing gently.

“My boy. It’s to prepare you to talk with me.”

The forest spun. Darwin experienced the same lights from before. He now stood in a stark white throne room, with seemingly endless Greek columns reaching towards the clouds above. A recklessly large throne announced itself in the center of the room, with an even larger man sitting in it. He looked down at Darwin, smiling generously.

“Hello, my son. I am God.”

“I- Well… I- God.”

“I tend to get that reaction. Now let’s discuss this evolution of yours.”

“Yes, of course! Well, according to my findings, all animals are descended from a simple animal common in their ancestries. Animals today reached their current state by a process of natural selection, in which animals with random mutations are deemed more reproductively viable by prospective mates. Soon enough, these pairings result in such different animals that the less-mutated offspring become essentially stigmatized within the species. These stigmatized animals will die off without passing on their traits. Thus, the species moves in a different direction, propelled by the combinations of these random mutations,” Darwin spoke quickly, an obvious master in his field.

God looked down. His smile fell, eyes darkening.

“Why are you trying to replace me, Charles? I gave you the benefit of the doubt, but it looks like you have chosen to betray me. I am the Creator, Charles. I know what happened.”

Darwin looked up in disbelief. How could God not know the truth? It just simply was not true that all animals were created at the same time. According to this logic, tabby cats would have existed at the same time as the dinosaurs!

“Pardon me, sir? Can I just tell you a couple things that disproved it for me? I wasn’t sold on the idea myself until I looked at-”

“ENOUGH,” God thundered. “You SHALL NOT speak of it anymore. This blasphemous discussion is finished.”

“Despite the risk of being smote, I have to say: why are there not fossils of common animals from today alongside the dinosaurs’ fossils? If all animals were created at the same time, would there not be evidence of it?” Darwin swallowed, hands twitching.

God, fury tangible, grew in size.

“You dare question ME?! The ALMIGHTY? I should smite you RIGHT ON THE SPOT.”

The room quaked with God’s fury: columns toppled, marble cracked, the floor opened up to the flames of hell. Darwin did his best to hold his footing, screaming in a most unprofessional way.

“Please, I am not trying to replace you with my findings! I merely have seen animals change before my own eyes. You have seen it too!” Darwin was grasping at straws now.

“Well, of course.”

Darwin looked up, shocked. What had God said?

“I said of course, Charles. I know that evolution is real. I created it, after all. I merely was testing your commitment to your life’s work. It seems that your faith in your idea is strong. Just do me one favor. Don’t broadcast that this all was only your idea. After all, I created you, so did you really come up with this idea?”

Darwin was appalled. God had just completely switched sides, leaving Darwin still scared. So this is what Abraham felt like. This was all very idiotic in Darwin’s opinion. This to-and-fro was not how he expected to spend his afterlife.

“Of course,” Darwin replied.

God clapped his giant hands together with glee.

“Excellent. Welcome to heaven.”

Colors swirled around Darwin again, transporting him to a beautiful land on the clouds. He saw people milling around on fields, angels flitting through the air, and the Pearly Gates in the distance. Despite these sights, the only thing he could think was God worries me. A lot.