So what do you tell a dead guy immediately after they die?
That was Chuck’s job. He was a Death Transition Consultant, specializing on the more traumatic deaths. He supported the individuals that came ‘out of the world’ in a rather violent way, as he put it. And it was his job to help me in this trying time… and to let me make my choice.
“What choice is that,” I said.
“The choice of what you are going to do, lad! You can’t spend eternity floating about with a harp and a halo. You have to make a living. You have to contribute to one cause or another at some point.”
“Why?”
“WHY?! Because you bloody well have to! The world you knew was a preliminary stage. Qualifying for the next heat. You are in the next race now, and it is time to step up to a line.”
“And if I don’t?” I was getting kind of pissed. I knew I had to work to eat and have shelter in the ‘real world’, but being dead, one doesn’t need to eat, and any rain wouldn’t bother me. Why struggle to makes ends meet when the ends just didn’t fucking matter anymore?
“If you don’t… ha. You don’t have a choice. You don’t get to pick inaction. Picking inaction invites the Colos. Then your choice just doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Carlos? Who is Carlos?”
He sighed exasperatedly. “The Colos. C – O – L – O – S. A nightmare of nothing. It is a force, not a being. You can’t reason with it, you can’t beg it. It comes for the refuse, the trash, the fodder. Think of the Colos as the cosmic garbage man. He comes and cleans up the mess. For beings like you and I, that means being unmade. Our very essence is removed from not just this plane, but all planes. We are removed from whole of reality. Because the Colos is not bound to time or space or anything else. All the principles of our universe are nothing but something that needs to be cleaned up.”
“So I pick nothing, I die? I thought I was already dead?” I said.
“Oh you are dead to that world, not to this one. But in this one, you get unmade, your existence is wiped out everywhere. The universe reasserts itself… Doug does not exist any more. Your mother never had you, your father never knew you. Your death never happened. Blink. One moment, Doug, the wonderful boy from Winchester, much loved by his family and friends, horrible accident with an elephant, coverage in the local paper, legend for the next fifty years… all that gone. No Doug, period. Get it?”
“Yeah, I get it.” I said sourly.
“Wipe that look off your face, Doug. You can do anything. Anything! The universe is your oyster so to speak.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, this and that. The universe is huge. Earth is constrained for a reason. It is its own little pocket of the universe. The rest of the universe? Yeah, its open. You hungry?”
“For what? I am dead. I don’t have to eat.” I felt my lip curl in confusion.
“Yeah, and you don’t have to wear clothes either. But you are. You are not insubstantial. You are ascended, yes, but your matter is still matter. It takes energy to run your brain, your soul. Your a wisp, but a wisp needs food too.”
“Uh… ok?! What does wisp food taste like?”
“Oh depends on who’s cooking. I know a good place… come on.” He said.
He grabbed my shoulder and turned sideways? Not sure how to explain it… he turned away from me, I felt a pull and we were standing in front of a diner I knew of down on fifth.
“Hey, I know this place. Good hamburgers.”
“Yes they are. After you.” He waved his hand forward with flourish.
We stepped into the Diner, and it was the Diner, but wasn’t the place I knew. The tables were in the same places, the upholstery was different, and the creatures running about weren’t human. Pretty sure the cooks were demons of some sort.
“This is Roxie’s on fifth, right?” I asked. They looked like roaches. Huge roaches, walking upright, handing off plates to customers of all shapes and sizes on their own.
“Russell’s on fifth, actually. Same imprint, different owner. That table is open.”
We sat and a roach thingy skittered up to the table, just inclining its head slightly.
“Two beers, two cheeseburgers, and a bucket of fries.” Chuck smiled. “Plenty of salt.”
The thing skittered off, a scratchy, tapping noise on the cheap linoleum. I swear I heard hissing too. I lowered my voice considerably, I didn’t want to come off rude.
“What are they?”
“The roaches? Exactly what they look like. Roaches.”
“How did they get so big?” I said disgustedly.
“Oh Doug. Drop that attitude right here. Things are going to be different. Get over it. Enjoy it. Endless wonder. Yeah. Enjoy the endless wonder.” The beers arrived, Chuck drained his in a single go and ordered another before the roach had a chance to scamper off. “Roaches know food. They are good at it. These roaches are not purebreds obviously…”
“Purebreds?” I said.
