You Are a Ghost. (Sign Here Please)

by Andrew Stanek

  Without being asked to do so, Nathan sat down.

  Fulcher looked like he was going to start shouting at Nathan, but then thought the better of it and started to grin like a shark with a prozac prescription. This sudden shift of emotional gears caught Nathan very off guard.

  “Why are you smiling?” he asked curiously. “Are you happy to see me?”

  Director Fulcher continued to smile and folded his hands together, then leaned forward.

  “Mr. Haynes, can you name even one good reason I would be happy to see you? Do you have any qualities or good points whatsoever that make my day anything other than worse?”

  Nathan thought about this quietly for a moment or two.

  “I’m very punctual,” he said at last.

  “We did not have an appointment, Mr. Haynes,” Fulcher said. “You just drop in here whenever you please.”

  Nathan thought some more.

  “I’m very friendly and polite,” he added.

  “The entire reason you are here is predicated on your persistent and innovative non-cooperation with our bureaucratic procedures,” Fulcher shot back. “You are stubborn and recalcitrant.”

  Nathan thought even more.

  “I know how to get to your office,” he said at last.

  “I am told that you got lost on the way here and disrupted the Mistakes Department. Do you have any idea how serious that is? The Mistakes Department might make a mistake! Then we’d need a ‘Mistakes Department Mistakes’ Department. It couldn’t be worse!”

  “Oh,” Nathan said. “Well, I’m sorry. Then I guess there really is no reason that you should be happy to see me. Maybe I will bring you a gift next time so you have something to look forward to.”

  “I do not want a gift from you, Mr. Haynes.”

  “Then why are you smiling?”

  Fulcher’s sharklike smile widened.

  “I am smiling because I have a suggestion for you, Mr. Haynes. I understand you have recently died and come to see me for what I have documented to be the sixth time. Most people come to see me not at all, and those who do come to see me do so once. Just once. Six times is unprecedented. Perhaps this is all getting to be very routine for you, Mr. Haynes. Dying and coming to annoy me is just part of your daily schedule, you have gotten so accustomed to it. You get up in the morning, eat breakfast, and step outside to get hit by a bus or whatever it is you do to wind up here so frequently-”

  “I have a new serial killer-” Nathan started to explain.

  “I am not interested in the specifics,” Fulcher shot back. “But this must be very boring and stale for you, Mr. Haynes. Hasn’t it all gotten so predictable? You die, have a poke around some of our most sensitive bureaucratic departments and disrupt them in infuriating ways, then are sent to see me just so I can get rid of you. Then I dispatch you back to life, to your ridiculous home city of Dead Donkey, and the cycle repeats itself. It happens again and again, day in, day out. You see the same old faces, the same bureaucrats on this side and the same lunatics on your side. Don’t you think you are wasting your many lives and subsequent unlives, Mr. Haynes? No doubt by now, the initial shock of finding a bureaucratic afterlife has worn off and you regard this all as dull, intellectually, spiritually, and morally uninteresting. Don’t you think it’s time for a change? Why don’t we try something a little different this time? Something new and exciting - an adventure!”

  Nathan had only been half-listening because he’d started humming one of the many cereal jingles he tended to think about when Director Fulcher spoke. However, he thought he’d gotten the gist of what Fulcher was trying to say.

  “No, er, I’d prefer if you could just send me back to life so I could do my laundry, please,” Nathan said. “I’d really like that better than an adventure or something new.”

  “I wasn’t giving you a choice,” Fulcher snapped. “The reason that you have entered into this cycle of death and resurrection is because, as you may recall, you refused to sign your Form 21B - Decedent Acknowledgement and Waiver of Liability, which would waive all liability to us for any damages, mental, physical, spiritual, or otherwise that you might incur during your stay in the afterlife. Without that signed form, I had no choice but to send you back to life because you might sue us, although protocol demands that you stay in the afterlife after having died. I tried several times to get your signed 21B by dispatching bureaucrats to obtain your signature, but you ultimately tricked me into signing a contract of your own devising that forced me to stop trying to obtain your signature and voided all other forms you might sign in the past or future. I was left with no choice but to give up and send you back to life again, a defeated man. It was very embarrassing. I am not accustomed to being outfoxed by a man with a hole in his brain.”

