Million Wishes
‘Heaven is democratic these days’, she said. Then added, ‘Or at least if you want it to be.’
‘What do you mean, democratic?’
‘We don’t impose Heaven on people any more,’ she said. ‘We listen to their needs. If they want it, they can have it; if not, not. And then of course they get the sort of Heaven they want.’
‘And what do they want on the whole?’ (…)
‘It varies. But if I were being honest, I’d say that it doesn’t vary all that much. (…) Everyone has the option to die off if they want to.’
‘And who asks for death the soonest?’ (…)
‘Well, I’m afraid – to answer your question – that the people who ask for death the earliest are a bit like you. People who want an eternity of sex, beer, drugs, fast cars – that sort of thing. They can’t believe their luck at first, and then, a few hundred years later, they can’t believe their bad luck. That’s the sort of people they are, they realize. They’re stuck with being themselves. Millennia after millennia of being themselves. They tend to die off soonest.’
Julian Barnes, A History Of The World in 10½ Chapters