Long Live Death: Welcome To The Afterlife Read online

  2

  I hurried to get my things in order. I didn’t know what to take. I wasn’t a field man, I was totally unprepared for this operation that had me sweating to understand how I was going to cut the suicide rate of life-forms in the entire Universe by half or less starting with a series of interviews. This was my third month on the job, for crying out loud. I also had to come back to my office each day and work with goddamn Krell as my assistant. Was Death trying to jeopardise my job and if so, why now? He could have done it in the first few months I was in office or even before so I didn’t even need to get this deep into Death’s political circuit.

  It was monsoon season and the mosquitos were intolerable. Where a few months back I only had to slap away a handful I had requistioned three electric bats (because I keep breaking them as I hit the sides of my chair and table to catch the quitos) and was jedi-knighting (oh the wonderful human memory) my way as more than eighty or so mosquitoes met their demise. It was bloody annoying to work, pack, think, worry and be afraid while at the same time fighting to keep control of stress. I have so many bites on my arms I look like a druggie. Well, it’s exercise I guess, I do lead a sedentary life sitting at my desk for hours on end. But still—zap!—this is absolutely no way to—those are my books, papers...zatt!—work being a courtier—my favorite memorabilia, my pen, zoot!—of Death.

  Strangely I started to understand how something that happens in the world outside sooner or later comes into our lives, much like these mosquitos that grew in pools of water somewhere outside and, here in the comfort and relative security of my office, have found a way to come and partake of my afterlife.

  “Tsk tsk tsk, are all you courtiers this high strung?” I raised my head and caught sight of a woman walking toward me. My office is big but not so much so that I had a corridor of my own like His Majesty. Mine was the corner office and as such connected multiple offices in the Department of Reallocation. The one corridor that linked them all ended in a gigantic set of crystal doors that led into the throne room. She had walked three-fourth of the way and from the tone of her voice didn’t wish to stay long. The entire space, with all its showpieces and furniture, even the large mirror and wall clock, bent outward like it succumbed to a space-time warp. Everything returned to normal when she passed a certain distance away from it but the area she walked through warped in the same way, leaving the sight of her clear and even more distinct.

  I was in a partial state of shock because this woman had the same height as His Majesty but was so effervescent in beauty that I couldn’t believe my eyes didn’t burn in my sockets as they took her in. When she spoke, it felt like she sang to me, just me, alone with her in a paradise of her making with nothing but possibility for the two of us. Her magic, for I couldn’t find any other word for it, was sublime beyond my wildest dreams. Lady Life stood in my office.

  “I was told to come to you, Helidon, for all matters concerning soul recompense. Of course, you know what that means, you of all people.”

  I replied, but my mouth seemed to have sealed shut. I repeated my line and this time made sure I spoke it out loud. “Your Supremeness, this is an unexpected honor. I haven’t prepared anything to properly welcome you, my lady.” I bowed after I gained control of movement. Part of the office around her was warped and I spotted one more thing I needed to add to my pack stashed away behind a few books that I could only now see because space was twisted.

  “I received news that you are finally getting ready to put a stop to all these suicides, unwanted deaths that your King has no right to claim when they left my realm before their time.”

  How did she come to know that? It was but ten minutes ago when I was with King Death. I clenched my jaw in assent.

  “I’d like to see how you go about accomplishing this, Helidon. I’m sure your king would’ve told you that as Reincarnator it is your job to see to it that souls who have unfairly taken their lives shouldn’t be reincarnated unless they’ve worked off their punishment. You’re aware that his bill is increasing—well, not you but the finance and funding department.”

  “How can I help you, my lady?”

  “Conclude pending payments by this weekend. I will not stand for such delay. You send the financers proof of reincarnation-approval and they will take care of the fund transfers.”

  She turned round and walked away. As much as I was upset by her visit, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her sashaying hips. I could see why Death followed her everywhere she went.

  I finished packing what I needed and turned to leave the office. The air conditioning did little to ease the heat or dissuade the mosquitoes.

