Life After Death

by Sister Souljah

  “All of your material possessions are in the box over there in the corner.” Sister Claire pointed. “But, as you can see, none of your material possessions could defend you from your choices or save you in your time of need.” I sat up. “Only Jesus could,” one of them said.

  “Bridgette, not Jesus,” I said aloud. She was driving the car. “Where is she? Is she okay? How about Pretty,” I asked.

  “Who?” Sister Claire said.

  “There were three of us. Where are the other two?”

  “You took the longest to heal. The other two young sisters are each in their rooms preparing for the service. We will have to go prepare as well. But you have Sister Petra to thank. She saw your eyelids and your fingers moving late last night. We ran right over first thing, expecting you to wake.”

  “So get ready. We have already washed your body and returned your embroidered garment to you. Sister Claire just placed your sandals onto your feet. We are all eager to see you walk into the gathering. Everyone remembers you so well from your recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.” They turned to leave, one following the other. I looked around. Everything was same-same. Table for one, the pitiful guy plastered into the wall, a kettle of water, blah blah blah, minus the candle I once had. I slid over, then slowly stood. I lifted each leg one by one. I threw my hands up in the air and wiggled my fingers. I wished I had a mirror to check my face. Then I remembered, no mirrors here. No reflections either. I squatted to remove the ugliest sandals I had ever seen in my life-and-death time. I walked barefoot to the box of my “material possessions.” Of course I would wear my real clothes to the gathering. No one would choose the gray garment.

  There was no blood on my eternal Chanel. My black lace blouse was fine. If there was blood there, it didn’t show up. I threw off the gray garment. I shook the precious lace pants just in case some soil had gotten on it from my being dropped onto the ground during the accident. But there was no soil. Gently, I put my lace on. I stepped into my Louboutins. Now I am sauntering down the corridor to the gathering simply to see Pretty and Bridgette. We need to plot to get back to where we belong. When I swung open the doors to the sanctuary, it was packed. Sister Claire, for some reason, wanted to point me out. I didn’t need her help to get attention. My style already distinguished me from every one of them—the nuns, the nuns in training, their staff, and each of their charity cases.

  “Welcome-back song,” one of the excited-to-see-me nuns called out. Everyone gathered started singing some ridiculously corny song while she waved me over to the front where she was standing. There were no available seats anyway. Even the aisles were jammed. To me, it was just confirmation of how bogus this whole scene was. All these bitches been in here praying and not one of their prayers were heard or answered, obviously. I was up front and facing the crowd. Sister Claire placed her arm around my shoulder as Sister Maria and the other grannies were all giving me their scary welcome smiles while singing their happy song. My eyes widened after searching the crowd for Pretty and Bridgette. I saw Olga dressed down in Guess farmer jeans with the bib and all. Beneath the bib was a simple thin short-sleeved white tee. Seated next to her was some homeless-type-looking man. When I examined the man, hidden and crouched in the pew like he didn’t want to be there either, I realized it was the guy that I had vomited on. My eyes darted away from him but landed in the left corner. Standing below the exit sign, it was him, my lover and partner, owner of the Light House. I could tell he was doing his best not to stand out in this bleak, dim, dank, condemned convent. But because of his exquisiteness, he could not camouflage with the down-and-out crowd of helpless, homeless, sick, injured, lost, and pitiful. He tried. He was wearing sunglasses indoors. But, more importantly, he was wearing them down here in the Last Stop Before the Drop, where nobody wears sunglasses because there is no sun and no sunlight. His brand of choice was Gold & Wood. Of course no one would know that except me and him. The cheap and the poor can never recognize luxury or trace its origin. His Ermenegildo Zegna suit was so mean, I wanted to fly over and fuck him in the church. I had never seen him don a hat. But he was there holding his hat in his hand.

