I don't know about you, but I've always liked supplements in science fiction novels. They were usually placed at the end of the book and told about the history, geography and some hidden aspects of the fictional universe. And now the time has come for an addition to the series of stories "Is it Paradise?", but this does not mean that the series has come to an end.
The idea for this story came to me after reading the River World series by Philip José Farmer. I was very interested in this topic, but it turned out that in science fiction he is, in fact, the first and, alas, the last author to touch on the topic of the afterlife. There are also satirical stories by Twain and several novels of a similar direction, but such a fertile topic is, for the most part, untrodden. This is amazing and completely incomprehensible. If any of the readers have information about other works on this topic, please share in the comments.
Now regarding the arrangement of This world, and the inhabitants call it that way, as opposed to our ordinary world, which they call That world. As already mentioned, absolutely all people who lived on planet Earth end up in this world after death. Moreover, if a person was over 20 years old at the time of death, he is still reborn young, and chooses his own body. All people who die under the age of 18 end up in Gardens, and then in Schools, and from there into families.
Families always have two girls and one guy; if the parent couple is of different sexes, then they have a daughter, if there are two mothers, then they have a son. This is explained by the fact that in the middle of the fourth millennium, many more girls began to be born on Earth as a result of a genetic anomaly, and by that time artificial insemination was already prohibited. In addition, male homosexual contacts do not occur at all, not due to some kind of prohibition, but due to a lack of need.
People do not retain the memory of the faces and names of their acquaintances in the Other World, but they gradually remember events and characters. Interesting. that at any moment a resident of This world can erase his memory and plunge headlong into the novelty of what is happening around him. In this case, he will forget everything that happened to him in This World until his memory is erased, but memories of the Other World will come again in their own way. In the case of memory erasure, a person chooses his body and age again. This explains the constant influx of newcomers.
Every day, the inhabitants of This world go on a Search - an exciting journey with a free choice of partners. The purpose of the Search is to find an ideal partner, sex with whom will lead to a semi-mythical Salvation - the disappearance of both in a golden glow.
It should be added here that for girls during the Search there is a strict ban on nudity, violation of which is severely punished, and sometimes the girl's partner is punished for careless movement, and not the violator herself. In a homely atmosphere, after the Search, the ban on nudity does not apply.
