In the Afterlife

            by Theo Wilson

 

            The park was quiet and cold and the lone figure was making his way down the tree-lined path.  He walked quickly, for he knew that he would be late, his long jacket falling past his legs, billowing in the wind.  He wore black gloves, and held tightly to the bag under his arm.  He paused only when he arrived at the small clearing at the center of the park and looked around him in a furtive manner.  There was another man in the clearing, sitting on a park bench by a children’s play structure.  The man in the long jacked approached him.

“You’re late, Dennis,” said the stout man sitting patiently on the park bench..

“Am I?” Dennis glanced quickly down at his wrist.  “Oh, I am indeed, and by twenty minutes.  I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Marty.”

“Not at all, Dennis.”  Marty stood as Dennis walked hastily toward him.  “I—Dennis, what on earth are you wearing?”

Dennis’ face took on a hurtful expression as he spread his arms and looked down at his clothes.  “What are you talking about?  You told me to wear my favorite clothes!”

“No, my misguided friend, I told you to wear your best clothes.”

“Ah, well these are certainly my best clothes.  This tie—it’s Egyptian silk.  It’s the one Cindy’s mother gave me for my last birthday.”

“Oh but it is the tie that is giving me trouble, Dennis.  I have no doubt that it is of superb quality, but I don’t think that it is quite… appropriate, given the circumstances.”

“How so?”

“This is a rather somber event, as you know.  Your tie… it’s yellow, and a particularly cheerful tone of yellow at that—quite unfitting.”

“Well I am generally a very cheerful fellow, and I happen to be quite fond of the color.  And why does it matter so much to you?”

“It doesn’t, it just… well anyway, we should get started.  It’s getting late.  Okay, checklist…” Marty fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled and baldly stained piece of binder paper.  “Number one, proper attire… ehem, number two, personal notes.”

“Check,” Dennis nodded in confirmation.

“You wrote to Cindy, I assume?”

“Yeah, you?”

“My mother, of course.  Three; whisky,” and Marty pulled out a bottle, full of a dark amber alcohol, “check.  Okay, that leaves number four; guns.  Check.”

“Um, about that, Marty…”

“You forgot your gun?”

“No of course not.”  Dennis reached into his bag and pulled out a silver revolver.  “It’s right here.  The thing is, I don’t have any bullets.”

“No bullets?  So you were expecting to simply throw the gun, then?”

“It’s not my fault!  Cindy found my bullets and, well, she took them away.”

“Ha!  This is great.  Your wife hid your bullets?”

“Yes, though to be honest, she was in her right to be mad.  I was so excited last night that I got up in the middle of the night and started to shoot at things from my back window.  My wife’s a pretty light sleeper, so when I started firing off into the night from our bedroom, she got a little— well you know women.”

“So that’s when she took your bullets?”

“Well, I went to bed but about thirty minutes later, Mrs. Firlik, you know, the woman with the hunched shoulders and the rank breath, well she showed up at my front  door, carrying a dead cat.  I was quite irritated to be woken up—this was at three in the morning, mind you—but Mrs. Firlik is old, and I didn’t want to upset her, so I talked to her and didn’t mention once how rude it was to wake someone up at that hour.  I then spent the next half hour trying to explain that the animal obviously died of natural causes, while Mrs. Firlik was yelling and screaming in that shrill voice of hers about bullet holes in her garden shed, and exit holes, and whatnot, and she finally demands that I buy her a new cat.  So while Mrs. Firlik and I were arguing over the current market value of three-year-old tabbies, my wife snuck off and hid my bullets.”

“Ah, I see.  So why didn’t you just buy new bullets?”

“I can’t!  Cindy got to them first, the gun shops.  Every store in town, it’s the same thing, “Oh hi Mr. Pierce… What’s that Mr. Pierce?… You want to buy bullets Mr. Pierce?… I’m sorry Mr. Pierce, I can’t sell you bullets… Yes, your wife did call… Because she frightens me, Mr. Pierce… Your wife told me you’d say that…  No, I won’t accept your money… No, I won’t accept that either… Have a good day, Mr. Pierce”

“So?  Surely, you have a plan?”