  He must have seen me seeing him, staring and studying and admiring. He lowered his sunglasses slightly. Our eyes connected. I smiled, naturally. But when my eyes darted down to the pew beside where he stood, I saw the impossible. It was Dat Nigga, alive and in color, as they say. Boldly black and too big-bodied for the convent seating. Yet he was there. My jaw dropped open. I’m sure Dat Nigga had watched me watching my new lover with an intensity that he believed belonged only to and for him. My insides knotted. My feelings for my present and my past love conflicted, fought, and mixed even. How could this be? But why was I asking that question? How could any of this be? I am a dead bitch standing in the guest dormitory of a dank convent. I had already been murdered, whisked around for visitations, buried, trapped in a casket, paralyzed and swallowed by darkness, tortured and engulfed in horrifying sounds and circumstances. Converted into a serpent and then a dog. Stoned by a storm of rocks. Raised up and upgraded to a luxurious afterlife lifestyle, then crashed and killed a second time in a luxurious whip. If all of or even any of that is possible, why couldn’t Dat Nigga—whose body I saw collapsed, whose chest I saw opened and on fire, who was picked up by his father in his father’s body truck and “fed to the fire”—why couldn’t he be alive again? But what to do? What was my next move? Think, think, think…

  “There’s a Nazi in the house!” Bridgette burst through the sanctuary doors wearing a wife beater and jean shorts, dragging a garden hose and shooting water like it was a gun shooting bullets. Everyone leaned, ducked, scattered, and panicked. She kept screaming, “Nazi. Nazi, Nazi, Nazi!” I didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about. Last time I heard her voice she was screaming. Now she was screaming again. “Grab him. Lock the doors. Form a human chain. There he is!” She pointed her water hose at my Commander in Chief of the Light House. But he was too smart, too swift, and too smooth. He slipped right out. My eyes dashed to Dat Nigga. He was dissolving again under the weight of the water. But so was Olga and the guy I vomited on. And so were a few other randomly seated convent guests. The nuns began choking on the smoke from the dissolving ones. One of the trainees began saying the Lord’s Prayer in a loud voice like it was a chant or she was in a trance. One granny started throwing white rocks that turned out to be huge chunks of salt. Bridgette dropped the hose. She ran over to Olga. But Olga was a pile of ashes. “Olga, I’m so sorry. I thought you and I were the same. You weren’t a demon. You were my sweetheart. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she kept repeating. During the confusion, I walked right out. My black lace blouse was wet. So was my face and hair. But my legs are working. Now I’m running in the Louboutins that he had provided. Going to get my man.

  * * *

  A mean black Suburban with black-tinted windows was idling. It was not raining but the windshield wipers were on. That was him. His vehicle was the only glistening vehicle in the convent parking lot besides a wheelbarrow, a lawn mower car, a nineteenth-century bus, and the remains of the rocked, smashed, crashed BMW. I ran right over. Heard the Suburban locks click open as soon as I reached. I opened the door and jumped in my seat.

  “Put your seat belt on, Tiger,” he said to me calmly, as though the whole riot-like scene in the convent had not just occurred.

  “Brooklyn,” I heard Pretty’s voice. She was seated behind me. I was overjoyed! Then I fell immediately suspicious. Why was she in my man’s car while I wasn’t?

  “How come you’re here?” I asked her.

  “Of course I’m here. You are here. And I am your secretary,” she said, and sounded true. I relaxed.

  “Shower together,” he said to me and Pretty once we were safe at home in his tower. I didn’t really get his instruction. He must have read my face. “The two of you have been through a lot over a period of time. I’m sure you may have some things you want to discuss. And you both are wearing the same clothes t
hat you wore on the day of the accident. The shower in the guest room that your secretary is using is built for six. Enjoy,” he said, and walked in the direction of our private penthouse within the penthouse. I was still stuck on him pointing out that both Pretty and I were wearing our now-old new outfits. Of course I knew we were, but it hurt a little to hear it. I wanted him to see me as beautifully perfect all of the time.

  The shower was like a little glass house. Turned out there were six showerheads and three hoses. That worked, because I liked my water way hotter than Pretty did. “I used to have eczema,” she said as she washed her body under the downpour of cold to moderately warm water.

  “What’s that?” I asked, standing beneath the hot water that I enjoy.

  “It’s like a skin disorder that come from being stressed and nervous.”

  “You mean like rashes?” I asked.

