Take a Number

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright 2011 Plot Roach.

Take a Number

By Plot Roach

“So I’m really dead, huh?” Rachel asked.

“Dead as can be.” answered her personal reaper, a guy who looked like he should be at a cell phone kiosk instead of collecting souls. His dress shirt was cornflower blue and unbuttoned at the top. He wore no tie and his black pants appeared to be perpetually creased down the front. His curly red hair seemed unnatural under the florescent lights of the mall, only his acne made him seem human. My God, she thought, he’s young enough to have been my kid.

Rachel looked past him to the collapsed walkway, through the crumpled rebar and chunks of concrete she could just see her hand poke out from under the debris. There were a few minutes after the collapse where she saw some motion from the uncovered digits and had some hope for her future. But Jacob, her pimple faced reaper, assured her that it was just the last second-synapses in her brain firing and that no true life still existed within her body.

She sighed, as much as any dead soul could, and faced the teen who would be Death. “So where do I go from here?” she asked. He ushered her from the wreckage where three other reapers had their hands full. It was as if he had a harder time dealing with the carnage than she did. They walked to the front of the mall, the sunlight streaming through the windows and highlighted overpriced merchandise.

“Well, you could wait in the head office for your final resting place…”

“My grave?”

“No, that’s just where they dump the flesh. I’m talking about your soul.”

“Well, don’t I go to Heaven?”

“It’s a little full right now.”

“Excuse me? Just how in the Hell does Heaven get full?”

“Exactly.”

“What?”

“Hell got full, and souls were forgiven in order to take up the slack.” Jacob said, wincing. “Except now even Heaven is full and there’s nowhere else to place you except in a holding facility.”

“Well, what’s it like?” she asked, a hopeful tone in her voice.

“Kind of…industrial.”

“Boring?”

“Incredibly.”

“So what else can I do?”

“You can wait by your grave for the second coming -if you’re Christian. You can reincarnate -but there’s still a waiting period for that, and you don’t get to choose where you are placed-”

“So I either wait in the dirt or take a chance on being born a sea slug or something?”

“Kind of… but there are other options as well.”

“Like?”

“You can haunt a place or person for a while.”

“To what end?”

“I’m not sure that I understand your question.”

“Why would I want to haunt someone or someplace? -Unless I get to pick the person or place, that could be neat!”

“Sadly, no. Haunting are assigned at random, otherwise no one who felt cheated by an old lover, former boss or loser family would ever leave the Earth.”

“Then what else do I have to choose from?”

“You can wander the Earth until your number is up.”

“I thought my number was already up. You know… with me being flat as a pancake and all.”

“No, I mean that you wait for your soul to be called up for placement determination. First you are called to see if your case is vital enough to be judged by a representative of your god. Second, they have to have the space to house your soul. And lastly, they have to take the time to rehabilitate your soul from your living form into something that can be both useful and aesthetically pleasing to the rest of those in your specific afterlife.”

“A whole bunch of waiting, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Can I get a job like you?”

“Only if you want to wait for the next four hundred years.”

“So this wandering thing…”

“You can go anywhere, do just about anything-”

“Like what?”

“You were a busy mother in the life, right?”

“Yes.”

“Weren’t there places you wanted to visit? Books you wanted to read? That kind of thing.”

“Just how can I travel if I have no money? And how can I pick up a book if I can’t touch it?”

“Use your imagination.” Jacob said. “Hitch a ride with someone by making a mental connection. You can also hear, see, smell, taste and touch what they experience while you are connected to them.”

“So that woman there” Rachel said. “She eats the chocolate bonbons and I get to taste it without gaining any weight?”

“Try it.”

“How?”

“Just touch her head and imagine being her.”

Rachel leaned forward, touching the blonde woman’s temple. She watched as the woman sneezed and felt a portion of her being drawn into the woman. As the blonde touched the chocolate to her tongue, Rachel felt the sensation, more than ten times better than she had ever experienced in life, wash over her. She let go of the woman and turned back to Jacob. “So how do I travel?”

“Much the same way, just keep a hold of them.”

“And they always sneeze?”

“Every time.”

“So when I sneezed…?”

“Yep.”

“But sometimes that was during sex!”

Jacob only nodded and grinned.

“Freaking pervert ghosts!” Rachel yelled.

“Some people get really bored when they have to wait for a long time.”

“But still… freaking perverts.”

“So what will you choose?” Jacob asked.

“The waiting and wandering thing, definitely."  she said, wandering in the direction of the far side of the mall. “First I’m going to catch a movie, then I’m going to eat some REALLY greasy food. And then, maybe I’ll catch a ride to Las Vegas, see some shows…” Rachel said, walking away from Jacob. He merely nodded before checking his watch and the check sheet on his clipboard. He would have to be in the parking lot in the next five minutes if he wanted to make his next appointment. He reached over and touched the temple of a security guard traveling through the mall on his security cart. The man sneezed as Jacob made contact, but otherwise, never felt a thing.