by Liam Card
Where the spokes meet the core is where the Bookkeeper exists.
Many of him, actually.
Copies of him, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, like a string of paper dolls. And the Bookkeeper stands there, receiving the recently deceased after they have made their way to the front of the Post-Death Line.
Admittedly, I have no idea what comes after the Line. I just know it’s called What’s Next. But the babies seemed to know. They would race to get there. Anyone two years of age or younger floated and criss-crossed between the Post-Death Lines like a bicycle courier in traffic. These babies, they just flew to the front of the lines and past the Bookkeeper instantaneously, without any briefing, discussion, or information exchange.
For the rest of us, those old enough to have forgotten about What’s Next; for those of us affected by the world and attached to dogmatic and cultural untruths, the adjustment takes much longer, which is the ultimate purpose of the Line. Said differently, the Post-Death Line gives back to us the most important thing we have lost on account of living in the world: perspective.
Each spirit spends the exact same amount of time in line, and I can’t tell you how long that is because time is relative. When you first arrive at the back of your line, you face forward, toward another spirit who, in turn, is facing you. Without prompting or coaching, you connect and download the entirety of that spirit’s life on Earth.
You live it as they did.
Through their eyes.
As if it were your story, and you were starring in it.
You experience every high and low and in between and, in tandem, the spirit you have connected with lives your life as if it were their own. When the amount of time for information exchange is complete, the Bookkeeper shifts the spokes of the Post-Death Lines, changing them like a Rubik’s Cube. This shift moves you to another line, and you, in turn, rotate, facing the opposite direction. Now you stand with your back to the Bookkeeper, but one spot closer to him. After each connection, your RP (Required Perspective) improves by one. For the second experience, I connected and lived the life of an Afghani woman whose pregnant body had been stoned to death. I lived her life as if it were my own and experienced her death, just as she had. I experienced the pounding fear as my own flesh and blood surrounded me, pointed fingers, and cast the first rocks. I felt the ones that broke my ribs. I felt the ones that shattered my arms as I attempted to shield my face. I felt the matte thud and hot sting of the rock that got through and crushed my nose. The warm metallic taste of blood after the rock to the mouth, and then the one that doubled me over after hitting my pregnant belly. I remember falling after that one, and the blurred vision. The loss of hearing. I recall hoping the baby couldn’t feel any of it. Then one more direct hit to the face, and then black.
And that was the end of that life.
The lines shifted, and I lived the life of a British man who died at forty-one, fatally knifed at a rock concert for blocking someone’s view.
Then I was a Thai woman who slipped in the tub at ninety-four.
Then I was an American man who died of prostate cancer.
Then I battled and lost to cancer again.
Then I lost my life to the common cold, believe it or not.
Then I was bitten by a venomous snake while picking bananas.
Then I crashed a float plane into a mountain.
Then I was struck by a golf ball in the temple.
Then a heart attack.
Then of pneumonia.
Then due to hanging by the neck during autoerotic asphyxiation.
Then of infection.
Then of childbirth.
Many of childbirth.
Of course, press repeat on this process. Facing forward and then backward. Living and dying in all sorts of exciting and horrific ways.
With each shift of the Line, you move closer and closer to the centre core until, thousands of lives later, you arrive at the Bookkeeper and with Required Perspective. Skin colour, culture, religion, and geography provide nothing more than a contextual backdrop to set the stage for the all-too-similar stories surrounding the human condition.
Simply put, the Post-Death Line is where we all learn how exactly similar we are. The Line is where we shed everything we were taught and cleanse our spirits; wipe clean our hard drives, so to speak, through the process of experience. The blinding veil of misinformation wearing away as the spread of enlightenment accelerates with every life lived. The return to Perspective must be gradual so as not to ruin a spirit. Like a scuba diver slowly returning to the surface, the same is true with our spiritual composition. It can be soured if the process of unlearning and relearning is not handled with care.
• • •
By the time I faced the Bookkeeper, I had lived 19,251 lives. He offered to connect with me. I accepted. From the Bookkeeper, I was able to download my original Time Card. Whoever presides over What’s Next clearly identifies for how long each spirit is released to Earth. Thus, when our spirits are delivered, they come attached with this information. Think of it like dog tags. The Time Card shows a Spirit Number, Date of Delivery, and Date of Reintegration.
“Date of Reintegration was your understanding of death,” said the Bookkeeper. True, but what struck me was that my Date of Reintegration was many years farther along in the earthly calendar. How could that be the case? How had I been robbed of time on my lease?
“I have a question.”