  Fulcher paused and took a deep breath. Then his grin widened even further.

  “You probably think you have beaten me, Mr. Haynes, since you managed to get me to sign that form. However, your reign of terror over this department has ended. I have since realized that there is a sort of a fortuitous technicality in the contract you tricked me into signing - a loophole, if you will. Every time you have died, I sent you back to life because I couldn’t have you here without your liability waiver in case you sued us for damages. Now that you have signed a form saying that all past or future forms you sign are null and void, you cannot sue us, because that would require you to sign legal documents. You have shot yourself in the foot.”

  Nathan stared down at his feet. They looked fine to him.

  “You have not literally shot yourself in the foot,” Fulcher said. “I was speaking metaphorically.”

  Nathan blinked in confusion.

  “I cannot believe I was even briefly stymied by the likes of you,” Fulcher said. “The point is this - since you cannot sue us I do not need your liability waiver to confine you to the afterlife. While we cannot process you properly and move you on because of the contract, I will no longer resurrect you each time you die. I refuse to restore you to life any longer. How’s that for a change, Mr. Haynes? Does that break you out of your comfortable and complacent cycle of life and death? Now you are dead, and you will simply have to stay here.”

  Again, Nathan had a bit of trouble following everything that Fulcher said, since his mind had fixated on a little crack in Fulcher’s desk which reminded him that the new serial killer had thrown a brick through his window (at least, he thought it was the new serial killer who had thrown a brick through his window), and he would have to get it replaced. Fulcher had continued to talk as Nathan thought about what an awful nuisance it was to fix a broken window, but he was startled to hear that Fulcher didn’t intend to send him back. If Director Fulcher wouldn’t send him back, then Nathan would never be able to fix his window at all, and he couldn’t have that. What would happen if it rained? The house would get wet. Not to mention that the house would get extremely breezy and drafty.

  “Are you listening to me, Mr. Haynes?” Fulcher asked testily. “You are now permanently confined here, to the afterlife. Since you cannot sue us, I do not need your 21B. You are trapped here.”

  “I don’t think I will enjoy being trapped here,” Nathan said after a pause. “Will you let me out?”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  “No. How many times do you think I asked you to sign a 21B and you stubbornly refused, Mr. Haynes? Now it is my turn to be stubborn and inconvenient for you. You are dead, and you will stay in the afterlife just like everyone else who has ever died.”

  Nathan straightened himself out and drew himself up to his full height of about five-foot eight. He cast his mind back. When Fulcher had tried to get Nathan to sign his 21B last time, Fulcher had threatened Nathan with some of the most devious punishments imaginable. Obviously, Nathan just had to do the same. He would give the director a dose of his own medicine.

  “You just said you don’t like having me here because I disrupt all your sensitive bureaucratic departments,” Nathan said. “If
you don’t send me back to life, I will make myself more of an unwelcome nuisance than ever before.”

  Fulcher’s grin faded to a scowl.

  “How exactly do you intend to do that?”

  “I will go to the receiving area for the incoming newly deceased and tell all the dead people not to sign their 21Bs either,” Nathan said.

  Director Fulcher looked thunderstruck, as if he had not considered this possibility. Nathan smiled, pleased with the effect he’d had.

  “So will you send me back to life?” he asked.

  “No,” Fulcher snarled. “You can’t blackmail me into breaking statutes any longer, Mr. Haynes.”

  “Well, then what if I took all the personnel files and destroyed them?”

  “Do your worst,” railed back the director. “There’s nothing so horrible you can do to this department that I will send you back to life.”

