"Or is it the end? It's gotten more and more difficult to tell
one from the other lately.
"Anyways, it was a massive coronary. At least that's what I
assume it was. I wasn't a doctor and I wasn't even awake at
the time, so that's the best I can do for technical details.
I'm sure my wife now gloats to friends and family about how she
saw it coming for years and warned me to cut back on the fatty
foods and cholesterol, but personally, even after all I've been
through, I'd still rather die than jog.
"I didn't realize anything was different at first. I woke as
I usually did: groggy, tired and without any suspicion that I
was a dead man. Usually that was because I wasn't.
"In front of me in a blurry haze stood a short, unimposing man
in a small finely tailored gray suit. I went for my gun.
"'It's quite all right,' said the bored little man as I unloaded
smoking imaginary round after smoking imaginary round into his
drawn expressionless face. I looked at my empty hands. I had
failed to pick up the gun or even open the bedside drawer. My
hands passed right through them both as I tried again. My eyes
went to my wife of thirty years who lay sleeping soundly beside
my motionless body, her graying hair in pink curlers. I never
understood how she could sleep with those on.
"John Campbell,' said the man, holding a worn black leather
book gravely to his chest, 'You are dead.'
"I can't remember what I said, but I'm sure it was some sort of
question.
"'You are dead,' he said again. This seemed to answer at least
part of my question.
"He had a comfortingly neutral face with tiny soft-black empty
eyes that narrowed but never closed in on you. The corners of
his mouth scrunched up comically when he talked as if every
word were a really stupid joke and he had to grimace politely
so as not to offend himself.
"'Dead?' I said.
"The man nodded. I looked down at my body again. It was an
odd experience. In life you can see yourself in mirrors,
photographs and drawings, but you aren't really confronted with
how stupid you look until you're staring at yourself caught
mid-sleep by death, drooling heavily into the very early morning.
"'And you're... you're Death?'
"He shrugged non-commitally; something I had never pictured
Death doing. 'That is one of my names,' he said. He turned
away and said, 'This way,' as he walked off. I followed him.
"In a wave of his hand the room faded out and we were suspended
in a sea of blackness. No floor, no ceiling, no walls, no
sound. What looked like a neon blue movie screen sprung up in
front of us and was suddenly filled with familiar things.
Faces and images and places and feelings. It was very surreal,
like a silent music video. Fleeting, narrow pictures wound
around and past me, all lost in time until I realized I was
watching my own life. It was kind of like that feeling you get
while you're trying to figure out if you've seen the movie
you're watching before and if not, why you seem to know every
third bit of dialogue. It went through my birthdays, my
holidays, my ups and downs, the day I graduated from high
school, university, and my first day on the job with the firm
in New York.
"The perspective was odd; it was as though there was someone
standing just to the right and three steps ahead of me looking
back, watching the expressions of the peple I talked to, and
watching their faces as they walked away. I had a sense of
every feeling and more empathy for others at this time than I
cared to deal with.
"Looking back, I now feel slightly guilty for not feeling great
sadness, having looked upon my life for the very last time, but
instead I felt wide-eyed and excited and into something new.
Death is like Christmas for the soul.
"I'd lived a full life. As much to be thankful for as
regretful, and that seemed pretty good by my standards. I had
never been a religious man. I had never given religion much
thought, having been raised in a poor Irish Catholic home that
found things like the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit less
important than paying the bills each month and making sure
their kids got a good education. I supposed that's where my
parents got rid of their religious guilt, by sending me to a
Catholic school. But this far into my life I couldn't remember
very much of it. I knew the basics. Heaven or Hell or
Purgatory, depending on which Christian school of thought you
subscribed to.
"'Judgment,' said the little man. His voice wasn't impressive
at all and I had to pinch my finger to keep from grinning.
Death should have a much deeper and commanding voice, and maybe
a scythe. I always thought Death was supposed to have a
scythe. I waited anxiously as the man dropped his briefcase on
a table, opened it and pulled out a sealed envelope like they
have at the Academy Awards. It had a big red seal over the
back.
"He took his sweet time opening it, and I was anxious as
hell. 'Well, what is it?' I asked impatiently when he'd
finally pulled the little slip of paper out. 'Heaven?' I said
hopefully. His eyes didn't rise to meet mine, and I felt my
palms getting wet and my stomach turning as I reeled with
paranoia. I sank a little and said, 'Purgatory?' in a quiet
voice.
"'Maryland,' he said simply.