“Yeah, creations. You know, made by greater powers. These guys are amalgamations. Legion. You know, many.”
“Many roaches? Like all stuck together?”
“Toss some spirits and essences in there too. Imagine a cosmic primordial soup, stir it around a few million years and eventually something interesting is going to crawl out. The form works, let it go.” He shrugged.
“Because everything fits?” I said sarcastically.
“Exactly!” He smiled widely. “You are getting it.”
“How long are you going to hold my hand in the afterlife?”
“Oh, about as long as I need to. You have a million questions, I have a million answers… plus I can’t leave until you make your career choice. Kind of in my contract.”
The food arrived and we both tucked in without much discussion. The burgers were definitely hamburgers, and the french fries were definitely cut up fried potatoes. And it all was pretty dang good. To someone that hadn’t eaten anything since waking up, it was like my first meal out of prison. It was delicious.
“So… what now?” I asked.
“Well we finish our meal, then I take you for a tour, then I take you to the career fair. I stand by you until you sign on a dotted line, then I move on to the next corpse. No offense.”
“None taken.” I took another bite.
“So start with the three top questions you have.”
“That is easy. Is there a god?”
“Of course there is.”
“Oh how silly of me.” I said sardonically.
“Yes. Much. Next question?”
“Can I meet him?”
“Ha. Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
Chuck put his hands to the his temples and made an exploding motion outwards. “It would blow your mind. Quite messy.”
“So far the afterlife seems to be not all that different from the real world.”
“Who said it would be different? Not I. I said this is the next heat in a big race.”
“You did.”
“I did.” Another mutual bite of our food.
“You said it was the next heat with your absolute shit racing analogy.” I said.
“I bet your pardon, my analogies are sublime. I have perfected them over the last hundred years. Next question?”
“What is it all for?”
“Finally. The question. The big one.” Chuck put down his hamburger and crossed his fingers over his plate. “What is the purpose of life? What is the meaning of living on a planet, struggling, loving, losing, and then dying? Why do you wake up on the other side expecting relief from the struggle… only to find more of it? Ha. Imagine what the suicides must feel like. Glad I don’t work that department.”
He swallowed heavily and leaned towards me across the red formica tabletop.
“The answer to the the question is simple. The point of it all is the struggle.”
“The struggle? What the hell does that mean?”
“The struggle of love over loss, the struggle of life over death, the struggle of good over evil… its all a struggle. And it is a fight that defines the universe. It is a fight that you will need to contribute to.”
“How?” I felt my head swimming and stopped eating.
“Career fair! The universe comes down to a single career fair that never ends.”
“You are fucking kidding me.” I said. Chuck had to be pulling my leg.
“Nope.”
“A fucking, hello-my-name-is-pam-and-I-want-to-talk-to-you-about-a-career-in-sanitation, kind of career fair?”
“That is about right. You pick your job, you place your vote, and you join a political party. All in one swoop.”
“Now I know you are fucking with me.”
“Why is that?” Chuck ended with a chuckle.
“Because there is no possible way there are politics in the afterlife. That is just cruel.” I shook my grimace out.
“Well it is important. It is for earth.”
“Bullshit.”
“No listen. The Earth is not just a planet. It is a balancing point for the whole of the universe. It is the source of the Prime.”
“You are seriously telling me that Earth is the center of the universe?”
“I am. Imagine a billion earths all overlapped on each other. Each earth has different levels if you will… your death on the Prime happens to be the center of that balance. Depending on the balance of the scales, the Prime slides one way or the other. But all of it matters.”
“I don’t understand at all, Chuck.” I think my eyebrows where buried in my hairline.
“This diner for instance, you recognized it, but it is not the diner you knew. So obviously we are not on your earth, right? Its a huge teeter-totter, a big see saw. At one end is the Angelus. At the other end is the Authority. Between the Authority and the Angelus, the balance of worlds is controlled, maintained, and held. A balance where everything fits. Your soul came from the only place souls can come from… all souls come from one place. Prime. The entire show is driven by the souls from Prime. And Prime is the prize. For the side that controls Prime, controls reality. Because if you control the source of the souls… well… you control everything.”
“And the career fair is supposed to what? Enlist souls to either side?” I said incredulously.
“Exactly!” Chuck beamed. “I knew you were smart when I saw you hanging from the back of an elephant!”
A roach passing by inclined its head questioningly and stopped.
“Don’t ask.” I grumbled.