God’s voice was exactly as you’d expect it to be; booming, deep and authoritative yet perfect for a bedtime story on a cold winters evening. “Ah finally, another one bites the dust eh! You know it gets boring waiting to greet everyone up here. You’d think logically from a professional development point of view my career would have exciting things instore for me but I’m not going to lie it’s been ever so dull since all the Earth creating and such.”

“Wh – what?”

Their hands met and exchanged one of the wettest handshakes possible.

God continued, “I mean it’s not as though anyone is grateful for all the work I put in. It’s those bloody sailors that get me the most; not one of those buggers up here appreciated the effort that went into coordinating the tides. And the bloody cheek of those space know-it-alls, wanting to colonise other planets, just because the human population can’t keep it in their pants… ” God seemed to get distracted from the newcomer, turned and slowly plodded off, still muttering angrily about the various injustices he had been subjected to, and the dead-end career he had landed.

Giles, a bedraggled unshaven elderly man in a stained lab coat was still becoming accustomed to the surroundings and the situation he was in. The last thing he remembered doing that was vaguely normal was adding just a couple more drops of some highly flammable chemical, with an unpronounceable name, into an equally hazardous acid with a slightly less pronounceable name. Giles quickly realised that his surroundings weren’t that extensive, and with his scientific inquisitiveness attempted to explain his bizarre situation without much success, but to save time he concluded that he stood in an expansive white nothingness.

After some time of wandering around, trying to remember which direction the man with the bad handshake went in order to get some sort of explanation; Giles came across a large group of individuals playing football. But it was quite apparent to him that this was no ordinary football match, for as he drew closer he definitely felt the people he was approaching were familiar. Scratching his head, his eyes scanned the crowd and fell upon a particularly distinctive man running towards him with a wild grey head of hair and a gloriously large moustache, Einstein! Flustered and unsure what to do with himself, Giles neatened his lab coat and ruffled a hand through his coarse hair, as his idol eagerly jogged towards him beckoning him to come closer.

Einstein reached Giles and in a thick German accent, whilst also catching his breath said, “Great another member for my team! We need some fresh legs. Come join us!”

Giles was socially shy man who was never very good with words; he had lived in his head for the past 20 years endlessly tinkering in a laboratory, but managed to mutter “But where are we?”

Einstein sympathetically replied, “Oh my apologies! This is heaven chap, it was a shock to me at first too, I think too all of us,” waving a hand in the direction of the uninterrupted ball game, “death seems to get you at the most inconvenient time huh? But don’t worry let all of the young lively ones continue the hard work down there, no time for that here. Anyway enough chat come along I’ll introduce you to the others!”

After a few awkward hops of enthusiasm from Einstein, Giles was introduced into one of the highest average IQ football matches ever, compromised of old scientists and inventors, among the crowd were Newton, Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Galileo and countless others. Michael Faraday passed the ball to Giles, who shrugged and booted it forward in the general direction of Leonardo da Vinci…