"It seems like I must have stood there with a stunned look on
my face for half an hour, but it could only have been a minute
or two. Finally I managed to say, 'You mean... in America?' in
a really confused voice.
"'No, no. It's not as though you murdered anyone.' He grinned
a little, and it didn't become him. 'No, this Maryland is in a
hat. Here, these are your tickets.'
"I stared at the gold embossed tickets he handed me. They had
tiny skulls and crossbones on them and a big pillowy word
balloon next to them that had "MARYLAND" written in it. I was
completely lost. I looked at him imploringly. 'What are these
for?'
"'Those are the mandatory rides,' he explained, though I was
still lost. 'Consider it penance for your sins.'
"I studied them a bit closer. 'But roller coasters make me
sick,' I said.
He shrugged. "'Then you should have went to Church more.'
"And then everything sank."
In a room that was almost entirely destroyed, Mary growled
through clenched teeth and hurled himself at a wall. "They're
on my rides!" he screamed as he collided with an intricately
crafted ming vase, shattering it into billions of pieces and
adding another layer of junk on the floor. It didn't even slow
him down for a second. "They're everywhere!" he cried,
clenching his fists. "RAAAAARRGH!!"
Maxine walked in, watched, in silence, Mary flopping around
like a seal with a harpoon in its back for a few minutes and
then asked the bunny, who was standing in the corner watching
all of this silently, a question. "What's his problem?"
"Some say he's just hyperactive," the bunny said, not taking
his eyes off Mary for a second. Now he was slamming his head
against an 17th century painting of a homely lady with her hair
tied back and a rose in her lap. "I'm siding more with the
idea that it's something altogether deeper and more troubling.
Some sort of psychological trauma that we're only just now
beginning to see the surface of."
Mary was trying to eat the painting now. He tore large
ambitious bites out of it, turning after each one to hiss at
them. He chewed as though the painting were his enemy. "BAD
PEOPLE!" he yelled through a full mouth. "BAD!" He had
difficulty swallowing.
"How long has he been doing this?" asked Maxine as though she
were at the zoo, watching a gorilla discovering its own renewed
sexuality.
The bunny checked his watch. "Four hours, maybe?" he said with
some uncertainty. "I don't know. I left for a drink somewhere
around the second hour and when I came back he was still at
it. In fact I think he may have moved some of the furniture
from another room in here while I was gone, because I was
pretty sure he had run out of things to break."
"He's still upset about all these people? Christ, it's been
four months."
They paused while they watched Mary walk out the door, scream
some sort of shrill battle cry at the top of his voice and then
run back through the room at top speed and smash completely
through the opposite wall, leaving a Mary-shaped hole in the
fake plaster. They heard another crash in the adjoining room.
They ran to his aid.
Admiral Theodore Holden's nipples, in over twenty years of
faithful and proud military service with Interdimensional Naval
Command in cooperation with the rest of his body, had never
been called upon to endure such pain. However this was a very
necessary distraction considering the stress and shall we say,
'uncomforts' other specific parts of his body were now
undergoing.
He'd given up trying to call for help. His jaw ached from the
black ball-gag in his mouth, his legs and arms were held firmly
in place, and a burning sensation at his wrists and ankles kept
him from struggling too hard. All had been darkness and quiet
for several months now. Feedings were random and seemingly
patternless but carefully executed with medical precision and
care. The thick silence he felt buried in was broken only
occasionally by distant words or sounds. In his time here, he
had heard many particularly strange noises which forced his
eyes wide with fear and anxiety, and sometimes there would be
both and he'd be left alone with his imagination to piece
everything together.
This was one of those times.
In the dimly lit hallway outside Elliot's room there was the
sound of a violent ebbing orgasm, coloured lights flashed out
from under the wooden door and there was the slight smell of
ozone. Doctor Benway approached slowly - as he usually did -
and knocked only when he hadn't heard anything remotely
passionate or squishy during a very slow count to ten.
"Come in," Elliot's mellowed voice answered, and Doctor Benway
allowed him a few courtesy moments to rustle away his
inflatable Mary Holiday doll with the gaping mouth, lusty eyes
and cynical but willing look about it. Only then did he enter,
keeping his eyes low although the shadows kept Elliot mostly
obscured; tails of smoke slithered out of the darkness now and
then.
"What would you like, doctor?" Elliot said.
"I was just wondering what your next commands are. We're just
drifting right now and I figured..."
Elliot pulled the sheets around his body as he got up and
walked over to extinguish his cigarette in an ashtray across
the room. "Yes," he said, mashing the filter down hard. "Did
you read that poem?"
