Work Text:
Chidi opened his eyes and immediately was assured that he was welcome and that everything was fine. A door opened and an older man in a suit and bow tie appeared. "Hello, Chidi. Come on in."
Chidi followed him into the room and sat at the desk. It felt a little bit like he was meeting with his thesis advisor, which usually filled Chidi with eager anticipation but typically didn't end well.
"I'm Michael," the man said. "How are you today?"
"Good! I think," Chidi said. "Just – where are we, exactly?"
Michael smiled. "You, Chidi Anagonye, are dead. Welcome to the afterlife. And I know what you're thinking, but don't worry: you're in The Good Place."
A warm wave passed over his body, and Chidi felt his shoulders lower from where he'd hunched them all his life. "Oh, good. I'm so relieved. I knew about the environmental impact of almond milk but I just couldn't stop drinking it."
"You're safe," Michael said with a reassuring laugh. "Most moral philosophers end up in The Bad Place, though, so don't expect to meet your heroes."
Chidi's stomach went a little sour. He'd already begun thinking about the debates and dialogues he could have with philosophers important to his research, most especially Kant. "Which ones made it here?"
"Don't worry about it," Michael said breezily.
"I have so many questions," Chidi said, because the questions were building up one after another after another, and he felt ready to burst from the opportunity to finally learn essential truths about the universe.
Michael waved his hand. "There will be plenty of time for questions later. Come on, let me show you around the neighborhood."
The area Michael guided him through was charming and picturesque. They passed three frozen yogurt places before lingering in front of a restaurant called Taco the Mornay.
"Oh!" Chidi said as he looked at the menu. "French tacos. That's a choice."
"Yeah, I think you'll really like this one," Michael said. "Great breakfast options."
Chidi found the recommendation a little disconcerting given how much he'd struggled to find non-dairy food options in France, although the limited choice had made it so much easier to make a decision. "But I'm lactose intolerant?"
"Oh, uh… no problem! You can just ask Janet for some Lactaid," Michael said.
"Janet?"
A person appeared out of thin air with bing and said hello. Chidi made a high-pitched noise and flinched away.
Michael patted his shoulder. "Bye, Janet."
The person disappeared back into thin air, and Chidi felt his underarms begin to sweat and his stomach start to cramp.
Michael chuckled. "Sorry to startle you. Janet is a source of all knowledge and information in the neighborhood, and can get you anything you need. Anyway, enough of that excitement. Would you like to meet your soulmate?"
Chidi's body responded before his brain could lock up, because he very much could use some good news right now. "I would! Very much so."
"It's this way, over by the lake," Michael said. "I should clarify that you're about to meet your platonic soulmate. I hope that's all right."
Chidi didn't know how to feel, exactly, but he was still excited. "Well, in Plato's Symposium –"
Michael snapped his fingers. "Yes, I've read that one! And I must say that I agree with you completely."
"But I didn't say any–"
"Here we are," Michael announced, bringing them to a stop outside of a yurt.
Chidi blinked. "Oh."
They stepped inside the yurt and found a handsome man meditating on a zafu. He opened his eyes and looked at Michael and Chidi with a keen interest.
"Chidi Anagonye, this is your platonic soulmate, Jianyu Li. He's a Buddhist monk who has taken a vow of silence, so don't take it personally if he doesn't want to chat."
"Oh!" Chidi said while trying to suppress his dismay, because he'd cherished the idea of having deep philosophical discussions on the nature of love with his soulmate. He glanced around and noticed that the decor was more than just minimalist, it was downright sparse. He couldn't see any reading material or sacred texts. There was nary a scroll to be found! Chidi tried not to panic about living in a yurt with no bookshelves and no books, and no cozy nooks in which to read books, which didn't really matter, because… no books!
"You look troubled," Michael said
"I don't mean to seem ungrateful, but to be honest, this isn't exactly what I envisioned heaven to be."
Michael nodded. "I think I understand. Obviously, Jianyu observes certain precepts that lead to a frugal lifestyle. Monks don't like having a lot of stuff around, you know. Interferes with detachment."
Unable to contain his disappointment, Chidi said, "But… books."
"I'm sure you'll get used to it," Michael said, giving him a hearty clap on the shoulder. "You have eternity, after all. Oh, I almost forgot – there's a party starting soon to welcome all the new residents to the neighborhood. It's hosted by Tahani. She lives in the big house. You'll know it when you see it. It's hard to miss."
"Fun," Chidi said, in spite of never having fun at a party in his life, unless you counted that one time where he'd found a quiet corner to pet someone's dog while also reading a book.
"All right. I have a few more things to take care of, so why don't I leave you two to get acquainted before the party gets started."