  “Really bad ones. The itch is so disturbing. But when you scratch it’s impossible not to scratch too much or too hard. Then the rash bleeds. It’s really ugly. My father sent me to the doctor for it. She said I was not to shower too often. Also, when I do shower, it should never be hot water.”

  “So what about now? Your skin looks perfect.”

  “That’s because I’m dead. What a relief. I’m way less stressed now than I was before. Although during that car chase, I felt stress like the stress of being alive. Do you remember, Brooklyn, how everything happened that night?”

  “No, bitch, you don’t remember either. You were knocked out.”

  “I wasn’t. I was experiencing a seizure.”

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “It’s like panic that causes me to lose my ability to talk. But I’m actually awake.”

  “Why do you have all of this shit when you look like you don’t have nothing wrong?”

  “Didn’t you know? It doesn’t matter how a person or thing looks. Although every single one of us loves to be, see, and stare at a pretty, beautiful person or thing. On the inside a beautiful thing could be all fucked up, like me. But I like you because you see me as beautiful and named me Pretty even though I’m all fucked up inside.” She raised her left arm and flipped her wrist. “I saw you looking at the Rolex my father gave me. Usually it is right here covering up this,” she said, pointing out a deep, crooked thick dark scar. As I looked through the steam at her arm, I saw cut lines going all the way up to the underside of her elbow. “Those are from when I couldn’t make up my mind,” she said.

  When we both stepped out of the bathroom, hair and body wrapped in long luxurious beach towels, he was bare-chested and seated in the center of Pretty’s bed.

  “Tiger, let’s play,” he said. “Is that okay, or will you deny me?” I was stuck, caught off guard.

  “Pretty, what’s up with all this?” I asked her. I was all cooled out before. Now I was gearing up to get pissy. She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Pretty, that’s a nice name for you. You are not as beautiful as Tiger. But I can feel the love between the two of you. I’m feeling left out. So let me ask you, Pretty, am I wrong? Are you not in love with my tiger?”

  “I am,” Pretty said.

  “So you love what she loves. Is that right? That’s why you were sitting in my car when I left out of the convent today. Not for me, but for her?”

  “Because I knew she would go there to your truck. I didn’t want to get left behind. So I snuck into the back. The door was unlocked,” Pretty explained. I was happy to hear that she was not in the truck with my man. And it sounded like she had not been having an affair with him while I was knocked out from the accident. Those facts were in her favor. I already knew he’s a fucking freak. Could I get mad at that?

  “I told you not to have any other bitch in this house besides me,” I said to him.

  “You said not to bring any other bitch in this house besides you. I didn’t bring Pretty. You did. I told you everything is mine. But I’m a gentleman. I never force anyone to do anything they do not agree to. So both of you tell me if you want me to leave. I’ll get up and leave. If both of you don’t mind, let’s play,” he said smoothly.

  I looked at Pretty. “I don’t mind,” she said, and I was floored. Now I was left looking like the wet blanket canceling out his good time. I’m top bitch. If she agreed, wouldn’t that switch our positions in his heart, mind, and business?

  “My tiger, if you agree, please remove Pretty’s towel. She wants to play with you.” I did. The towel dropped to the floor and she was naked. Her nipples were erect. “Pretty, please remove my tiger’s towel,” he said softly. She did. Now we were both naked. For some reason my nipples were also erect. Maybe it was because I was cold standing in a large bedroom in a high tower. “Both of you remove your hair towels.” We did. “Pretty, kiss my tiger on the mouth.” She walked up close on me. Instinctively I stepped back. She stepped up again. She closed in on my face and with open lips, she gave me the passionate deep kiss that I had craved from Dat Nigga but never received. I was kissing her back imagining that she was one of the three men of my heart, Midnight, Dat Nigga, or him, giving me finally what I want. I heard him pull back her bedsheet. He approached us. “Pretty, suck my tiger’s nipples. Can’t you see they are calling for your mouth?” Pretty began sucking my nipples. My pussy started throbbing. He stepped between us, used his left hand to finger me and his right hand to finger her.