"No, I assumed you'd want to be the first of us."
Elliot crawled back into bed, lay on his back and stared
dreamily into the Mary Holiday posters on his ceiling. "It's
brilliant," he said, rather flatly and without emotion.
Doctor Benway wondered at this. "Is something wrong with that,
captain?" Elliot's eyes startled him a little bit. "You don't
sound too excited is all I mean," he added.
"I'm just thinking is all," said Elliot. "Trying to figure out
our next move."
"Have you had any luck with the," he glanced over at the large
wooden crate in the corner of the room, "'coercion'?"
"Luck isn't anything I need for that right now, doctor."
Elliot clasped his hands behind his head. "I haven't even
tried yet. I'm just waiting for the right... mood." He licked
his teeth slowly, staring at the crate. "But anyway," he said,
snapping mostly out of it. "What is it you wanted again?"
"Commands."
"I want you to send out more flyers."
"Very well," said doctor Benway and he turned to leave.
"And set course for 1985, March twenty-first. There's a Luba
concert I've been meaning to go to for the past decade or so."
"As you wish."
The bunny sat in the waiting room of the medical emergencies
ward. He chain-smoked and took the occasional hit from a
mickey of whiskey he'd been keeping in his boot the past
month. He began to pace with worry, his stomach cramping
painfully from anxiety.
He heard a voice from the other room. "Auntie Em, Auntie
Em..." The bunny rushed to Mary's bedside, but he had already
collapsed unconscious again. A nurse had heard him as well and
came in. She adjusted the pillows under Mary's head and
smoothed the white sheets over his gaunt, motionless body. He
looked very small in the large white bed.
"He seems to be coming out of it," the nurse said in a trained
reassuring voice. "If he wakes up before I return and his head
still hurts, be sure to give him these," she said, and set a
prescription bottle on the tray by the side of the bed.
"What are they?" the bunny asked.
"Just some ordinary painkillers," she said. "They'll take the
pain away."
"I will," mumbled the bunny to himself after she had shut the
door. He looked around. There was another patient in the
room, but he was unconscious as well. The bunny picked up the
little brown bottle and turned it around in his paws, reading
the label before he slipped it into his front pocket and went
back to the waiting room. He tried to get a Coke out of the
vending machine but it stole his quarter.
When night came, Maxine had joined the now very comfortably
numb bunny in the waiting room. Mary had not yet awaken fully,
though they had both been assured repeatedly that he would soon.
"Feeling any better?"
"Yeah," said the bunny blankly. "I'm fine."
"You seem a bit calmer than earlier," she said.
"Yeah," said the bunny even more blankly. "I am."
The nurse walked past them and slipped into Mary's room.
"You know you don't have to wait here," Maxine said. "Why
don't you go get some rest? I'll wait up. We can switch in
the morning."
"Yeah," said the bunny. "Maybe that's a good idea. I should
sleep." He got slowly to his feet and wandered out the door,
having only minor difficulty with it.
"Shall I tell them you're awake?" asked the nurse.
"What? No way!" he turned to the man in the next bed and
grinned. "Tell them I'm dead. Or to go away. And when can I
get the hell out of here?"
The nurse frowned. "We're calling in a mood specialist to have
a look at you. Hopefully he'll be able to shed some light on
your condition."
"Fine, whatever," said Mary. "Go away. And next time you come
in here, you better have Jello. And it better be green."
The nurse muttered something under her breath as she left.
"Who are they?" asked the man in the other bed. He was a
middle-aged man with his bed sheets pulled up high around his
neck.
"Who?"
"The people she wanted to tell that you're awake."
Mary rolled his eyes. "Oh, God. You don't want to know them,
John. Really, you don't. They're even more annoying than I am."
"Hard to imagine," John said with a grin.
Mary smiled. "Yeah, but I'm serious. There's this giant
worried bunny who doesn't even have a name. We're just
supposed to call him 'bunny' or 'hey you' or something. Then
there's this woman I kidnapped who turned out to be a wanted
serial killer and now won't go away. It's so irritating," he
shivered.
"You seem to lead an exciting... death," John said with some
uncertainty.
"I'm impressed by how often people mistake annoying things
with exciting ones. How did you get here, anyhow?"
"Back spasms."
"It were a journey like the path to heaven,
To help you find them."
- John Milton
|
"No, not the hospital. The hat. Maryland."
"You really want to know?"
Mary must have hit his head particularly hard. "Yes," he said.
"Well, I guess I'll just start at the beginning then..."
|
