“If This Is Heaven, How Come I’m Still Blind?” By Ray Charles

Well, as most of you know, I went and died back in ’04. That ‘s all right; I was old, and when I passed away, my soul flew straight up to those pearly gates and angels welcomed me with open arms. But I didn ‘t see those pearly gates, or those open-armed angels, because even though I ‘m in Heaven, I ‘m still blind.

What the fuck, right?

At first I thought, ‘Maybe it ‘s a gradual thing,” or ‘Maybe they forgot to unblind me.” Being a Heaven rookie, I didn ‘t want to rock any boats, so I kept my lingering blindness to myself for a while. Yet here we are, 11 Earth-years later, and I ‘m still blind as a cave salamander.

I met Jesus once, and I was going to bring up the blind thing, but I was so psyched to meet the guy I forgot to bring it up. That one ‘s on me.

I did bring it up to a few angels, but they just said things like, ‘Whoa, that ‘s weird,” or ‘Did you try rubbing your eyes a few times?” Yes, you blessed fucking angel, I tried rubbing my eyes ‘ that ‘s the first thing blind people try when they think their blindness may have been cured but wasn ‘t.

I ‘ve wondered if I ‘m actually in Hell instead of Heaven. I wonder that all the time. But I ‘m pretty sure this is Heaven; everything ‘s really nice here. I feel the squish of clouds between my toes, the angelic voices of cherubs fluttering around like hummingbirds, I get to have a lot of sex with any dead woman I want, and I ‘m allowed to play music on all the best pianos. I just can ‘t see shit.

There ‘s a lot that sucks about being blind in Heaven, too. About a year ago I got my wings, and it ‘s a good thing you can ‘t feel pain up here, because I am flying into marble towers left and right. At least I still get to wear sunglasses.

Ran into Helen Keller the other day. She was talking, seeing, hearing ‘ the whole nine. I said, ‘Helen, how come you can see but I can ‘t?” She said, ‘Maybe I ‘m just special.” More special than Ray Charles? Yeah, right. I ‘ll give her a pass on that one since she used to be deaf and wouldn ‘t know good music if it bit her in the conch.

Then I got to thinking it was a race thing. ‘Shit,” I say to myself. ‘ If Heaven ‘s racist, that ‘s the most fucked up thing imaginable.” So I went to go see Blind Willie Johnson. First thing he says to me: ‘It ‘s just Willie now.” That was a mix of good and bad news. Heaven ‘s not racist, but I still don ‘t know why I ‘m blind. If you figure it out, give me a call.

Oh wait, I don ‘t have a phone anymore. Shoot, man. I ‘m in a real pickle up here.