DEATH and SANDWICHES
Oliver Green woke up with a slightly nauseated
feeling churning in the pit of his stomach. His neck was stiff, he was sitting
in a green plastic chair in some sort of pensioner’s queue and he had no idea
how he’d gotten there. He rubbed the
sleep out of his eyes, smoothed his long, rumpled ginger hair and blue collared
shirt, and looked around anxiously. He
was second in the queue. The green door
at the front of the room opened and a small, wiry haired old man walked
out. The lady on the very last chair got
up and went into the small room. Oliver,
sensing his missed opportunity, got up with the rest of the surprisingly old
people and moved one chair space forward.
He was now sitting right at the front of the queue. He turned to the man sitting next to him.
“Er, excuse me sir, but could you tell me what this queue is for?” The man
smiled absently at Oliver and started spouting in some sort of mixture of French
and Arabic, suddenly he stopped and said in flawless English,
“Why, yes.”
“Yes?” Oliver said, getting excited.
“Yes!” said the foreigner.
Oliver paused, wilting. “Ah, yes is it?”
“Yes,” Said
the bizarre little man, beaming at him.
Oliver nodded, blinked hard, and began looking for an exit. There was a blue door at the opposite end of
the room, he started for it. Suddenly
the green door opened and a commanding voice called out, “Next please!” Oliver
turned; the funny Arabic man was looking at him, he gave him a thumbs up and
said, “Yes,” quite exuberantly. Oliver
sighed; he was, after all, first in the queue.
He went in.
The room itself was surprisingly cozy; a few antique
looking pictures of chickens adorned the walls, which were painted a pleasant
pale yellow. An old, scratched desk made
of maple took up most of the room, and two scabby looking black leather chairs
sat on opposite ends of it. The closest
side of the desk held a brass placard that stated the name Rufus Geddes; and
beneath it, in evenly spaced letters fit for any preschooler to read was the
lone word: Q U E R I E S. The
far side of the desk held Mr. Geddes himself, a bald man with a moon shaped
face on a stout little body. His eyes
were set quite far apart, giving him an air of immense genius or intense
madness, and he seemed quite ready to leap out of his chair and begin pacing
the geometrically printed carpet for any occasion whatsoever. He was also
wearing a brown hound’s-tooth jacket that reminded Oliver inexplicably of his long
deceased grandmother.
“Ah, Mrs. Olive Green,” said Mr. Geddes. “Please sit
down.”
“Mister,” said Oliver,
“Yes?” The man looked up quizzically.
“No, I mean I’m a mister,” said Oliver, “Mister
Oliver Green.”
“Oh I see!” Cried the little man in a slightly
quizzical voice that clearly said he didn't see at all.
“It’s the long hair, I’ve been trying to write and
it’s just really grown…”Oliver trailed off, “That’s really beside the point
though, how did you know my name?”
“The labeling department gives you a bracelet that
the door scans as you walk in; I get a read out on my computer.”
Oliver glanced at his wrist, sure enough, in
bold letters it was printed MRS. OLIVE GREEN.
“This is…I mean, I’m sorry sir,” said Oliver,
holding up a hand in a state of complete bewilderment now, “But where exactly
am I?”
True to form, Geddes sprang up and began pacing the
brown carpet, he narrowed his eyes a little and looked at Oliver
disapprovingly, “Let me ask you this first, Mrs. Green; have you recently
stopped paying your life insurance policy?”
“Mister, and I’ve been having a little problem with
the bank since I’ve been between jobs but I don’t see how that’s-”
“And have you stopped forwarding your chain mail via
email?
“Yes, but how-“
“Well you see Mrs. Green we now have a perfect
storm. You, uninsured, have failed to
secure your own post death future, and by not sending on that chain mail, you
have died directly as a result of your own actions.” Mr. Geddes rounded on Oliver, and in a matter
of fact tone said slowly, “Suicide.”
“What?” Oliver started to hyperventilate, trying to
piece together information. “Is this a
joke, did my friends set me up?” He reflected a moment; he knew a lot of
accountants. Not exactly the most
humorous crowd.
Mr. Geddes sat back at his maple desk and looked at
Oliver over steepled fingers.
“I hate to
be the bearer of bad news, Olive, may I call you Olive? But you have recently died. You are now in the Department of Lost Temporal
Souls; (the DOLTS) or the Sandwich Canteen.
We’re a bit short staffed at the moment, strikes and all that. So everyone’s pulling double duty. Speaking of which, would you like a ham and
tomato while you wait? Made them myself this morning, they’re quite good.” Without waiting for an answer, he pushed a
button on the aging intercom system on his desk. “Ms. Schoemann, please can we get two of my
ham and tomato’s on white up here?” He paused and gestured to Oliver, who was
sitting watching the little man as though his head had suddenly mutated into a
tarantula.“White okay with you?”
