How The Earth Imploded

“It's Lipton, you know. Of course it's Lipton. Can't tolerate any other kind.”
A cup of tea sat on the table in front of a puzzled man. He looked at the tea, noted it unimportant under the circumstances, and glanced at the man sitting across from him.
“Come again? Who the hell are you and where the hell are we?”
The other man sighed and uncrossed his legs, then decided to cross them again for some reason or another. A dissatisfied frown formed on his face.
“Oh dear, I'd think you'd be happier to see me. Especially after that little incident with the train.”
“Who are you? I do not remember coming here at all. Have I been drugged?” The man jumped up off of the sofa where he had been sitting. The living room that was the setting of this odd conversation was elaborately decorated, and from the inside the man gathered that the house he was now in was in a rather nice neighbourhood. Not that it mattered. Or did it? Would he be more comfortable if the house in question was in a nice neighbourhood? Were cultured kidnappers better than those of a less socio-economic standing?
“Have you drugged me?!” screamed the man.
The man still sitting chuckled. “Oh dear me, no. You obviously don't remember what happened. That tends to happen. I really should figure out why that happens. Actually, I suppose I do know why. But I can't really be bothered to dig up such information. I'm omniscient, you know.”
The man leaned back and fished into his jacket pocket for a pack of cigarettes. He lit one of them with a lighter newly produced from his pants pocket. He inhaled briefly.
“I'm God, you know.” The breath he used to articulate this sentence was the same breath that let out the inhaled cigarette smoke. God closed his eyes as if thinking. The man did not know if he was actually thinking, but he took it that thinking is one thing that God might do an awful lot of. The man shook his head quickly, no this was all very foolish. This man sitting on an armchair in this house was not God. He was obviously some sort of mad man.
“Right. I'm leaving, then. Have fun with your delusions, you sick bastard.”
The man walked towards the front door.
“I wouldn't do that if I were you, Eddie.”
Eddie glanced back at the mad man. He must have been stalking him, he knew his name. He would go home and he would call the police. He was starting to get very angry now that the initial shock of apparently being drugged and kidnapped wore off.
Eddie opened the front door.
Eddie closed the front door.
He walked slowly back to the sofa and sat down. He blinked. He slumped forward and put a hand underneath his chin. He blinked again. Standing up, he picked up the tea from the table and took a sip.
“What,” said Eddie with the heavy, monotonous tone of voice that usually comes with the frustration of trying to understand something completely ridiculous. “Is that outside your house?”
God shuffled in his chair. “Oh. That,” God paused and looked at his burning cigarette. He put it to his lips and went through the inhaling and exhaling that were involved with smoking. “That would be the space-time continuum,” he said matter-of-factly.
Eddie rubbed his temples with his forefingers and grunted.
God clicked his tongue and looked once again at the cigarette he was holding. “You know, I've been meaning to get a cigarette holder. That would be neat. Very early 20th century, very Noel Coward.”
“Why is the space-time continuum outside your house?” Eddie asked slowly. He sounded very tired, but not particularly afraid.
“Why would the space-time continuum be inside my house? That isn't at all logical. I wish I hadn't scheduled this appointment at this time, I'm feeling very down. Do you ever wonder if smoking actually causes lung cancer?”
“That isn't what I meant.”
“If that's the case, why didn't you say what you meant?”
“I did say what I meant.”
“Well obviously not, if the message you conveyed was not the message you wanted to convey.”
Eddie slowly lowered himself from the sofa and knelt on the plush carpet. He then began banging his head on the wooden table. God frowned. “You know, Baudelair once said --”
“I don't care,” interrupted Eddie.
“Oh, but it was brilliant,” said God with excitement.
“I'm sure it was.”
God tapped his pack of cigarettes thoughtfully. “I wish people would take more of an interest in philosophy. By the way... I don't know if this is still relevant... in answer to your previous question, we are in Heaven. That is where the hell we are.”
Eddie looked at God. God was a white male, evidently. With blonde hair and blue eyes, too. The Aryans would approve. “You... don't know if... it's still... relevant.” Eddie paused. “Of course it's still relevant. When is not knowing where you are ever irrelevant?”
“I can understand that, yes.” God took a sip of his tea. “I once painted a picture of infinity.”
“Did you now?”
“Infinity at every angle. Every precious angle. Transcendental, it was. Like everything that I had ever created was now in the most relevant light that it had ever been in. That was a fun little project... but that's not really important right now. Have you ever had a thought that you couldn't let go, a thought that seemed to press into your soul and carve meaning into your being? A thought that you couldn't quite grasp, but all in all you knew it had to be there?
