When Jack died, he found himself first in complete darkness where he stayed for several months. First driving himself crazy, but then abandoning that futile effort in order to contemplate his life. It had been a great life but full of wasted opportunities left and right.
He had advanced at the company where he worked but left the job start a smaller company that never amounted to anything significant.
He had written books but never published them. And he had also protested various problems in the world without solving any of them.
If he could have just taken a few months to make a difference in the world, he thought, it would have made all the difference.
But as such, he was satisfied with what he had done.
"If I was to be reborn," he told himself one day, "I'm not sure what I would have done differently, really."
It was at that point that the darkness disappeared and he found himself in a great hall made of gold. With long benches lined with every type of food he could imagine. The walls of the hall were lined with paintings depicting various great deeds and warrior battles.
"A newcomer!" A man yelled at him and thousands of warriors appeared in the hall, eating, and talking, creating a background hum.
"Where am I?"
"In a Valhalla!" the man yelled at him, "The place for great warriors such as yourself."
"But I never fought or did anything great."
"You must be mistaken!" the man, covered in animal skins, wearing a large sword and a steel helmet adorned with golden pattern, put his arm around Jack. He held out his other arm and a painting in front of them turned into a sort of screen.
"Let me see the great and powerful deeds of this man, called Jack."
Jack expected to see nothing. None of the things he had done could compare to the warriors killing hundreds in battles, nor the rulers in the hall. He could see the miles of repeating paintings showing all those deeds.
"Your painting will be here too, Jack. Help me find the deed we can put up for you."
The screen started flickering through beautiful oil painting representations of what he had done.
There was the time where he had quit a company with questionable morals to create a company that server a moral alternative of a product. He had braced himself for the onslaught of criticism and shielded others who followed his steps.
He had written and inspired hundreds with articles on his writing journey. Small-time authors fulfilled their long time dreams of finally finishing that novel they wanted to write.
He had broken hundreds of years of family tradition full of hate. Voluntarily ostracizing himself from those closest to him in order to stop the perpetual aggression.
The flicking continued, showing the smallest and largest of acts. Jack had forgotten his fight against a bully when he was in second grade. He gave teachers no choice but to punish both of them when he pre meditatively jumped the boy right before class started.
Or when he stepped in front of the group of protesters, allowing the police to target him instead of those behind him.
"See, Jack," the man said, "A great warrior may kill a hundred enemies, or rule a kingdom justly. Or a great warrior may litter his life full of small but equally powerful deeds worthy of recognition."