Michael left, and Chidi stood in silence. Silence, he assumed, that would last for a very long time.
His soulmate rose gracefully from his cushion to approach him, and that's when things got weird. Jianyu stood far too close and eyed him, moving this way and that, up and down, a little like the elaborate mating dance of a bowerbird. Then suddenly he straightened and a smile broke over his face.
"Okay, homie. If you're my new best bro, then I can trust you with anything. Right? So get this – I have no idea where we are or what's going on or why people think I'm a Buddhist monk. My name's Jason Mendoza and I'm an amateur DJ from Jacksonville, Florida. Dawg, I don't wanna wear pajamas and live in a yogurt. You gotta help me!"
"Yurt. It's a yurt," Chidi said because he didn't know where else to start.
Jason's eyebrows drew together. "Is that like a new kind of Go-Gurt?"
"It's a dwelling. We're literally inside one right now. Never mind! Surely if we talk to Michael we can straighten this out."
Jason clasped his hands and gave Chidi the most mournful look he'd ever seen. "You can't tell anyone I'm not supposed to be here! They'll send me to The Bad Place! Michael said they put bees up your butt there, and I swore I'd never do that again after I had to get rushed to the emergency room and nearly died."
Chidi couldn't take any more of this. He already could feel panic seeping through his entire body and he hadn't even been in the afterlife for more than an hour. His hands were little claws of tension.
"Let's table this discussion for now. We should go to the welcome party as expected, or someone might notice we're not there. I saw bikes outside –"
Jason lit up. "Dude, shotgun!"
Chidi sighed. "You can't call shotgun on a bicycle."
"Sure you can! One time, me and Pillboi – Pillboi's my best bro, on Earth, I guess? – anyway, we went to steal this Burmese python because this guy stole it from the pet store my mom worked at, which was not cool because she'd been planning on stealing it herself, and she promised to buy us some square burgers if we got it back. We broke into his place and found the python, but the only getaway car we had was this old Honda minibike we borrowed from Pillboi's cousin's uncle, and we weren't sure if shotgun meant, like the handlebars or the back? But it didn't really matter, because both of us barely fit on it, and I burned my leg on the exhaust when I was distracted trying to keep the python from squeezing our heads off."
"What – I don't – what?" Chidi spluttered.
"It's relevant because the python's name was Shotgun!" Jason said.
"Let's just go."
Chidi marched Jason out of the yurt and they biked the lake path towards downtown. Once they arrived at the main street, Chidi paused and looked around.
"Michael said it would be hard to miss," Chidi said, and that's when the strobe lights activated on the lawn of an enormous mansion nearby.
"Oh, dip! Somebody called the cops!" Jason said, immediately letting his bike crash to the ground. Chidi barely took his eyes off him and then suddenly Jason was holding a lit Molotov cocktail. He pulled his arm back to throw it, and unthinkingly, Chidi snatched it out of his hand.
"What are you doing?" Chidi hissed, then looked at what he was holding and screamed. He flung the Molotov cocktail as far away from his person as he could manage, and with growing dismay, Chidi watched it arc across the sky and smash through the front window of a restaurant. Let Them Eat Hake was engulfed in flames within moments. The heavy smoke reeked of burning fish.
"It's okay, homie. I've been through this before," Jason said, taking Chidi by the shoulders. "We just have to get married and then no one can testify against us. By the power invested in me, we're married. Now you say it."
As the fire grew in intensity, as Jason stared into his eyes, as his body became gripped by panic so intense that it felt like dying, which didn't make any sense because he was already dead, Chidi became more certain of one thing than he'd ever been in his life. "Oh no. This… this is The Bad Place."
While Chidi didn't particularly ascribe to Western notions of hell, the fire suddenly felt appropriate for the circumstances.
"I knew it!" a voice called out.
Chidi wheeled around to see Michael, the heat radiating from the inferno raging behind him warming his back, although the smoke was making him wheeze.
Jason tapped his arm. "Yo, I go left, you go right, and we meet back at the yogurt!"
Michael removed his glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose as Jason took off running. "I knew I pushed it too hard from the get-go. Even Chidi figured it out – we've done this 478 times and he's never figured it out first! This is all my fault. I don't know what I was thinking."
"What is happening?" Chidi demanded.
"You found me out. You're in The Bad Place. I flew too close to the sun and tortured you too hard, yada yada yada," Michael said, flapping his hand.
"Yada yada? Yada yada?!" Chidi drew in a deep breath in preparation to fully vocalize his most vociferous thoughts, and then Michael snapped his fingers.
Chidi opened his eyes and immediately was assured that he was welcome and that everything was fine. A door opened and a somewhat disheveled older man in a suit and bow tie appeared. "Chidi. Come on in."