"Paul, you know we've not been out for a department piss-up since Terry left two months ago"

"OMG Steve, you're right. Has it been two months already?"

"Sure has, we should organise another one soon. I suggest going to the Airport Hotel. They have a really good Beer Garden there" Steve suggested.

"Lets make that in the afternoon" Andy couldn't contain the excitement at the prospect of another department piss-up "then we could go a pub crawl round the city  after dark and be a little worse for wear all weekend."

"I guess we should invite HR and Sales as well?" Steve didn't really like big groups. When theres big groups, no one gets a round in and you end up drinking less.

"Remeber how they spoiled it last time, let's leave them out of it. We should go alone, keep it simple. Plus, if it's just us we can drink more and don't need to worry about everyone in the whole office knowing what we've beed getting up to" As the manager of the department people usually took Pauls decision as final.

"Good idea" said Andy. "You coming too Amy?"

"Hell yeah!" Said Amy almost as excited as Andy. "I am out with my boyfriend tomorrow, but who cares. If I'm hungover he can go out with his mates"

"What about you Jo?" Andy had taken charge of rounding everyone up. "You coming this time?"

"Nah - I think i'll give it a miss. Me and Tahir don't really like drinking as much as you lot do"

"I don't drink. Full stop. I just don't see the fun in going out with £100 and coming home with nothing not knowing where you spent it, having forgotten most of the night AND have a bad headache the next day."

"Oh come on Tahir," Steve chimed in "I drink more than all these and can handle it better than they do too. I NEVER have a headache. It's all about practice. In fact, I think I'll probably have a headache if DON'T drink"

"Yeah, be that as it may, I’d still rather respectfully decline your invitation. If we were going out for a meal and a chat, a 'quiet evening' some might say, I'd be up for that. But this 'drink till you're in the gutter' thing is not really my idea of a good evening out"

"Tahir, I'm going to ask you two questions. You don't have to answer them. Just something for you ponder"

"OK - fire away"

"Question 1 - If you KNEW you were going to die tomorrow would your outlook on today be any different? and Question 2 - Are you sure that you ARE going to be alive tomorrow?"

"Yeah!! Good one Steve." looks like Andy's woken up from his daydream of drinking "if I knew for sure I'm dying tomorrow I'd drink till tomorrow. Ha Ha Ha..."

I did give his questions some thought. Some serious thought. For the whole afternoon as a matter of fact.

I thought, what happens after death? You have a funeral, get put into the ground and life above ground goes on as if you had never existed. Then I thought 'is that all?'

Nah - it's not all. While the living carry on living, you are being judged by your creator on HOW you lived while you were there with them, while you were 'one of them'.

If I was CERTAIN that I'm going to die tomorrow what would I do different? I'd probably go home, get cleaned up read namaz, read Quran, read nafl, read more namaz, read more Quran. Praise the lord, the creator, the one who has given me health, wealth and all the rest. And I'll carry on doing this until the angel of death finally came to taky my soul out of my body. And even then I'll try to get out a few more words of ibadah.

Then I suddenly remembered his second question. "Are you sure that you ARE going to be alive tomorrow?"