another story from creative writing class :)

It’s all very quiet. It’s also very dark. I realize I can see light behind my eyelids, leading me to the realization that my eyes must be closed. They’re very heavy, though, so I don’t want to open them yet. My ears must’ve gotten used to the quiet, because now I can make out a soft sound. Tick. Tick. Tick. I assume it’s the red second hand on a clock somewhere. I move my left hand, then my right one. Both are there. That’s in order, at least. I expected to perhaps be a limbless ghost after I died. 

My eyes open. I’m dead. 

…

“Oh.”

At least my vocal cords work. 

The lights are dim and comfortable on my opened eyes, and I stare up into vague grayness. I can’t discern a light source, so I think the gentle light comes from everywhere. I’m lying down. I push my hands against the ground, rising to stand upright. My hands are translucent blue, and I can see the ground through them. They feel solid, though, enough to push myself up with. 

Standing now, I can see other apparitions similar to myself. Quick or slow, they’re all headed in the same direction. With nothing better to do, I follow the crowd. 

It’s a very long walk, and it gives me time to think. I don’t remember my life very well, only snippets here and there. The main thing I recall is the sound of machinery. It was certainly loud, and a rather mundane thing to be my only memory. Perhaps I worked at a factory in my lifetime. Is there a more boring job? I find myself pondering the question. The best I can come up with is a receptionist. I’m not entirely sure what receptionists even do. Tick. Tick. Tick. I still can’t see the clock anywhere. Maybe that’s where I’m being led. 

I turn the corner. There’s a large building, something like a warehouse. It has double doors, both propped open. The crowd of people I’ve been following have filed into two neat lines now, and they go into the warehouse and to either side of whatever’s on the inside. I step through the door in the center, looking around.

It’s the same dim lighting on the inside. I’ve begun to think maybe it’s dark and my eyes are adapted to it. I reach up to touch my eye, and find nothing there. I drag my fingers down my face, and find I’m missing a nose and mouth as well. Clearly I can still see and speak. I haven’t run into anything particularly odorous, but I assume my sense of smell remains intact.

Anyway, on the inside of the warehouse are the two lines. On the left, the line goes to the wall, climbing up stairs to a second floor until it reaches a door. Above the door is a neon sign like you might find in a bar, labeled “Reincarnate”. On the right, the line goes all the way to the wall as well, though without the stairs. It leads to a similar door, though the sign above it has text in little light bulbs, like you might find outside of a performer’s dressing room. The sign reads “Relive”. The crowd of people is almost evenly split between the two options, with slightly fewer in line on the right than the left. 

In the very center, where no one stands, is a TV. It’s an old one, with antennae poking out from the top. It sits on a brown wooden TV stand, low to the ground. Curious, I step closer to it. 

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. The clock’s ticking seems to be getting louder as I approach the TV. I crouch down in front of it. The TV is making  faint static noise, mirroring the image reflected on it, the black and white glitchiness. It occasionally transfers to the DVD logo, bouncing around the screen before going back to the black and white static. There’s a sign here too, leaned up against the TV stand. It looks lazily scrawled in Sharpie, reading “Cable”. TICK. TICK. TICK. 

It’s too loud. I step back, then turn, leaving the warehouse. I don’t understand how everyone else is in a line. How do they know what they want already? Is there something I’m missing? I’m not religious, I can remember, but I wish at least one of them got it right so I could just go to heaven or to hell already and not have to choose. 

I sit down outside the door, leaning up against the wall. I run a hand through my hair, and find nothing once again. I’m bald. Was I bald in my life? I glance around at the other dead folks, and see they also lack hair. We all look almost the exact same, except for our sizes and our shades. There’s a small purple apparition holding hands with a larger purple one, both in the Reincarnate line. A parent and a child, I suppose. As I’m medium sized, I assume I died as an adult. 

I sit for a long while. I watch the souls sort themselves, and go inside once more to see what happens when they step inside. I know what Reincarnate means, and I think Relive means watching memories of your life. I don’t see anyone ever come back from either door. I go back outside and sit down again.

I want to know who I was. But what if I lived a bad life? Boring, or cruel? I don’t want to be stuck reliving it forever. But I can’t move on until I know who I am. I can’t decide that I want to move on until I know who I am. A verifiable catch 22. 

After a bit, I notice a blueish, greenish soul. Another memory flashes. Giggling with my sister. I had a sister. We used to call that mermaid color as kids. The mermaid colored soul is looking around, as much as one can look around without eyes, and seems as confused as I am. What I assume is their gaze falls upon me, and they walk up to me. 

