Death Sucks

by Andrew Mallen

“Looks like he could use a cup too, huh?” the fisherman filled another cup and handed it to Roger.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome, son.”

  Roger walked carefully to the Jeep where Lenny waited with a look of shear befuddlement plastered on his pale, narrow face.

  “You come here a lot?” Bobby asked to fill the awkward silence.

  “Every chance I get. You fish?”

  “Not really. I used to with my dad but not anymore.”

  “You should try again. Everyone should, it’s truly incredible if you think about it.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Bobby placated, he wasn’t in the mood for hobby advice.

  “You think I’m crazy?”

  A little.

  “No, just a guy who loves fishing.”

  …a little too much.

  “Think about it, the odds, the faith a fisherman has to have.” The fisherman marveled at the thought he presented. “To put all that time and energy into something so likely to fail.”

  Dude, I really don’t have it in me to give a flying fuck right now.

  Bobby shook his head and shrugged, smiling a muted smile.

  “Think about the size of a hook, the biggest one you can imagine, one of those monsters made to catch Great White sharks,” the fisherman said and allowed Bobby the time he required to do as he’d asked. “Now consider the size of the ocean.”

  The old angler watched and waited. Bobby couldn’t deny the guy had a point, it was the nautical version of a needle in a haystack to the millionth degree.

  “Every river leads to a sea, every sea to an ocean, but every ocean is divided only by name. All that water and one man tosses one hook into it. He can’t see what’s there. He has no idea what’s beneath the surface but he throws his hook in and he waits. That fisherman believes. He believes he’ll catch a fish, that it will swim up out of the endless void and take what he’s offering. When it does he celebrates. When it doesn’t he comes back, time after time, and does the same thing, again and again. Why?”

  “Why what?” Bobby was beginning to think they’d stumbled onto a madman.

  “Why come back?”

  “Hunger, I guess, maybe the dude’s got a family to feed.”

  Shit, not everyone’s out here for shits and giggles bro.

  “Hunger! Yes!” the fisherman cried, smiling like a pedo at a Boy Scout slumber party. “But not for food.”

  “What?”

  “They hunger for something different, something more powerful, something far sweeter and far more nourishing than food.”

  Definitely nuts.

  “Okay buddy,” Bobby had his fill of the old man’s brand of crazy and wanted to get on with his own. “I think I’m going to go and…”

  “Do you know what they hunger for?” the fisherman pushed, holding Bobby with his hypnotic blue eyes.

  No clue and zero shits given.

  The fisherman smiled, warm and kind, making Bobby guilty for not sharing his enthusiasm. “It is the reward of those who believe,” the old man almost whispered and waited.

  Okay, whatever.

  “You got me, mister.”

  “Faith,” he revealed as if it was the greatest secret ever told. “Faith rewards them with what they want above all things.”

  Bobby nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. He still didn’t pick up what the old man was throwing down but he didn’t want to be a dick and he didn’t want to trigger the rage that lived beneath the thin veneer of calm, a trademark violent psychotics.

  “Do you really understand?” the fisherman asked.

  Bobby wanted to lie, to pacify the guy and end their conversation, but blurted out the truth instead, “Not really.”

  “That’s okay. Think of it this way. A man believes in God his entire life without ever seeing or hearing him. He follows his heart and tries his best to be a good person and then he dies. What happens next?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Bobby replied, shaking his head.

  “He goes to Heaven. He’s rewarded. He’s saved!”

  I don’t want to piss in your lemonade but man do I have a bladder full of reality for you.

  “If you say so, in a perfect world I guess,” Bobby replied

  “No world is perfect,” the fisherman agreed, his bright eyes darkening. “It is not the living world I speak of.”

  This took an odd turn. I’m like a magnet for this kind of crap.

  “I’m sorry sir but I’m just not in the mood for a deep, spiritual conversation right now. Thanks for the hot chocolate, congrats on the fish and get home safe.”

  The Reaper turned and headed toward the Jeep. “But isn’t that why you came?” the fisherman asked, stopping Bobby in his tracks.

