“So what do I do now?” I said. I was sitting on the couch in my newly acquired office. My arms were shaking slightly and the water I was trying to hold was just sloshing out all over my cheap temporary jumpsuit.
“Well. First things first. Calm the hell down, Dougie. You died yesterday, this is nothing in comparison.” I heard Chuck swallow heavily beside me. “Besides, um, yeah… look at the silver lining.”
“And that is?”
“I don’t know. You will find it eventually I suppose.” Chuck slapped me on the back, and more water sloshed out of my paper cup.
“And after I calm down, what next?” I said.
“I suggest exploring your realm a bit. Your office. Whatever you want to call it. Get comfortable… you will have plenty of time to process all this.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He swallowed again.
“How do I ‘call’ you?” I glowered at the floor while I tried to tone down the anxiety. Does the afterlife have prescription meds? I needed a valium.
“So, you are getting the crash course here. Every individual born on Prime is born with unique fingerprint right? Think of that fingerprint being representative of their soul’s signature. Every person is unique in that way… and we pick up on that. A piece of our minds are built to store and understand those signatures intuitively. Just think about me, a mental representation of me, and then just kind of reach for it.”
“Reach for it?” I am sure I was coming off as a whiny bitch. “That is the best instruction you can give?”
“Well, in my defense, people are usually given years to learn about the ins and outs of the afterlife. It is a sheltered process, with a mentor, and a shared realm, and most people are shown the ropes in a gentle, proscribed way. The after life has been going on for millennia. We have it down.”
“Except for me.” I sighed.
“It seems you are the exception to the way of things, Doug. Bravo!” He clapped me on the back again. “Buck up, buttercup. You will figure it out. Tell you what… I will check back in on you tomorrow, ok? You still have the map?”
“Yeah, its over on the desk.” I pointed distractedly at the blotter that should be covered in dead guy.
“Your first bit of instruction should have been about your Map. That map is more than just a guide at the Career Fair. It changes to the realm you adopt, and gears you to the political party you join. Except you can’t join a party. Because, well, you are adjudicator now. So the map will be a bit more useful for you. Open design and all that. Use it. Get to know it so you can replace the abstract on it…. the Djinn-on-Demand.”
“The genie dude?”
“Yeah, the genie dude. He is a subbed abstract, tied to your map. Eventually you will learn how to sub your own abstract and replace your Djinn with your own Avatar. Then you eventually you will learn how to use the map without using the map.”
“That makes absolutely no sense, Chuck. Are you even speaking English? I recognize the words, but you are not making any sense.” I said exasperatedly.
“Ok. Let me try again. Map good. Use map. The Map help is a temporary connection to a person somewhere else, essentially a very simple guiding hand for your copy of the map. You will eventually learn the map so well that you won’t need it and you will be able to do it yourself. Good enough?”
“Yeah, good enough.” I sighed. I leaned back and rested my head against the wall. Chuck stood up and smiled widely as he stretched.
“I am going to go, check in with a few folks, get some info. Since you didn’t sign anything, you may have some options. I will get back to you tomorrow.”
“Ok. Until then?”
“Sleep, eat, explore your realm… play with the map. Whatever. Until you learn up on some things, you are stuck here.”
“Great.” I sighed heavily (again).
“Cheer up. Could be worse.”
“How so?” I said.
“You could still be hanging from the elephant.” He snickered.
“You have a point.”
A few minutes after Chuck left, I got up and started exploring my office. The main room was roughly square, with windows on two sides. The half height windows opened up to what looked like the cold, snow covered ridges of a mountain range. The wall opposite was the smoked glass door with the description I couldn’t read without vomiting (apparently). The oak desk stood in the middle, with multiple drawers on either side. The gun with the sunlight bullets was still sitting on the blotter and I only got close enough to grab the map.
The gun looked angry. I tried to keep my distance from the desk and its swivel chair. The office had a couple stationary chairs in front of the desk, well worn and the upholstery looking a bit thin. There were filing cabinets under all the windows, with plenty of files and folders on top in small neat piles. To the left was the couch I was sitting on, leather, and like the chairs, serviceable but a bit worn. There was a door to the left I hadn’t used yet, so I pushed it open.
Attached was an apartment of sorts. A bedroom, a bathroom (why the fuck did I need a bathroom?), a kitchen, a couple of closets, and bits and bobs strewn over the tables, counters, and shelves. I walked through like a stranger in someone’s home, looking carefully here and there, taking care not to touch anything. I felt like an intruder in someone else’s life. This was Saint Anthony’s life in here. Not mine. It felt strange.
The bathroom really bugged me. I stood at the door for a good 15 minutes contemplating the devices arrayed around the tiled surround. There was no toilet (thank god, who wants to defecate), but there was a shower, and a separate tub, and what looked like a washing machine and dryer thing. A sink for sure, that was easy to understand. But the last thing…
An altar-looking-thing? It was silver and porcelain. I just couldn’t understand what it was. I took a few short steps and approached it like a landmine, careful not to not get to close. There was a simple seat in front of it… I sat down and carefully looked it over.
It almost looked like an old time piano… a small upright piano. I could make out what looked like indentations in the flat part in front where the piano keys would be. Almost like two hands could fit there. I put my right hand on the console and felt a warmth spread across my hand.
“Hello?” A small sounding voice said. It sounded familiar.
“Hello?” I said right back.
“Who is this?” The voice replied very kindly, a patient voice. A caring voice.
“My name is Doug. Who is this?”