  “I’ll have your papers ready for you when you get back.” That horrible voice. He’d come in from the side entrance.

  “You’ll address me as sir, Krell. This is work not your childish attempts at bullying.” He did little to hide a chuckle. “What’s so funny?” I tried to sound as acerbic as I could but from his reaction I’d apparently failed to communicate that.

  “I was just thinking of an ironic joke...sir,” he said and made his way to my desk as if I’d asked him to.

  There was no point throwing more stones at this lousy dog from the Polaria life-system. I left Krell, that stinking piece of farkushta, to carry out his assistant duties, which I was sure he would do everything in his power to jumble, obfuscate, and complicate.

  3

  I stepped out of the sound proofed chambers to a veritable cacophony of sounds. Traffic mixed with torrential rains. Far throw from the mild meditative music that played in the background when I sat in my office. As deja vu is known to sneak up when least expected, the music and rain reached deep into my memory and fished out a time when I was human living in a body on a farm. No matter how hard I tried detaching myself from my humanity, my soul expands emotions and it did the same to this memory.

  It had to do with why I committed suicide. I had a wonderful family who cared for me, sacrificed plenty to keep the farm going in times of economic and personal financial crisis. However, when dad succumbed to drinking after mom passed away from high blood pressure, the double guilt of being a son who couldn’t afford medicine let alone treatments for her took me down a dark path. Instead of doing the sensible thing and listening to music, taking up drugs or booze, why even entering a life of crime I instead leaped off a cliff in my despair and guilt. I still chose the need to die milliseconds before my head hit the rocks below.

  I didn’t have mom’s strength, I couldn’t carry on suffering and hoping to survive. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t go on living on a prayer that would never be answered because all I saw when I lived as a human being was the lack of justice. Where there was law and order, it was designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. I remember asking a friend of mine if we could ever change the world. I didn’t agree with him at the time when he’d said the world is too far gone for that.

  I stood there staring at the rain. I had managed to unfurl an umbrella. The road chokd on traffic but not the automobile kind, those were reserved for summer. His Majesty King Death ordained that horse drawn carriages, buggies and hansoms come out on rainy days because when the horses sullied the road with digested waste the rains would wash it away, and the thick moisturized air won’t be tainted by the smoke and fossil fuel of cars and trucks. The bill was passed a few decades ago. I recall cheering for the unmatched laziness of the civil works department.

  People walked on the road so filled with water that it looked like a river had broken its banks. Didn’t they realize? Like fish swum in the same realm they defecated in, these people walked in water carrying the droppings of horses. They spat, urinated on the side of the road and didn’t bother to respect the fact that they did it all before the grand building that housed their King and in their own dimension for crying out loud. Death didn’t care less, he had a nice scented space to call his own and wings to fly up and over his stinking mess of a kingdom. Long live Death indeed for he doesn’t have to worry about any
of the soul-crippling illnesses that affect the common people. Yes, even as souls we are prone to ailments and medical cases. Just like our souls can remember and feel emotions so too can they fall prey to diseases that rum rampant in the afterlife; but these ailments aren’t critical.

  My aunt was right to be pessimistic, ‘slipper ourselves for believing that life could be any better. Same shit, different day.’ I turned and walked along the secluded corridor just inside the walls of government building alpha. It was sultry and chilly at the same time. The climate only made me sweat and hold my umbrella fast against the breeze. It was stronger in this long cylindrical pathway made of dull cement and painted garishly red, flaking in most places to gave the impression that I walked along a rotting intestinal lane.

  I reached 32 Moldo Street, along the west side of government building alpha. I could see beta on the opposite side of the road, carrying the baton of order that King Death had set into place aeons ago. I hailed a hansom and saw it rush toward me. The cabby probably hadn’t earned much for the day, judging by his desperate need to reach me before I changed my mind. Water splashed on my boots as he pulled the horse to a stop and stared at me to get in. Traffic choked this street too but being a one-way it ran more smoothly than the one I’d seen earlier.