  Soon we were all three on the cold marble floor. He straddled me and began his stroke. As he stroked me, she was still there for some reason, kissing my face. I came continuously, and my cocked-open legs relaxed but remained open. He flipped off of me. Flipped her over and thrust into her ass repeatedly. She did not complain or resist. She moaned like she liked it a lot. I was conflicted. I did not want to be butt-fucked because of the risk. But I did not want her giving him anything that I had not allowed him. That would give her the advantage. I got up on all fours, doggy style. He was in the heat of excitement as he thrusted into her. When he glanced my way and saw me doggied there, he left her and pounced onto me with full adrenaline and lust. I was giving him what she was just giving him, but I was better. He was more lusty over me. I was top bitch.

  Then the lights in the room switched off. I could not feel the weight of him on my back. In fact, I could not feel the weight of myself. It was as though I was suddenly tiny, really small. I called out to Pretty. But my voice was just a squeaky sound. I kept squeaking, thinking it was like clearing my throat and my real voice would come back. It never did. Pretty responded with only hisses. Oh no, oh no, oh no! I dashed. But my tiny legs couldn’t run fast enough. Now, with my same mind fully aware, I was between the jaws of Pretty, whose worst fear in the world became real. Now, she is a serpent. I am a goddamn rat. She is eating me, painfully. I know she has no other choice. I know the hunger of the serpent. I had been a serpent. Now I am what on lockdown only I caused others to be, food. The only thing left was for me to dissolve inside the belly of the beast and be shitted out. Fuck it, a pile of shit has no mind. I would finally be able to be dead. I would feel the relief that Pretty felt after she killed herself. Wouldn’t I?

  She was thrown into the glass case with the others of her kind. I knew because I was still inside of her. My mind was still on. It wouldn’t shut off. I could hear, but I couldn’t see or feel a damned thing.

  26.

  The glass case was shattered after what felt like six months of time. Now, we are on the move. Pretty is. I am still inside of her. I can now hear more than just hissing. I can hear the sound of multiple footsteps running. Some are heavy human kinds of steps. Others are the pitter-patter of small creatures; others are the sound of things trotting, the sound of fluttering wings and sliding things, all creatures in motion.

  “Reject the Nazi! Reject the Nazi! Reject the Nazi!” Bridgette was shouting again, although she didn’t need to shout. Somehow she got her hands on a megaphone. It was the one thing no one should’ve allowed her. How did she get into his tower? “Pretty! Brooklyn, Pretty, B
rooklyn, Pretty, Brooklyn, where are you, my friends?” she screamed through the device. We couldn’t answer her. We could only keep moving through the maze, trying to find a way out. But then what?

  “Gag the crazy bitch. She’s ruining everything,” I heard him say. But his voice was off in the distance. Seemed every creature and everybody and everything was trapped looking for a way out of the maze, while his security was searching in every direction for Bridgette and whoever was with her, if anyone.

  “Ooch, don’t you dare touch me. Don’t you dare put your hands on me. You guys are workers. You should be on my side. Workers unite!” She shouted. “This guy is a tyrant. Join me! Reject the Nazi! Reject the Nazi! Reject the Nazi!” she screamed. Then I heard something drop and hit the floor hard. “He’s a murderer! He pretends to be a gentleman! He kills people in his nightclub oven every night! He lures them with his music! He makes them wait on long lines in huge crowds! They don’t even know or suspect that once they get inside, he robs them of all of their clothes and jewels and feeds them to the fire. He’s a grave robber! Poses as a businessman. Import/export my ass! He’s an animal hater, posing as Dr. Doolittle! He’s no Tarzan. And the Bastard! The Bastard! The Bastard!” Her megaphone must have dropped or got slapped away from her.

  Now I could hear only her loud natural voice without the megaphone effect. “He has the nerve to name his nightclub One Night Only. Can’t you understand? It’s only one night because after one night in his oven you will no longer exist!! And another thing…” she said, and then her voice deaded. Pretty stopped moving. Other creatures were still moving. We heard a scuffle. Probably Bridgette fighting back, one woman versus his team of men. The exact kind of thing she hated the most. Then the scuffle stopped. I hoped they didn’t kill her… again. I hoped she was just knocked out like how I was after the car accident.