“My name is Fernando Martins de Bulhoes… most of my friends call me Tony. What are you doing at my nexus console?”
“I am sorry, I didn’t know what this is. I seem to have inherited the room that this is in… I was trying to figure it out.”
“You inherited the room?!” The voice sounded a little panicked.
“Yeah, not sure how it happened. But the previous owner seems to have destroyed himself.”
“I… committed suicide?” The voice sounded horrified.
“Um. No? I am really confused right now.” I think honesty was the best policy, and I had no idea what was going on. This time yesterday I was getting ready for a stage show after eating a modest breakfast and finishing my latest book.
“Tell me what happened.”
So I did. I started at the finding of the booth, and up to the point I sat down at the console.
“Merde. That means my time is limited. Listen very carefully, Doug. First, I am an abstract of the man you saw kill himself. Since my soul has been destroyed, the remainder of what i am will start to fade from the verse. So I need you to listen to me very carefully, my time is limited.”
“You are a copy of the guy that killed himself in front of me?”
“Yes. Kind of. Not at all, really, but close enough. Now listen.”
“I am.”
“I didn’t kill myself.”
“Yes you did. You put the gun up to your temple and pulled the trigger. You even told me why, remember?”
“I didn’t kill myself. I am Catholic, an ordained priest and friar. I am an expert of my faith. I would never cause self eradication. It goes against my entire fabric of being.”
“So who killed you?” I asked.
“That is why I am going to pay you to find out. Your first case, Adjudicator.”
“I am not an Adjudicator. I am just a punk kid from Winchester. I didn’t even go to college.”
“You are now. The realm is yours, and yours alone, everything in it is now yours too. Including this console. Including what is left of me. I will fade as the console is used, but I will pay you in information. Do you have your map?”
“Yes.”
“Put it on the nexus console with your hands. Don’t lift your right hand while you do it.”
I placed the map on the console, and rested my left hand on the console next to it. The warmth was stronger and the far away voice seemed much closer.
“Perfect. I am going to transfer the last of my consciousness into the map. That way it is bound more tightly to you, and keep me around for a little longer. I am replacing the Djinn.”
“When?” I said.
“Its already done. The nexus console is empty. You can pick up the map now.”
“What is the console for?” I asked the map.
Tony’s voice came out of the map, and a little monk appeared floating above the display. “The nexus console is a laboratory of a sort. It allows you to transfer things to think about to an abstract. It allows people to think about more things over a span of time, and when you reintegrate, your understanding is deeper. It is way to learn things quickly, or reflect on the nature of things. It is an external brain in a way.”
“So you are the only part of Tony left.” I said.
“Exactly. And before I get subsumed by your own abstract, we need to find out why I killed myself.”
“And how do you suppose we are going to do that? I don’t know how to do anything.”
“I will teach you. I was blessed with the pedagogical gift.”
“That sound dirty.” I mused. “Catholic priest, huh?”
“I won’t even acknowledge that filth and insinuation, young man.”
I felt the proverbial ruler come down on the knuckles of my consciousness. Feeling admonished, I apologized immediately. “Sorry.”
“We start at the beginning. Go to my desk. Let’s see floats to the top. But first, clothes. You can’t go out in your Deathday jumpsuit. Head to the closet. You will find that everything fits you. Pick something out.”
“Why will it all fit? Why does everything fit?”
“The severe constraints of the physical universe are only enforced on Prime. Everywhere else, things are a little more flexible. Much like a pitcher of water will fill always fill a certain volume, the shadows of Prime fit the whole of creation. It is by design.”
“A bizarre design.” I said.
“No. It is elegant. Do not mistake something you don’t understand as something that is not understood.”
“A little understanding would help.”
“As it usually does. Go.”
I set the mpa down and headed to the closet to try a few things on. The closet was sparse, mostly suits of a bygone age. I found some slacks and a button down that I could call my own without too much worry, and with the diminishing source of shock, everything fit.
I came back out and picked up the map.
“What I think, and this is a personal opinion in my thousand years of fighting the good fight, but the universe on this side of prime is not a perfect fit. The difference is that we expect it to be a perfect fit. We are given the control by the creator to find the basis of our true selves, our perfect self image… so our self image is usually with clothes that fit… and viola, the clothes fit.”
I laughed. “Or maybe it is all a fluke.”
Tony was silent for a moment. “Tell me, young Doug, did you believe in God before you died?”
“Honestly, no, I didn’t. I was an atheist.” I replied.
“How did you react when you found out there was one?”
“Surprised.”
Tony chuckled softly. “Why is that?”
“I was raised in a Christian home, and I thought that the inevitable nature of God was ridiculous. None of it made much sense. I caring, loving God that let people suffer and experience horrors. It just smelled like snake oil.”
“Ironically you don’t have to choose after you die. Has that dawned on you?”
“I guess that makes sense. No heaven, no hell.” I admitted.
“Oh, no, dear Doug, there is a heaven and a hell.”
“But there isn’t judgement and all that, or I would be in hell, right?”
“Oh there is judgement too.”
“Then why all this?” I waved my arm about to indicate my afterlife so far. “Why all this?”
“I think it is an extra chance. We are finally given proof to make the right choice.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, though. Why would we be given an extra chance?”
“God’s love is eternal.”
“Yeah, and so is some people’s obstinate belief that there isn’t. If you were such a believer, why did you blow your brains out?”
“That is the… question.” I could feel the heavy sigh from the map. “That is the question, indeed.”