“Of course… I was planning to borrow them from you.”

“I see—and if refuse?”

“I thought of that, and I brought this.”  Dennis reached back into his side bag and retrieved another gun. 

“What’s this?  Is that a pellet gun?”

“Um, yes, it is.”

“You’re joking… can I hold it?” 

“I suppose.”  Dennis handed the pellet gun to Marty, “But be sure to be careful with it… I borrowed it from one of the neighborhood kids, and I had to promise not to break it.  He’d have a fit if it didn’t come back in one piece.”

“Don’t worry… so how do you work it?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s just like a regular gun.  Point and shoot.”

“Like this?”  Marty pointed the pellet gun at Dennis’ leg, and pulled the trigger.

“Ow!  That hurt!”

“Well this won’t do… Look, it didn’t even pierce the skin!”

“You’re a bastard.”

“Good thing I brought extra bullets then.”  Marty put the pellet gun down on the park bench, safely out Dennis’ vengeful reach.  “So this is the plan,” Marty said as he pulled out his own gun and a box of bullets from a small bag at his side.  “We’re going to drink our last drink, load our guns, and then on the count of three—blam. Sound good?”

“Well step one sounds good…” Dennis pulled two shot glasses from Marty’s bag and filled each one from the bottle.  “To a happy end.”  Dennis took up one of the glasses, and handed the other to Marty.

“Cheers,” Marty said, and they both took their shots.

            “So, are you ready to do this or what?”

            Marty was already refilling his glass.  “Not quite yet, my friend.  Shot?”

            “Cheers.  Tell me something, Martin.  Since we’re becoming so intimate with the issue, what do you think death is like?”

“Death…?  I don’t know.  I’ve never really given it much thought.”

“Now would be a good time to start.”

“It’s just that I’ve always seen death as something reserved for the old and the poor.”

“But you are old.  And you’re not rich either; you don’t even own a car.”

“I am not old.  I’m at the height of my middle age, and I live quite comfortably.  The fact that I ride a bike is more a mark of my environmental stance, not an indication of—“

“—shot?”

“Yes, thank you.  Oh yes, it’s not an indication of my financial means.”

“Say what you will, you still live with your mother.”

“She lives with me!”

“Whatever.  How’s step one *urrp* how’s step one going?”

“We’ve still got a half bottle left. So I think,” Marty said, corking the bottle and putting it back in his bag, “That we’ve had enough.”

“Stop?  There’s like ten ounces left!

“Well, you can drink more if you feel like it, but I’ve had enough.  The stuff’s expensive, mind you.  Unless you would like to contribute toward replacing my bottle, I suggest that we save the rest for later.”

“Later?”

“Yeah, for after  we…  Oh.  Right.  That could be a problem.”

“So finish it now?”

“No.  I would hate to, in some inebriated state, do this wrong and have to try it again.”

            Marty quickly loaded and cocked his gun.  Dennis took the bullet from Marty, and looked intensely at the bullet chamber.  “Um…” he said, I don’t think this is the right bullet.” 

            “Don’t be absurd.  Doesn’t it fit?”

            Dennis placed the bullet into the chamber.  “Kind of.  It doesn’t fit all the way though.”

            “Oh, that’s fine.”  Marty looked at Dennis’ gun.  “It’s supposed to look like that.  It should work fine.  I think.”  He took up his own gun.  “Let’s do this then.”

Dennis took up his gun.  “Yeah.  Sure.”

            Marty placed the gun against his temple.  “On three.”

            “Okay.  On three.”

            “One.  Two.”

Dennis shut his eyes tightly and gripped his gun.

 “Three!”

            *click*

            Dennis opened his eyes. 

            “Well look at that… Looks like your gun didn’t go off.  HA!”