  Nathan looked around the room for inspiration. His eyes fell on a drawer in Director Fulcher’s filing cabinet labelled ‘Forms.’” He opened it. The drawer grew to infinite proportions as soon as he did. Nathan started to take out forms at random. They were all things like, “Form 782436 - Authorization to Buy A Can of Warm Soda” and “Form 457149 - Notice Rust Has Formed On A Handrail.” Nathan grabbed a handful and waved them at Fulcher.

  “What if I filled out all of these and then misfiled them in your cabinet?” Nathan threatened.

  Fulcher gritted his teeth.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” he said.

  Nathan quickly checked random boxes and various circles on the forms, filling them out haphazardly and improperly, then brandished them menacingly over the top of Director Fulcher’s filing cabinet.

  “I’ll do it,” Nathan warned.

  “You don’t have the guts,” Fulcher spat.

  Nathan stuffed the forms into the cabinet. The Director’s nails grated on the arms of his chair.

  “Mr. Haynes, you are more than just a nuisance. You are an anarchist, a threat to the world, society, and indeed bureaucracy itself. However much havoc you wreak here, you are doubtless more of a threat if you are allowed to remain at large. No matter what happens, I absolutely, positively, will not allow you to go back to life.”

  “Oh dear,” Nathan said. “I guess I will just have to set fire to your desk, then.” He patted himself down for his lighter and pack of matches, which of course he did not have because he did not smoke.

  “I will figure out some way to confine you and stop you from causing further damage,” Fulcher said, and reached into his filing cabinet. He pulled out several forms that Nathan could only assume were authorizations related to trapping him in the bureaucratic afterlife.

  “There must be some other way out of here,” Nathan said stubbornly. “I will find it and use it to leave.”

  Nathan turned to go.

  “Remain where you are or suffer the consequences!” Fulcher boomed at him.

  Nathan ignored him and exited via the door he’d come through.

  “Wait, come back!” Fulcher said, but Nathan was already gone. Nathan slipped through the door and slammed it behind him, leaving the fearsome director in his office. Once he’d gone, Nathan found he was not in the hallway - where he’d expected to be - but rather back in the Complaints Department. Here he watched as a number of bureaucrats zealously set fire to a pile of forms admitting that they’d accidentally misplaced Ireland, much to the annoyance of the Irish.

  Even though he’d left, Director Fulcher’s words echoed strangely in Nathan’s head.

  “But this must be very boring and stale for you, Mr. Haynes... It happens again and again, day in, day out. You see the same old faces, the same bureaucrats on this side and the same lunatics on your side... Don’t you think it’s time for a change?”

  Nathan shook himself. He wasn’t sure why Fulcher’s words were swimming so annoyingly around the swimming pool of his mind, but he couldn’t seem to get rid of them. It was like Director Fulcher had somehow managed to infiltrate Nathan’s thoughts, which was a feat unto itself because Nathan didn’t have very many thoughts to infiltrate.

  For the moment, he had to find a way to get out of the afterlife before Director Fulcher found a way to trap him here.

  “Nathan!” a familiar voice exclaimed with surprise. Nathan turned to see Ian, triple-windsor-knotted tie and all, strutting towards him. “What are you doing back here again? Did your meeting with the Director go well?”

  Seeing Ian, suddenly a plan formed in Nathan’s mind.

  “A way to get out!” Nathan exclaimed. “Of course! Ian, do you still have that 8-ball thingie?”

  “The Bureaucratic Transit Device?” Ian said. “Yes. Here it is. I should explain that by ‘here’ I mean, in my pocket, and now my hand.”

  He took it out and shook it. The words on the bottom came up, “Ask Again Later.”

  “Oops,” Ian said. “That’s my 8-ball. Wait, here’s the Bureaucratic Transit Device.”

  Ian hurriedly swapped out the 8-ball for the device and shook it. This time the words came up “Rulan’s Casino.” A door appeared adjacent to him.

  “I need to borrow that,” Nathan said, and snatched it from Ian. Ian grabbed to get it back, but Nathan was too quick for him. He shook it vigorously, and soon the words, “Dead Donkey, Nevada,” appeared on the bottom of the device. A corresponding door had appeared next to him. Nathan threw the device back to Ian, who fumbled with it as Nathan opened the door and stepped through.