  “The Human Quadrant, and please go slow.” I hate fast vehicles, they frighten me. Not the sight of them—I think fast cars and bikes let alone swift horses are admirable—but I’m terrified of speed. Don’t like it, makes my heart beat too fast and I start to feel prickly when I sweat. Thankfully the cabby obliged my request but he did speed up every now and again. In his impatience, he ran a red light even as buses—which were the only permitted engine-driven vehicles in rainy season—came right at him. I thought I would regurgitate my heart, it came that far up my throat.

  More than twenty minutes passed and I thought he’ll pull another action-hero stunt on me but my goodness he stopped and shouted ‘We’re here’ as if I was hard of hearing. We’d left central government boundaries and had entered one of seventy-three quadrants. He spoke in the common tongue, English, which was also the official language of State. I got down and had to bargain with this human. He said the original price was insufficient because of traffic that forced him to take a new and longer route. I said that that had nothing to do with me, he could’ve waited in traffic like other normal cabs did. He swore, I showed him my Reincarnator badge, he whimpered and gave me a discount. I grinned, paid, beamed and marched away.

  Suffice to say I took myself by surprise when I stopped mid-beam and stared into emptiness. It didn’t rain here but my mood was fast becoming a grey and cloudy one. Who was I supposed to meet in the Human Quadrant? Afraid that I would lose my job and office because I might have upset the king, fearful that I’d lost his favor which was why he sent me to this forsaken place, I hadn’t asked him whom I was supposed to meet here. He didn’t deign to tell me either—then again, he is King, he doesn’t have to tell me—but I should have asked. I’m practically lost; I was supposed to get room and board from my contact. I didn’t carry enough money for lodgings and an expense fund will only be wired tomorrow when I checked back into office to sign a requistion form. It was policy, money shall be asked only after the mission has been given a preliminary deadline of completion. I was here to estimate just that. This is bad. I patted my pockets. I wasn’t important enough for a hand-phone yet and I couldn’t find a landline anywhere. I made a slow turn on the side of the road.

  The currency of the realm affected all life-system quadrants in this government-city. It was a strange kind of money in that it wasn’t money at all. It was a credit-point system. Everyone had to pull their weights no matter what their personal troubles, problems or inabilities. How much weight we pulled was converted into credits or points based on the Measure of Effort, designed by Death himself. Everyday after I leave the office I punch in my credits based on work done. Every project or task has a special number to represent it. This is its credit worth. I inputted that and the person who sent me that project has to punch my id number in along with the apt number of credits for each task. This way there are two witnesses to the same transfer. Combined with Death’s powerful ability to read souls we can’t both of us escape, at least not for too long, if we played any mischief with the numbers. Immediate Existence Extinguish awaits the soul caught lying to Death. Nobody ever wanted to test that. When I paid the cabby I put in the numbers on his credit-register and he did the same. The amount was digitally transferred into his account from mine, passing through the Central Credit Record Office.

  I hadn’t anyone to pay me. My hopes sat in a mosquito-infested office while I stood here in the humid air, no second witness to authorize fund transfer. I was therefore broke. ‘When lost in a city, head for its bar’, uncle’s words. After more than half a lifetime and a successful suicide attempt, I was only now heeding it. I crossed the road to ask for directions from the only person I could see on the entire street. The homeless man had a cardboard shelter over his head and to the sides, boxing him in, giving him the appearance of a courier package that nobody wanted.

  “Which way to the bar?” I asked the man in as rude a manner as I could. I once believed in politeness to the less priviliged but only a handful of them are truly worth the time. The rest of them are far ruder than I’ll ever be, manipulate you so they can get credits to buy drink, and won’t hesitate to do drugs and carry a weapon with the intention to rob hapless passersby. If I see this homeless man is good at heart, I’ll gladly change my tune and pay the man something he can use to eat the next day. Even the homeless had credit registers so they could earn a scrap every now and again. But if he is as rotten as most of them, then my rough and tough approach will have dicouraged him from messing with me. That was the working theory anyway, which fell apart in the blink of an eye when he grabbed everything he owned and threw them at me, cardboard box, tin cans, sharp things I couldn’t see in order to name and a large stone.