“Hello,” they say. 

“Hello,” I repeat back to them. 

“I’m dead, aren’t I?”

“Yes. This is the afterlife. Unless I’m on a trip, but I don’t recall being an addict.”

“Me neither. Well. I can’t recall anything. I wouldn’t know.”

A good point. “Good point. Perhaps I’ll wake up any second.”

We both pause. Tick. Tick. Tick. There goes three seconds. We’re both still here. The mermaid colored soul walks inside. I close my not-eyes, expecting them gone. Several ticks later, I hear a thud beside me. The mermaid colored sat down next to me. 

“Choices. How do I know which to pick? Which is the better option?”

“I don’t think there’s a better option, per se. I think it’s per person,” I explain, with the minimal knowledge I have, most of which come from inferences. 

“I want to know who I was before I choose,” they say. 

“I do too,” I agree. 

“I remember…I remember a metallic smell.”

“Perhaps you were a welder?” I suggest kindly. 

They shake their head. “No. A bloody metal.”

“A phlebotomist, then.”

They think about it. I consider my own life. 

“I remember metal too. But machinery. I’m afraid I worked at a factory.”

They don’t answer. I can’t read their expression, as they lack facial features, but their hands are clenched into fists. “It was blood shed by violence,” they say quietly.  

“Violence?” I parrot back. 

“Violence. I was a terrible person in my life, I think.”

I watch them struggle with the concept. They don’t elaborate. I don’t ask them to. We sit together much longer without speaking. 

A considerable amount of tick, tick, ticks later, the mermaid colored stands up. 

“I have to Reincarnate. I don’t want to be this person any longer.”

I observe as they get in line on the left side, slowly moving up in line and getting lost in a sea of translucent colors. It almost looks like a stained glass window from this angle. I sigh. It’s hardly holy. 

The mermaid colored vanishes from my sight. I lean my chin on my knees, which are pulled to my chest. I think harder. 

Metal. Machinery. My sister. Not religious, however much that matters. I can feel a thought in the back of my head, something to tell me who I was. Who I am. I want something to tell me where to sort myself. Left or right. 

But, like both the metal I was surrounded by in life, and the flat color surrounding me here in the afterlife, it’s neither black or white, but a shade of gray. 

I had a mom, a dad, a sister, and a dog. My dog died when I was a pre-teen. My dad died when I was in college. I was kicked out for misusing scholarship money, and got a job at a factory, where I labored daily. Repetitive work. I can’t differentiate the last years of my life from each other, because it seems as if every day was more of the same. And then I died. A car crash. I was drunk driving. Got what I deserved, I guess. 

I don’t want to Relive this forever. I lived a bad life. My life wasn’t worth reliving. I open my not-eyes. I stand up, getting in line for Reincarnate like I’d watched mermaid colored do earlier.

Thinking about it reminds me of memories of my sister. Laughing. Smiling. Playing.

I move up in line. I’m inside the warehouse now. Tick. Tick. The clock sounds are louder now that I’m nearer to the TV, and I can hear the static too. 

The sound brings me back to thoughts of my mom. We had a similar old TV, and the remote never seemed to work for her. She’d get up from her armchair and try it from every angle until she got frustrated. My sister would take the remote from her and try it, and laugh when she realized our mom was pressing the wrong button

I move further up the line. I’m on the first stairs now. 

I was scared of the basement of my house when I was small. There was a tornado nearby, and when the sirens went off, the family herded into the basement. I didn’t want to go. My dad carried me down the stairs, assuring me it would be okay.

I’m right in front of the door now. 

I saw a lot of doors in my life. The front door of my childhood house. The door to classrooms in elementary and middle school. The door to my college dorm. The door to my apartment. The door to the factory entrance. The door to my car. 

The door before me is fully white. Unfamiliar. 

I don’t like it. 

I didn’t live a perfect life. I didn’t live a life worth reliving.

I don’t want to be anyone else. I don’t want to live another life.

I step out of line. 

Tick. Tick. Tick. 

I hurry down the stairs, and crouch before the TV. 

The ticking is loud now, but as I reach for the screen, the noises fade, and it feels as if my brain fell asleep like a hand or leg would. Fuzzy and soothing, but buzzing with energy. It sort of feels like being bathed in a wool sweater. Rough and textured, but warm and soft at the same time. My fingertips touch the screen.

I know what Cable is.