“Of course you have, I'm God, so I would know. Well, those thoughts are indeed there. In every meaningless word you've ever spoken, in every drab conversation you've ever had. They are there, hanging around your being, waiting to spark into life. Eddie, those are actually your soul's influence.
“The thoughts are placed there, meant to influence your perception of morality. Nagging at the back of your head. Sort of like the “good angel on your shoulder.” People always seem to think that you and your soul are one, but that isn't so. Your soul is part of you, yes, but it isn't inside of you, it does not complete you. It's more of a presence of conscience over your life.”
“Why are you telling me this?” asked Eddie, slightly intrigued and slightly uncaring at the same time.
“This is your briefing.”
“I don't understand.”
“Well, that's a surprise,” said God. “Your afterlife briefing. I'm telling you some secrets of life, so listen up. Because I don't care to repeat myself. It's nothing against anyone, it's just that I find it incredibly boring, and I'd rather occupy my time with other things...”
“Why would you tell me secrets of life when I'm in the afterlife? It's after I've been alive, hence the name, actually. Isn't that the type of thing that you should be telling people before life?”
“If you're going to come at this with that attitude, then forget it.”
“No, it's just that I would like to know --”
“You would like to know, yes. I am giving you knowledge now, so... yeah.”
“Fine, all right. I'll listen to what you have to say.”

68 minutes later...
“Wow. So Buddha was actually a prophet, huh?”
“Yeah, he's a fun guy,” said God with a wry smile. “Well, anyway, that's all I have to say. I hope you gained from that experience.” God reached forward and ground his cigarette into the ash tray that adorned the table between the two of them.
The phone rang. Eddie hadn't realised that there was a phone in the room, but he now supposed there was, because of the aforementioned ringing. God got up from his chair and walked over to the wall behind the couch that the phone was attached to. He picked it up. Eddie turned his head to watch him.
“Hello?” said God with little interest. His tongue shifted inside his mouth and poked the inside of his left cheek so that it stretched out around the tongue. He twirled the wire in his free hand while apparently listening to whomever was on the other line.
“Mmmmm...,” God mumbled. “Well... there's a bit of a snag with that... like I said... oh... no, no, it's fine... all right then, bye.” He hung up and walked back to his seat.
“Sorry about that. Remember earlier when I told you that I was feeling a bit down? Well, there's this thing... the end of the world, really. I've been stressing over this deadline, and everything is just taking longer than it should. Very stressful. Well, anyway, do you remember dying yet? I was told a train was involved, but sometimes the information that I receive is a little off.”
Eddie fiddled with his empty tea cup. For the last hour or so he had been taking in a lot of information, and he was getting a bit sleepy. Though he didn't understand why he was sleepy. After all, he was dead. He always thought of death as the eternal slumber. This was all so very new to him.
The things he had been told, the impact of seeing the space-time continuum. Which is impressive and all, but doesn't actually look as impressive as you'd think. It resembles outer space. Compacted outer space. The tremendous colours were still dancing within Eddie's mind. Eddie turned his attention to the ceiling fan above him, which he only just now noticed was on. Then again, he had only just now noticed that there was a ceiling fan at all. He was proving very unobservant today.
“Yes... I remember now. And no, it was actually a bus. I was hit by a bus. I was on my way to work, and I suppose I wasn't being careful enough crossing the street. Which I should be, considering my line of work. I'm a bus driver... Er, wait a minute. Did you say the end of the world?”
God laughed. “A bus driver hit by a bus, eh? Oh, I am a fan of the irony. Yes, I did say that. The end of the world, the end of all worlds, actually. The Universe.”
“The end of all worlds? Is there life on other worlds, then?”
“Oh, of course there is. Don't be so arrogant, the Universe is full of populated planets.”
Eddie rolled his eyes. This was going to be a long eternity. “Forget it. So, how's the Universe supposed to be ending, then? And why?”
“How: Universal Warming. Why: Because it can't go on forever, now can it?”
Eddie sat, soaking this in. He suddenly became aware that he felt very much alive, as far as he could tell he was completely solid and opaque. That seemed odd to him, as he always thought of ghosts as completely the opposite. Ghost? He was a ghost? It was going to take him quite a while to adjust.
God sat for a while, waiting for a reply from Eddie. When they had sat in silence for two minutes, God rose energetically out of his chair.
“Right, so I suppose I should show you to your place now.”
“My... my place?” Eddie raised an eyebrow in confusion.
“Oh, of course. You certainly didn't think that you were staying with me, did you? That would be odd. People would assume things. Not that there's anything wrong with that.”
Eddie's eyes closed for a split second, blinking.