Oliver nodded weakly, his natural manners kicking in
enough to manage a polite smile that came off rather more like a grimace.
Geddes resumed his speech.
“You see, Olive, what people never realize while
reading through the pages of their life insurance policies, is that somewhere
between pages 34 and 72 that need to be signed in order to grant your policy;
is a “Life After Death” insurance form.
This little baby is wedged in an unlikely place to as not to cause the
reader any discomfort; religious or otherwise, in the after death decision
making process. It seems that whilst you
were in the process of signing these forms over breakfast, a large dollop of
strawberry jam came to rest on the sheet; and you, thinking it would not be
noticed in the myriad of paperwork, threw it in the trash. Ergo, you have no one deceased to welcome you
gracefully to your own death in a comfortable, happy place, and you have to go
through the next life selection process quite painstakingly.
Oliver shook his head, “Next life selection
process? What? I don’t…How did I die?
And why don’t I remember any of this selection stuff from the last time?”
A sudden knock had both men turning to face the red
door directly opposite the desk. A
portly middle aged woman with massive breasts and spiked, bleached blonde hair
ambled into the room without waiting for a response. Seeing Oliver, she immediately dropped into a
seductive pose against the door frame, which required much straining of her
black leather pants around her bulging buttocks. The frame itself groaned. Slowly she lifted
her fleshy arm to stroke down her side, causing a ripple effect. A toothy smile
cracked over two of her chins as she sauntered forward suggestively, dropping
the two sandwiches in her enormous paw onto the desk. “Allo Beaut’ful,” She
said in a low pitched Scottish brogue, ignoring her boss entirely. Oliver gave a weak smile in response. Ms
Schoemann fluttered her eyelids coquettishly and waddled sexily out of the door
with a lingering backward glance. She
did love the young redhead girls.
Geddes sighed, picking up a sandwich and peeling the
plastic cling wrap off the top. “She can be a bit over zealous as an assistant
at times, but she does have the most perfect pepper to salt to butter ratio
I’ve ever tasted on a toasted sandwich.” He chortled absently before taking a
bite large enough to finish half of the bread, and chewed in silence for a bit
before he remembered that he was, in fact, mid interview. He turned absently, “Now,
what was the confusion again?”
Oliver didn’t blink.
“It was over how I died,” He said drily.
Geddes cleared his throat. “Ah yes.
It appears you had read a chain mail message stating that if you hadn’t
re- sent the poem, “Da Love of Da Earth”
in 24 hours, that you would fall off a roof while re-shingling and be impaled
by bamboo stakes in your neighbor’s herb garden”.
Oliver blinked, “That does seem pretty specific,
doesn’t it?”
Geddes continued reading, “Yes, it’s quite
unfortunate that you got the poem written by a witch doctor herself. Who knew?
Anyhoo, as soon as you’ve filled in a few papers, indemnity forms for your
eternal soul, and the like, we can get you to the next step; the Next Life
Selection Process.”
Oliver rested
his head on his hand. “So…What is this
next life selection thing exactly?”
Geddes’ smile widened, he clasped and unclasped his
hands in glee. “That, Olive; is the best part.
After all the paperwork, which can get a bit tedious- you get to decide
the kind of life you want to live next in accordance with what life lessons you
want to learn, and at the moment of your birth you forget all these things
instantly. Every now and again you may
experience a teeny tiny sense of déjà vu- your mind has experienced exactly the
same sensation before when you watched to see which path you would select: but
these are hiccoughs and happen so rarely; you hardly notice them. The Viewing device that allows you to make
these decisions is a machine we call the Life Path Generator. Let’s say you want to lead a fulfilling life,
learn patience and humility. All you
need to do is input the features, and bob’s your auntie, it could generate a
life path in which you can become a teacher of autistic children in Burkina
Faso. Or let’s say you want to learn to be more ambitious, more disciplined; it
can put you on the path of a naval soldier who turns his passion for boat
building into a billion dollar corporation.”
Oliver looked at Geddes blankly, “I kinda figured
that was what free will was all about,” he said.
Geddes developed a wild look in his eye. “People round here get a bit uncomfortable
with that phrase, Olive. The concept of
free will was putting us into a bit of a quandary. Because then we’d have to
bring the whole humanity versus religion sphere back into things- and that of
course, makes people… uncomfortable.
Reincarnation some call it, Heaven for others, it’s a place you’re happy
because you choose to be happy, you choose what future can make you so.”
Geddes smiled a slow and inexplicable smile. Then he turned in his seat to the filing
cabinet behind the red door and pulled out a sheaf of official looking beige
papers.
“I suggest you take a chair to press on and you fill
these in, in the men’s bathroom, lad.” Geddes said winking, “Ms Schoemann will
be on the prowl.”
