Rocketship hair, like a twisting column of fire. That’s kind of how I think of Eleanor’s hair when I look at this page now.
Finally, Eleanor has the conversation she has waited eons for. That doesn’t mean it’s a quick one, or even a simple one, though it might seem that way. It plays out over immeasurable stretches of time, and her passage through it is marked by celestial events both grand and catrastrophic.
Every child has an image of the afterlife, I think. There may be exceptions. Maybe some children never think about it; maybe some are certain by the age of four that one doesn’t exist. Mine terrified me, and it took me a very long time to realize why. I was capable of grasping the concept of an endless stay in paradise, if that’s what heaven was (and I went to Sunday School like every little good boy did, where Sister X made sure I knew well the stories of heaven and hell). What terrified me wasn’t the idea of perfect gold streets and the height of hotel life.
It was that it never ended. It was that you would spend an eternity in a perfect place, with a perfect being, and — that was… it. The endless flow of time in one direction worried me to death. Even as a little boy, I wasn’t interested in stories that didn’t have a satisfying ending. What was I supposed to do with one that had none?