Powerleveling

Martin was sitting at a desk, patiently and quietly waiting as the man sitting across from him scribbled notes out on a clipboard. To be honest, he didn't much remember how he'd gotten there - his memory more or less started in the seat. But the air around them had a feeling of importance and formality to it, and so he had sat and waited to see what was going to happen.

"Bit of a powerleveler, weren't you?" the man asked abruptly, without looking up from the clipboard. Martin blinked - the sudden words had almost sounded foreign to him, and he had no idea what the man was talking about.

"Powerlever?" he asked, uncertain of using his own voice.

"Yeah," the man replied, tapping at his notes with the back of his pen. "You seemed to have had quite the life - traveled all over the world, held a couple dozen jobs in a variety of different professions. Dated a lot of people. Never really settled down in any way, romantically or financially. You were a bit all over the place. Would be hard to believe that was an accident."

"That what was an accident? I had a lot of trouble in my life finding what I wanted to do, so I spent a lot of time just really exploring my options. A lot of people have to do that."

"Yes, but few are so... persistent about it. Did you know that you were three countries short of having visited ever country on the planet? There are very few who can say that. You could have written a book - doesn't matter how good your writing was, a story like that would have sold, no problem."

It was only then that Martin noticed that the man was talking in the past tense. There was a dull throbbing in the back of his head - why didn't this seem right?

"You know, most people don't even make it to level 2 when they come here. They'd have to have gotten lucky and really pushed it. But you... Man, you. You're gonna be level 5."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your experience, Martin. We bank it when you die, see where you end up in the afterlife. And you are jumping straight to level 5."