“Surrounding the fact that you were taken too early,” he said.
“It looks that way, yes.”
“You have a very important choice to make, Luke,” he said, and explained the situation I was in.
It turned out that due to the car accident, due to the interference of another individual having run that red light and ending my time on Earth, my options consisted of the following: moving on to What’s Next or returning to Earth in order to live out the remainder of my designated spirit lease as a ghost, back among the living.
This seemed a fair proposition given that I had been robbed of exactly fifty-five years, eleven months, three days, three hours, six minutes, and forty-six point eight two seconds.
“And not everyone gets this choice?” I said.
“This decision applies only to those whose Time Card was unfairly affected by another being,” he said and then uploaded to me all of the conditions that defined “Human Interference.”
Famine was added to the List of Human Interference in 1935, since (by that time) there was more than enough food to feed the world many times over, and the means to deliver it promptly. Thus, death due to starvation on account of global hoarding and improper distribution was deemed unfair by whoever presides over What’s Next. Death by Infant Disease was the most recent addition, in 1992, since by that time the lack of inoculation was deemed Human Interference. Death by acquiring HIV through sexual intercourse, injection, in utero, or through childbirth had been added several years before that.
“The guy who hit me. What happened to him?” I asked.
“He was forced to What’s Next.”
And then the Bookkeeper sent me the life story of Gregory Adam Charles, which was as fascinating as any other until he was texting his way through an intersection. Affecting his Time Card was his own fault, but he clearly wasn’t supposed to T-bone and dismember me in the process.
“Under what conditions does anyone choose to return as a ghost?” I said, and the Bookkeeper sent me exactly one million examples and their corresponding determining factors. Once analyzed, it seemed most were between the ages of eight and seventy; those who still had close friends and family on Earth and wanted to spend more time alongside them; those who wished to be present for graduations and weddings and births. Others wanted to see how certain earthly stories played out, like who would win the World Series, for example.
Or the World Cup. The Olympics, or an imp
ortant election.
Who would win a war.
“What do you suggest for me?”
He sent me my life story in the form of a digital document, with the flashing cursor marking my current location in the story. What followed the flashing cursor was an infinite number of blank pages, and I understood.
“Your decision, please,” he said.
• • •
I elected to return to Earth. Even with Required Perspective at 100 percent, curiosity is the one thing wherein perspective can fail you. Burning questions need answering, and regardless of how many lives you’ve lived, curiosity is not something easily overcome. A gut feeling left unconfirmed is sour milk for the soul. The decision to return involved the two largest mysteries in my world: the truth surrounding my notion of Alice’s infidelity, and to identify the location and condition of the true love of my life, Diana-of-no-last-name.
“You’re certain,” said the Bookkeeper.
“I am. Yes.”
“Understand that as a ghost you will be unable to perform any action that would change what was meant to be, or the course of history,” he said.
“I understand.”
“You have been assigned a Mentor Spirit. His name is Robert F. Sutherland. You are to connect with him within twenty-four hours of arriving back on Earth as a spirit,” he said, and then I downloaded from the Bookkeeper who he was, and how to contact him. “Your Mentor Spirit is the only spirit you’ll be able to see or communicate with at first.”
“Then what?”
“Shortly after you meet with Robert and spend some time on Earth, you’ll be a Mentor yourself, ready to train a Recently Delivered Spirit (RDS) on global travel and to be there for them, should they wish to connect, for whatever reason. After your return to Earth, you will remain there in your new form for fifty-five years, eleven months, three days, three hours, six minutes, and forty-six point eight two seconds — the remainder of your spirit lease.”
The Bookkeeper uploaded to me the Code of Conduct and set of laws surrounding Ghosting and the Mentorship program.
This was called The Ghosting Handbook.
I read and accepted everything presented to me and sent him back the document, having initialled all of the pages.
“Do we ever correspond?” I said.
“If you wish, you can formally submit questions or comments,” and he sent me that section of the Handbook highlighted in hot pink. “Think of it like an upload. I respond as quickly as I can, but understand that I have my hands full with the Post-Death Line. I’m not an all-seeing eye.”
After we discussed John F. Kennedy, Area 51, and the Loch Ness Monster, he sent me back to Earth as a Recently Delivered Spirit.
I elected to arrive at the scene of my own funeral.