  I just remember shielding myself—except I couldn’t deflect the stone that bruised me under my right eye—and running. “I’m the Reincarnator! I’m the Reincarnator!” was all I could blurt out to make the bloke stop but he didn’t care, I could be the Shah of Yalna and he still wouldn’t give a damn. The road was slippery and when I tried to stretch my foot a bit too ambitiously to reach the raised pavement, I slipped on the slick edge and fell on the gutter strip. The rusted grill gave and both my legs fell into the sewer stream. I was still shouting for the man to stop as he came at me with what looked like a baseball bat. When my legs sploshed into the sewer, some of the liquid went into my mouth. I was now spitting, my mind showed me horses, and at the same time I was demanding him to recognize me. “I’m the Reincarnator, you ignorant piece of moolameesa! This is treachery!” A light came on in the adjoining apartment. A lower-floor door banged opened followed by the main entrance and out came this walrus of a man wielding a baseball bat of his own. The homeless feller saw he was unmatched and scuttled away into his alley as the stranger helped me to my feet.

  “Are you alright, sir?”

  “Politeness lives!” I exclaimed in a forced whisper. “I didn’t aim to provoke the man, he just...”

  “That’s Doofus Damien, our local mad-hatter. Don’t mind him.”

  I had to stifle the urge not to punch this guy. ‘Don’t mind him’ he says. Anyway, I don’t want to be that person who looks down on anyone. I’m just riled up and hungry. I couldn’t walk into a bar smelling like this and ask for directions. “Mister?”

  “Jeffrey Paulson. You can call me Paul.”

  “Okay, Paul. I’m in sort of a mess. Something got mixed up somewhere with the paperwork and I was sent here on official business. May I please use your washroom to clean up?”

  “Sure thing, sir. Anything for the Reincarnator. I’m always happy to help one of Death’s courtiers although to be honest you’re the first one I ever actually saw with my own two eyes. Courtiers don’t usually come to these
parts.”

  “Like I said, paperwork mix up. Lead the way, Paul. Thanks for helping me back there.”

  We made small talk all the way to his apartment where I met a woman who looked a lot like him but not so much that she could be his sister. “This here’s my wife, Clara.” She gave me a coy smile and I returned it.

  To say the home was in poor taste was putting it mildly. It was alright in certain zones like the living room with its bright television set. But the bathroom was so dirty I thought my sewer covered legs were the epitome of cleanliness. I washed up how I could and slipped into the spare pyjama pants Paul offered, saying it belonged to him when he was thinner, which is hard to imagine. I had no choice if I wanted to get out of the damp slickness that coated my lower legs. At least the water was clear and the pyjama pants had flower patterns on them. I washed my hands with soap—used soap but that’s all I had at my disposal—and found a tube of toothpaste. I took some on my index finger and vigorously brushed my teeth. The memory of a few drops of sewer water falling into my mouth made me queasy.

  It was around three in the morning. He showed me the couch, Clara handed me a stained quilt and after a while came out of the kitchen with a bowl of cold soup. I was so hungry even the oddly flavored broth was welcome. The quilt kept me warm but the couch had lumps in all the wrong places. Paul and Clara bid me goodnight and they went to bed. I didn’t sleep a wink.

  4

  I woke up to loud shouting and glass breaking. Mist clung to the air. I don’t know what it is about this climactic setting but sound really carries in it. I caught myself before I fell off the couch. I folded my quilt and patted my pillow before getting up. I made my way to where I last remember seeing the window. Mrs. Paulson had cleaned my pants, meaning she dipped it in water, squeezed it a few times and hung it out in the balcony to dry. It was wet near the crotch but I had to make do. I went out onto the balcony and a veritable sea of heads and loud voices greeted me.