  Then the world was transformed to unending, unforgiving blackness punctuated by a single burst of light of infinite strength, brighter than the brightest sun, and Nathan once again crossed the boundary that separated the living from the bureaucrats.

  Chapter 4

  For as long as Nathan could remember he had lived in the would-be city of Dead Donkey, Nevada, but since he had brain damage he could only remember the last week or two, and that was if he was lucky. Maybe that was for the best, since Dead Donkey, Nevada was not a very nice place to live, or to be, or even really to fly over.

  The city itself was founded in the 1860s when a mule named Arnie belonging to the city’s founder, Efrain Smith, had keeled over dead on top of the toxic mine that was to become the foundation for the entire city. Smith subsequently began to build the city in the middle of the desert, attracting settlers to join him there by promising them luxurious lives filled with leisure, happiness, and all the sand they could drink. Since the only way to survive in the city was to rob the people who passed through, and once you had been robbed you had no choice but to stay in the city, Dead Donkey’s population ballooned naturally.

  Today Dead Donkey is very different from the lawless, chaotic anarchy of the Efrain Smith era, principally because the buildings have all since been painted different colors. This makes the city a lot less pleasant to look at because the only shades of paint available in the city seem to be extra-hideous orange and vomit-like puce. The city’s public policy analysts, not content to wreck the city indirectly, decided to cut out the middle man and become arsonists. Arson had taken over to such an extent that rumors circulated the much beloved Dead Donkey fireworks display was secretly an annual attempt to burn down the sky. The streets were overrun with the worst kinds of people imaginable to have running around the city, such as pedestrians. Roving, heavily armed gangs of opera singers patrolled the bad neighborhoods by night, accosting travelers and forcing them to listen to elaborate four-hour librettos unless the exorbitant fees they demanded were paid. Meanwhile, Dead Donkey’s cowardly and inefficient police insisted no resources could be devoted to the arsons, armed robberies, and spontaneous games of Muleball that broke out on the city streets because all available personnel had been assigned to guarding the local q-tip factory. As a matter of public safety, they said, it was absolutely critical that no one should be allowed to break into the factory and accidentally shove a q-tip into his ear (q-tips being those things that you’re not supposed to stick in your ear but the sole purpose of
which seems to be to stick into your ears).

  Schools across the city had closed in favor of allowing Dead Donkey’s youths to run black market stalls and card tables on the ends of the streets. Sports consisted entirely of the game of Muleball, which was violent enough to have received a letter of condemnation from the United Nations on humanitarian grounds. More intrepid members of Dead Donkey society could be spotted on clear days trying to launch themselves out of the city as human cannonballs. Dead Donkey’s travel agencies amounted to legalized hostage taking. The state of Nevada’s “scared straight” program had encountered great success in threatening to ship off young convicts and other offenders to Dead Donkey for their penal time; the state correctional system had found that prisoners were literally willing to perform backflips to avoid such a heinous fate.

  A general stench in the air of Dead Donkey was so unpleasant that rats refused to live in the sewers. Animals were generally unwilling to live in Dead Donkey and those who did so only did so very, very grudgingly. The city’s sole native bird was the Donkeyhawk, a morose, depressing, suicidal bird whose cawing foretold volatility in the commodities market and the rise of new music genres along the west coast. Pet dogs and cats had collaborated to develop internal combustion engine technology as part of their bid to escape.

  The city government was nothing short of disastrous. Dead Donkey’s mayor was deeply unpopular and he had not taken any executive or administrative action in the living memory of the residents. His chief advisor was a whiskey bottle and his head of staff a four-ounce shot glass, and he generally wandered around the city yelling at traffic.

  In short, it was a very, very, bad place to live.

  The spirit of the residents and the city of Dead Donkey in general was best summed up by the city’s legendary poet, ‘Sandy’ Drexler, the finest poet laureate who has yet to escape Dead Donkey University’s Maximum Security Poetry Department. He wrote: