I’ve never been religious – but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in an afterlife.

I mean, the brain is super powerful, right?

Maybe, it could sense my impending doom, and create some kind of dream, seeming to last forever. A heavenly sandbox of a lucid dream, in which I could do absolutely anything I wished.

I always thought smoking would kill me – apparently, I’d never considered the idea that a Shetland pony would come screaming out of a bush, and lodge itself head-first into my windscreen.

The pony’s skull slammed into mine with enough force to turn the space above my neck to strawberry jam.

At least it was quick.

Next thing I know I’m here.

The void.

There’s no real way to explain it. There’s no up or down, and yet I can walk across the white plains. Am I walking? I could just be pulling the distance towards me.

The pony doesn’t seem to be bothered with such trivialities. It just stood there, eating an ever-replenishing bale of hay which seemed to have grown from the not-floor. Occasionally, it would go for a run, but it’s paths would defy all physics and logic. It would go left to left, right to right, disappear in one place and quantum leap to another. Once it ran so fast that it caught up with its own behind, and even tried to mount itself.

Again, none of this seemed to bother it at all.

Quite a lot of something-like-time went past as I watched it all. I tried to ‘spawn’ in something for myself to eat but couldn’t. Maybe it was because I wasn’t hungry. I'd never be hungry again.

I tried to spawn other things, but nothing would come.

Eventually, I was interrupted by the pony pushing its nose against my side.

It lifted up one of its legs towards me, it’s hooves encrusted in something.

A quick poke proved what I thought was impossible.

It was mud!

Real earth mud!

I must have been trying to spawn for some time, because when I turned around, I saw something new. The only way I could think to describe it was like if MC Echer had made pictures of football fields instead of staircases.

I stared at it amazed, until the horse poked at me again, and neighed angrily.

“Right, okay,” I said, as I dug my finger in between the shoe.

I was struggling to clear the debris, and the pony was getting visibly tired of the whole debaucle.

It whinnied, as loud as it could.

It was then it happened.

A flash of light, followed by something that shook me to the core.

There, on the floor, lay a single hoof pick.

It all became clear there and then.

And now here I am, watching the pony run do it's thing before I'm called up to clean.

I guess a pony’s brain must be pretty powerful too.