  “What?” Bobby spun.

  “Isn’t that why you’re here Robert?”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I know everyone’s name. Leonard, Jackie, Jordan, and Roger.”

  Holy fuck sauce! I think He’s God! I’m talking to God!

  “That’s what some of my children call me,” the fisherman said.

  *

  Bobby’s mind spun like a squirrel with a coke habit.

  “I came here to meet you Robert Grant,” the fisherman said plainly. “I came here because I was told about what happened to you. I came here to hear what you have to say.”

  Bobby stared in silence, in disbelief and in absolute astonishment.

  “It’s okay Robert, I’m just a man on a beach. You have no need to fear me or to fear what is to come. Feel for what you know is right, feel for what lives inside you, the good that lives in each and every living thing. Feel it and let it wash away what holds you back, what keeps you from your truth.”

  “I…I just…I didn’t think you’d be here,” Bobby said what came to mind, amazed anything surfaced from the chaos.

  “I am.”

  Bobby nodded.

  “You believe Robert,” the fisherman said. “I see it in you but you refuse it.”

  “You…you let them have me,” Bobby whispered, hoping to control his building anger.

  The fisherman nodded, but his blue eyes lost their spark.

  “You let them have me!” Bobby roared as his temper flared, the old man’s admission igniting the deep well of hate deep inside him. “I…it was…they…no one should ever have to go there! They…it’s disgusting and it… it’s vile…it…it’s the most horrible fucking place you could ever imagine!”

  “I know,” God replied, his face drawn into a dark scowl.

  “So why then? Why me? Why did you do it? Why did you let it happen?”

  “Someone I love very much fooled me,” God confessed.

  “Satan,” Bobby spit the name.

  “Yes, my brother,” God agreed. “When he revealed his true self, his true nature, I should have killed him but I couldn’t. I loved him even though he turned into something I could not understand, something so deeply poisoned by hate and by greed that he was no longer the brother I knew and loved. I gave him the world he wanted and swore not to interfere as long as he remained within its boundaries. It was a mistake I regret every moment, an error in judgement tainted by love and the need to share it. I refused to see that it would not satisfy him, that he would eventually try to break our bond to create more of the suffering he thrives upon. Those who do not seek love find him, that was our agreement. But I’ve been told it’s been broken.”

  “Fuck yeah! It’s broken big time!” Bobby roared.

  God smiled, unfazed. “Then we will fix it.”

  “How? How are you going to fix it? That sick bastard has an army ready to go and you’re fucking out here fishing!”

  “In time we will figure that out,” God said, keeping his cool as Bobby boiled.

  “Time! We don’t have time!” the overburdened dam holding back the tidal wave of his suffering finally gave way. “What about Roger? What about Lenny? And Jackie and Jordan and Wendy? What about my parents for fuck’s sake, th
ey think I’m a fucking murderer! I’m being hunted, did you know that? Those shitheads could pop up and take me out at any second and its game-fucking-over dude! I was in Hell! Fucking Hell! Fire and torture and pain and all that kind of shit. It’s full of some really hardcore assholes, did you know that? That shit’s not cool. I didn’t deserve that shit. I don’t deserve this shit. You fucked up and I’m paying the price dude! That shit’s not right…it’s not!”

  Nice job Bobby! You just cursed out God! You might not have earned it before but that little rant got you a first-class ticket to the Flame for sure. You called him dude for fuck's sake…dude!

  “I’ve been called worse by better,” God chuckled.

  You hear me?

  I hear everything.

  Shit! Sorry.

  God smiled. “We have a lot to talk about Robert.”

  Bobby nodded.

  “We should not do it here.”

  “Sounds good. Where? Heaven?”

  “You are not allowed there,” God replied.

  Bobby frowned. “Allowed? You’re like God right? Can’t you do whatever you want? I mean, who’s going to stop you?”

  “It is a rule of our pact and I will not break it,” God said sternly, leaving no room for argument.

  Bobby argued anyway, “Dude! It’s already broken.”

  “Not by me. I cannot accuse him if I have done the same. If I am to prove our pact broken, then I must remain innocent of it, regardless of his actions.”

  Bobby hoped God would just wipe Hell out of existence, along with every memory of his time there. Looking into the old man’s eyes, he realized it wasn’t going to be that easy. “I don’t get it. The dude is like the worst of the worst, right?. He’s a real asshole, no offense. He’s down there, doing whatever tickles his fancy, and you’re here worrying about following the rules, rules you created. It makes zero sense!”

  “To judge you must be pure. I cannot condemn him if I am guilty of the same.”

  “Seriously? Maria must have told you everything, she must have told you about all the sick freaky shit going on down there?”

  “I did,” the Angel replied from behind the Reaper as she closed the CJ7’s passenger door.

  Bobby twirled like a drunken ballerina. One filthy foot caught the hem of his robe, pulling him awkwardly to his knees. “You don’t have to kneel,” she giggled.

  “You…you’re here,” Bobby whispered, trying to convince himself she was real but afraid to believe it.

  “I am.”

  “You did it.”

  “I did.”

  “I thought you forgot about me…about us,” Bobby said, his voice cracking under the strain of the overwhelming relief coursing through him.

  “I couldn’t,” she said, winked and smiled. “You’re not that easy to forget.”

  “You’re a bit of a brain splinter yourself,” Bobby said, falling right back into the playful banter he loved and missed so much.

  “You two have it bad,” God pointed out with a smile of his own.

  “What?” Bobby wasn’t sure he heard Him right.

  “You love each other,” God said it so plainly, without question or accusation.

  Bobby felt as if a steel-toed Cristiano Ronaldo kicked him in the nuts. God just outed his deepest secret right in front of the girl he struggled so hard to keep it from. Maria’s jaw dropped as she stared at God with the same expression. God chuckled. “Love is love. Nothing gets in its way. Nothing can prevent it or restrain it. It is the most powerful force in all creation. Only a fool would try to deny it and I am no fool.”

  “It is forbidden,” Maria informed Him.

  “It can’t be.” God shook his head.

  “But…in the Laws,” Maria insisted stubbornly. “We are not to speak to Reapers or any of Satan’s agents.”

  “Do you need words to love?” God asked.

  Maria and Bobby exchanged a look of complete bewilderment.

  “There is no mention of love in any of the Laws,” God informed his stunned audience. “And why obey that one after breaking so many others?”

  Maria’s eyes widened. Bobby’s mind tumbled, unable to accept all the lost time he’d spent with the woman he loved while fighting to stifle it.

  “You two have broken just about every one. You spoke to the enemy, you interfered with the living, you even interfered with the dead and as a result two souls were abandoned and left without a path to the next life,” God clarified, still smiling.

  “They’re not abandoned, they’re in the Jeep.” Bobby turned and pointed toward the Wrangler and screamed at what he saw

  “The world waits for us,” God answered before a question was asked.

  Bobby rose from his knees, looking around slowly. He was the only moving thing for as far as he could see in the crisp, early morning light. The waves stood frozen, curled and ready to break. The seagrass was bent but still, as was the unseen wind that pushing against it. Seagulls decorated the sky, hanging above the sea as if on invisible strings. Roger stood like a mannequin beside the Jeep, extending one hand and the cup it held. Lenny leaned through the open window, poised to accept it. The steam from the hot chocolates sprouted from the cups like an odd gray garnish. “Why…how?” Bobby sputtered.

  “As you said Robert,” God replied with a humble shrug. “We have little time.”

  I feel like I’m trespassing in a painting or in a glitched-out game of PUBG: Beautiful Sunrise Edition.

  “Bobby?” Maria’s voice, the one he’d waited so long to hear, dragged him back to their altered reality. “You okay?”

  Bobby looked at her, she was even more beautiful than his faded memories. “Oh yeah, ya’know…peachy.”

  She laughed. Bobby couldn’t help but join her, it was that or cry. God laughed with them. Bobby pictured what it must look like, a beautiful Angel, a Reaper and God dressed like a fisherman, laughing like idiots on a beach in the middle of nowhere while every single thing, living and otherwise, did the biggest mannequin challenge of all time. He laughed even harder, at the insanity of it, at the complete absurdity of it.

  There’s a very good chance I’m in a padded room in a nuthouse somewhere dreaming this whole thing up.

  3.

  “We need to move on. I know a place Satan will never look.”

  Thank God. Hahaha.

  Maria asked nothing, her trust in Him was unshakeable. Bobby’s, not so much, “Where? All of us? Roger, Lenny, Jackie, the kid?”

  “All of us,” God replied.

  “Where?” Bobby asked again.

  “Home,” God replied and his face darkened with sorrow.

  “Home?” Bobby wasn’t up to date on his deity trivia.

  “Home,” God smiled and spread His arms wide to show the Reaper exactly what he meant.

  Bobby’s mind stumbled. One moment he was standing on a beach and the next he was ankle deep in a bright yellow field of tall, red tipped grass that felt as soft as puppy hair beneath his feet. The sky above him was as orange as a brand new traffic cone across which glowing silver swirls slithered like sidewinders. The horizons were way too close on every sides and the air tingled the exposed skin of his face and neck.

  “What just happened?” he asked once he found his voice.

  “Yoba,” God said with pride. “This is my home, where my life began.”

  “Where though, like space or another galaxy or something?” Bobby needed answers that would make the bizarre pill easier to swallow.

  “Your mind can not understand it,” God replied gently.

  “It’s so amazing! So beautiful, so… so beautiful,” Maria spun to take it all in.

  “Thank you,” God smiled.

  “Yeah, it’s wild,” Bobby agreed with the Angel but found the wacky landscape lacked the steel walls, canons, missiles and the heavily armed squadron of super-soldiers he needed to feel safe. “This place is safe?”

  “It is,” God replied, his voice as steadfast as his eyes.

  Bo
bby believed Him. “So what do we do now? What’s the plan?”

  “First, you must introduce me to your friends,” God replied and cocked his head at the still frozen party of four laying in the unusual grass a few feet away.

  “Oh shit!” Bobby cried, he had completely forgotten them. “Are they okay?”

  “Bobby!” Maria scolded, he’d missed it.

  “They’re perfectly fine,” God assured him. “Will they be able to handle it when I release them Robert?”

  Bobby thought about it, it was a reasonable question considering they’d wake up in Bizarro Land with no idea how they got there. Add in the impending meet and greet with God and they were definitely in for a serious mind bending. He knew all too well how that felt but at least they wouldn’t be alone, he’d be right there ready to explain it to them somehow.

  “They’ve been through so much already,” Maria spoke before Bobby could.

  “Yeah but they’re stronger than I am, a lot stronger. Even with all this crazy shit going on they all still believed. The faith you were talking about, they got it. They believed even when they’d have been better off not believing. Jackie’s a holy roller and her boy is just a boy. Lenny’s mission in life is to help people and Roger has a big, goofy heart of pure 14 karat gold. This place, you, it’ll freak them out but it won’t break them. This is why we did what we did. This is what we sacrificed so much for. This is what they believe in, you are what they believe in. They deserve this and a whole lot more.”

  God smiled big and bright, “Well then, let’s meet these fine folks.”

  *

  “What the fuck?” Lenny screamed, jumped to his feet and spun like a top.

  “Lenny? Lenny? Where are we?” Roger sat up like Dracula and was just as pale.

  “Praise Jesus, we’re in Heaven baby! We’re in Heaven!” Jackie pulled Jordan into her lap and squeezed him tight.

  “Mommy what’s up with the grass, it’s all weird and stuff” Jordan asked as he squirmed in her arms. “And who’s the old dude with Bobby and the lady from my dream?”

  Despite the spectacular scenery the four newly awaked visitors set their eyes firmly on the three figures who stood smiling at them. “Oh my God, it’s Jesus!” Jackie cried, tossed her son aside, scrambled to her knees, made three super-fast signs of the cross and clasped her hands tightly in front of her downcast eyes.