            “Haha, that is kinda fun—WAIT A MINUTE!”  Dennis shot an accusing glare at Marty.  “You didn’t even squeeze the trigger!”

            “I was going to!  I swear! I… I wanted to make sure that your gun was working properly.  I was just looking out for you.  And good thing too!  Imagine if I had pulled the trigger!  That would have been awkward.”

            “You’re awful Marty, honestly.  What kind of man chickens out on his own suicide?”

            “You didn’t shoot yourself either!  For all I know, you purposely sabotaged your own gun!”

            “It’s not my gun, it’s your bullets!”

            “What’s wrong with my bullets?”

            “They’re too big!  Dammit, they won’t fit!”

            “Well here, give it to me.”  Marty took the gun from Dennis, and expected the bullet.  Then he expected the hole it was supposed to fit into.  “Well here’s your problem, Dennis, your hole is too small!”

            “Your bullet is too big!”

            “Let’s not make this about me.”  Marty thought for a second, and then he returned Dennis his gun.  “Now hold this steady, Dennis.  Both hands on the gun.”  Marty took up the bullet in one hand and fitted it over the chamber.  Holding the bullet in place, he brought his own gun over his head, and delivered a heavy swing down on the bullet with the handle of his revolver.  The force of the blow nearly tore the gun from Dennis’ hands, but he held on to its barrel.

            “Did it go in?”

            “A little.  Lemme try that again.” 

Dennis held onto the gun tightly with both hands. 

“Higher, Dennis.”

Dennis, still holding onto the gun by its barrel, raised it above his head.

“Good.  Great.  Now hold steady…”

            Marty, still holding his gun, hammer fashion, jumped into the air and brought the gun’s handle down.  Upon impact, the bullet ignited and shot through the barrel of Dennis’ gun, and straight through a small portion of Dennis’ right ear.

            “Ouch!” Dennis yelped.

            “We did it!”  Marty beamed.  “Or I did it.  You see that Dennis?  I told you I could do it.”  Marty, as if seeing the stream of red blood from Dennis’ ear for the first time, said, “Dennis, your ear!  You’re bleeding!”

            “Yeah?  That’s because you shot me!”

            “I shot you?!  Surely, you are mistaken!  Look, you are the one holding the gun!”

            “But you were the one who hit it!”

            “I see no connection between that and your injuries.”

            “You fool!  You hit it, and it shot me!”

            “You have no proof of this.”

            “Proof?!  Here, let me shoot you!”

            “What?!  Why?”

            “It’s only fair.”

            Marty, in a moment of fear, stepped backward until his back came in contact with something hard and cold.  Before Marty could duck safely behind the row of red and green plaster toadstools, Dennis grabbed the pellet gun and quickly shot Marty in his ear.

            “Oww!”  Marty clasped his hand over his ear.  “That hurt!  A lot!  And—is it bleeding?!  No?  Well, it feels like it should be!  I mean really… ouch.  Honestly, you should be careful with that thing.  It’s like a weapon.”  He brought his hand away from his head and offered out to Dennis.  “So then we’re even?”

            “Not exactly, Marty.”

            “What?  You big baby!  It’s not even that bad.  Mine’s much worse,” Marty said,  “It still stings.”

            Dennis took his yellow tie off his neck, and began bandaging it around his head.  “So what do we do now?”

            “Well, how about I shoot you, and then you shoot me?”  Marty suggested.

            “Marty, either you didn’t think that suggestion through properly before you said it,” Dennis said, “or you want me to shoot you so that you are alive and suffering long enough for you to take the gun, load it, and shoot me back.”

            “Well… what if I do?”

            “Okay, well mind if I go first?”

            “Heavens no!”

            “What then?”

            “Well, we can both just kill ourselves.”

            “What, so you just chicken out on me again?”

            “Okay, how about you come up with a plan!”

            “Here’s what’s gunna happen.  You are going to shoot me, somewhere quick and pain-free, and then you are going to shoot yourself.”

            “What?  How is that any different?”

            “Because if the gunman chickens out, then it’s homicide!  The plan’s flawless.”

            “So who’s the shooter?”

            “Oh, well you can shoot me if you want.”

            “What?!  Why you?  I should be the one getting shot.  You know I deserve it!”

            “True as that may be, I think we should flip for it.”  Dennis pulled a nickel from his pocket.  “Call it, winner gets shot.

            “Heads err.  Tails!  Tails!”

            “Heads.  Sorry, Marty.”

            “It’s okay.”

            Marty held his gun up to Dennis’ head.  “Last words?”

            “Yes I—er wait!  Not in the head!”

            Marty pulled the gun away from Dennis’ head.  “Not in the head?  Why not?”

            “I want to have an open casket!  You can’t do that with a hole in your head!”

            Marty pointed the gun at Dennis’ chest.  “You weren’t complaining about this a second ago!  Whatever.  Your call.”

            “No, wait!”

            “Yes?”

            “Is this going to hurt?”

            “I expect so, yes.”

            “What if I don’t die at first?  That would be really awful!  And this suit!  It’s—“

            “Dennis, are you bailing?” 

            “No!  Not on the principle, at least.  It’s just that, well, can’t we do something a little cleaner?”

            “Cleaner?”

            “What about Morphine?”

“Why morphine?”

“Well, you know my cousin Samson?”

“The one with the cute daughter?”

“No, that’s Samuel.  Samson is the one with the lazy eye.  Anyway, last summer, when his wife pushed him out their bedroom window, the doctors put him on a drip of morphine.  So there he was, laying in his hospital bed, when in comes his wife to finish the job.  Except this time, she just pumps up the morphine!  The doctors stopped it, of course, but Samson said it was the best near-death experience of his life.  He never forgave the hospital for turning the stuff off.

            “And how do we get the morphine?”

            “That’s the brilliant part!  All we have to do is get hurt, and then they pump us full of it for free!”

            “Get hurt?  How hurt?”

            “Well, a little more than a sprain, but nothing too bad.  Maybe if we shoot ourselves in the foot?”

            “No more shooting, please.”

            “Okay then.  Well what if we jumped off something.  Like something really tall.  Like that tree there!”

            “Oh, I can’t climb that.  I’m all thumbs.  I’d probably fall.”

            “I can’t see anything else to jump off of from here… How about we climb up this structure to get a better view.”

            “Why not just jump off that?”

            “The play structure?  You don’t think it’s a little low?”

            “Low?  I assure you, it is not.  It only looks low from here because we’re on the ground.  Once we’re up top, looking down, it will look much higher.”

            “That makes enough sense.  Shall we?”

            The two men gathered their belongings into their packs and began to climb, ever so slowly, up the play structure.  Once he reached the peak, Dennis stopped and looked down at the playground. “This looks a little high.” 

“Isn’t that the point?”

“Well, yes and no.  I do believe that our goals could be achieved from much, um, lower heights.”

“Hmm.  You see, Dennis, it all depends on technique.”

“Technique?”

“Yes.  You know trajectory and all that complicated stuff.  Look, basically,  it depends on how you fall and, more importantly, how you land.”

“How so?”

“Well, if you happen to land head- or neck-first, then you would surely die—“

“Which is not what we want.”

“—no, it is not.  However, if you were orient your body so that you land feet-first, you would likely only break your leg.”

“Sounds painful.”

“It does, but I am confident that the rest of our fine whisky will remedy any pain we might feel as a result of our contact with the ground, as well as mitigate any lingering doubts we may have as to the brilliance of our plan.”

“First things first—I need to urinate.” 

“Here?”

“I would go down, only I can’t quite remember how we got here.  I’m afraid I would get horribly lost if I tried to find my way back.”

“Very well.  Go already.”

“I can’t.  Not when someone’s looking.”

“Well I can’t close my eyes.  Not while this climbing contraption we’re on is spinning like it is.”

“Then look away, at least.”

“Fine.  Wow, we certainly have a view from up here…”

“What?  Oh yeah.”

“Hmm.  You done yet?”

“Um.  No.  I’m having a little trouble.”

“Trouble?  You’re a grown man, Dennis.  You shouldn’t have any trouble with this sort of thing.”

“Not what I mean.  The zipper—it’s stuck!”

“Stuck?!”

“Stuck.  Do me a favor.  Hold me.”

“Dennis, I don’t know what you’re getting at, but this is hardly the time nor the place to—“

“No, you idiot.  Just hold onto my belt while I figure this out.  I don’t want to fall.”

“Are you decent?”

“Yes.  More or less.  Just do it.  It’s cold out.  And windy.”

“Okay.”

“Almost… Marty, you are holding onto the structure, aren’t you?”

“Well no, I’m not.  You told me to hold onto your belt, and that’s exactly what I’m doing!”

“Well that’s stupid.  One of us has to hold onto the railing!”

“Well my hands are a little tied right now.  It’s gotta be you.”

“I see your point, and I will.  But first, the liquor.”

            Dennis reached into his bag and produced what was left of the liquor.  “Looks like we’ve still got a bit left.”  Dennis wrapped one of grubby hand around the cork and pulled hard to remove it.  “Damn it, Marty.  You put the cork in too far.  It’s stuck!”

            “First the zipper, now the cork.  Just wiggle it.”

            But just then the bottle slipped from Dennis’ hands.  And then it happened: Dennis, his actions driven by impulse, dove head first after the bottle.  Marty, his hands still locked around Dennis’ belt, was soon to follow him.

•           •           •

Dennis opened his eyes.  “Marty, are we dead?”

“I’m not sure.”  Marty said, sitting up in the sand box and shaking dust from his hair.  “What’s supposed to happen?”

“I’ve never actually known anyone who’s been dead, and I’ve certainly never died… I suppose we may be dead.”

“Well, I must say that I expected something a little more extravagant.  You know, horns and gates and clouds and that sort of stuff.  Do I look dead?”

“You do look a little pale.  Do you feel dead?”

“I suppose.”

“Then it’s settled,” Dennis said, jumping up in excitement.  “We’re dead!”

 “Fantastic!  So now what?”

“I don’t know.  Not knowing what to expect, I didn’t have time to properly plan out our after-death experience.”

Marty got to his knees and climbed out of the sandbox.  “You know, I would really love to go show my mother!  She was the one who told me that I can’t do anything right, and I quote, ‘probably couldn’t even kill myself if I tried’—I’ll show her!.”

“My friend, now that we are spirits of the um, otherworld, I do believe that we can be neither be seen nor heard by the living.”

“Is that so…  Well that’s too bad.  I guess mother will find out eventually.  I only wish I could surprise her..  So nobody can see us?”

“No.  Not unless they’re dead, I suppose.”

“So if we were to, say, walk around town, we’d be completely invisible?”

“Correct.”

“And if we were to, say, wander into the rec center locker rooms and—“

“Marty!”

“What?!  All I’m suggesting is that we learn to take advantage—err cope with our situation.”

“That’s still completely unethical…” 

So engrossed in their conversation, and convinced of their invisible-spirit status, the two men missed the arrival of a third character.  The girl, tall for her age with short-cut brown hair and green eyes, sat on top of a green plaster toadstool, and watched.

“I suppose we could try looking in,” Dennis began, “but only as an experiment.”

“Of course,” Marty corroborated, “science demands it.”

“Indeed.  We must, by trial, see where and how far and where we can travel.”

            The girl, stood, brushing the dust off her flowery skirt, and jumped down next to Marty and Daniel. 

            “Whatcha doin dad?”

            Both men jumped with a start.  “Lucy!  You scared me to death,” Dennis said, clutching his chest and feigning a look of terror.

            “Sorry dad…”

            “It’s all right dear.  Marty and I were just—“ And then the horrible realization hit Dennis.  “Marty,” Dennis hissed.  “Marty, I need to speak to you.”  And then to the girl, “Just a minute, dear.”

            “What’s the problem?”  Marty asked.

            “What’s the problem?  She can see us!  And hear us!  Plain as day!”

            “Oh.  Oooooh.  That’s bad.”

            “Yes, Marty.  That means that…”

            “My god!  She must be dead too!”

            “Yes.  There’s no other explanation.”

            “The poor girl…”

            “My poor girl.”  Dennis moved to wipe away a tear that was forming in his eye, but then stopped.  “You know what this means though…  It means that neither of us will ever have to deal with that dreadful wench again—“

            “Your wife?”

            “Yes.  So should we tell her now or let her find out on her own?”

            “Let her find out on her own.  I’ve read that exposing these kinds of things at the wrong moment can have unpredictable and even dangerous affects on your child’s emotional development.  From personal experience, when my mom told me that I was —“

            “And you turned out good… enough.  I think I’ll tell her.  Might as well get it over with.  And besides, if I don’t do it now I’m likely to just keep forgetting to tell her or to keep putting it off.  Lucy!”

            “Dad?”

            “Lucy, there’s something I have to tell you.  I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but it’s best that you hear it from me.”

            “What are you talking about?”

            “She doesn’t even know!”  Marty whispered, frantically.  “In the books I read, the authors suggest that it is useful to ease the child into—“

            “Why are you reading these books, Marty?  You don’t have kids.  And I doubt anyone would ever let you adopt theirs. I don’t even let you baby sit my girl.”

            “That’s mean, Dennis.  I’m trying to be helpful.”

            “You’re right, Marty, I’m sorry.  This whole thing, it’s just come as a bit of a shock to me.  I was prepared—excited even—for my retirement from the living, but I didn’t expect my daughter to follow me so soon!  Tell me, Lucy, how did it happen?  How did you… get here?”

            “Mom sent me here,” Lucy replied.

            “Mom?” 

            “She wouldn’t…  That’s awful!”  Dennis exclaimed in horror.

            “Her own mother…  I hadn’t thought Cindy was capable of such a thing!”

            “Don’t be surprised, Marty.  That woman’s the devil.”

            “Dad?  Are you talking about mom?  You know she doesn’t like it when you call her that.  She says its mean.”

            “Oh, daddy didn’t mean that.  That’s just the way grown ups talk sometime.”

            “Okay.  So mom’s over there by the swings,” Lucy said, pointing toward a very irate looking woman leaning against a row of swings on the far end of the park.

            “The whore,” Dennis cursed, smiling and waving a hand toward his wife at the far end of the park.  The woman returned his greeting with a cold glare.  “I can’t believe it!  She followed me too!  It wasn’t enough to send me her daughter, but she had to come personally to torment me!”  Then looking down at Lucy, “Not to say, of course, that you are any source of torment…”

            “Actually, we were here first,” Lucy corrected.  “We’ve been watching you two fool around all day.  I think you’re funny, daddy.  Momma just thinks you’re drunk.”

            Dennis turned back toward Marty.  “Did you hear that, Marty?  ‘They came here first!’  Unless our powers of observation failed us, that would explain why we didn’t see them when we first arrived.  I was already free of the witch!  And then we just had to go ahead and join her by falling off that damn… jungle gym.”

            “It certainly is ironic.”

            “And none of it is lost on me.  Well, my friend, c’est la vie.  What now?”

            “I don’t know, although I must say that I am sorely disappointed with this afterlife.”

            “Perhaps we shall try again?  I don’t know what the next afterlife is like, but I’m sure it’s better than this one.”

            “Then it’s settled.”  Marty agreed.  “Same time tomorrow?”

            “Agreed.  Shall we say… noose, this time around?”

            “It’s worth a shot.”  Marty said. 

            With renewed hope, Dennis took his daughter’s hand and walked toward his angry wife.  “And Dennis,” Dennis turned around.  “Your turn to bring the whisky.