4
I hovered over my open casket. Not for any dramatic effect or to be spooky; it was simply the best seat in the house. Strange to look down on yourself from this perspective. There lay my body, vacated by the inhabitant and its framework left to break down like that of an abandoned building. Something to be looked at but not touched. Something that can’t be restored. That said, the mortician had worked a small miracle with his attempt to bring the abandoned building back to life. Given the extent of my injuries, to have an open casket was both an act of bravery and true artistry. The stitch lines holding my face together were barely visible underneath all of the foundation and bronzer. My corpse seemed to have acquired an unusual overbite, which spoke to the fact that my jawbone had fallen out of place somewhere in transit. Undoubtedly, more adhesive bonding was required at the hinges. That, or my teeth should have been glued together as a failsafe — what was left of them. I can’t imagine there being a full set of pearly whites in there given the severity of the impact. That was only confirmed by the fact that my lips had been glued shut. The weight of the unsecured jawbone was pulling the cemented lips into something of a frown or a look of distaste. Should the glue give way, my mouth would surely gape open, exposing all the nubs and sharp angles of broken teeth.
All in all, I looked pretty good for having been put back together. An extreme makeover: monster edition. My eyebrows had been shaped and pencilled in where sections were missing, and the random hairs growing on my earlobes had been removed. Alice had been on my case for years about those guys. Who knew this was what it would take to finally get that checked off the to-do list? My hair was heavily gelled and glistened under the lights of the church, like I was set to play Danny in a high school production of Grease. Parted and styled the way Alice preferred it — Second World War pilot style. It was the only part of me that looked heroic.
My hands, which had also been given a thick layer of foundation, were folded neatly over my navel. Upon further inspection, my left hand seemed to be resting at an impossible angle, leading me to believe that it wasn’t attached to anything. The unnatural, puffy-looking sleeve of the suit they had managed to contort me into gave more proof that the entire left arm was missing. They had stuffed it with cotton batting or fiberfill in the spirit of smoke and mirrors. And as much as I appreciated the efforts of the mortician, I couldn’t help but think that Alice had demanded the open casket. A final farewell to the Luke she married and the Luke she got. An art installation suggesting that things might not be as they seem. That one should peel back a few layers down before buying the advertising.
The place was crammed, filled with colourful floral arrangements and people dressed in black. Some people I hadn’t seen or spoken to in years. People I never imagined would attend something like this.
Not for me.
Reverend Rundle stood at the pulpit.
“Luke James Stevenson,” he said. “The man responsible for so many diamond rings and happy moments in this very room. It’s hard to associate him with anything as tragic as today. You know, I remember as if it was yesterday … when Luke stood up here for his Confirmation.”
Confirmation. Yes, who could forget that? Bob Graham was in my Confirmation class, and I downright hated Bob. In addition to Sunday sermons, Bob could also be found during the weekdays in my class at school, which left Saturday as the only true day of rest. Except that Bob lived just down the street from me in a small red-brick bungalow.
Number forty-three. The one with two chimneys, one mom, and six boys.
Bob was gender agnostic when it came to terrorizing and belittling, tearing down and intimidating. Even in the purported safety of the classroom, he would play sniper and fire a dozen or more spitballs a day at those he had chosen to torture. He was Billy the Kid with a wide-band broccoli elastic, lined paper, and thick saliva. If your name happened to rank high on the hate list, Bob would bypass the hair entirely and snipe you with a head shot. The spit bullet would stick to your cheek for a second and then slowly begin to snail down the face. Head-shot victims would scream and scratch wildly to remove the spitball, as if Bob’s saliva had penetrated the cheek and was in the process of infecting. The teacher would whip around and say, “What’s wrong? What is it? What happened!”
But no one tattled on Bob the Bully.
Yet Sunday after Sunday, there he was, sitting in the church pew beside the five aspiring bullies-in-training who all shared a last name. The fox in the henhouse.
And the fox would sing and pray and say amen when prompted. He would carry on as if equal to the rest of us in God’s eyes. Then again, why wouldn’t he? We were told time and time again that God loved us all the same. The reverend would say these words, and I would grit my teeth. My nostrils would flare, and I would force a lungful of breath out of them in frustration. Based on his acts outside of the four sacred walls, how could someone of his moral fabric possibly make it to Heaven? For saying out loud that Jesus was his Lord? Sure, I heard him say it, but in the eighth grade, even that seemed too simple for me; it was nothing but a set of loopholes through which misbehaviour was washed clean with catchphrases and exemplar
y attendance. And that was exactly what I said to Reverend Rundle during my pre-Confirmation meeting. The comment was sloughed off, and I was instructed to have faith in the process. Then I said, “Bob Graham belongs in Hell.”
“That kind of judgmental talk is out of line in God’s house,” he said. It was at this precise moment that I felt the need to distance myself from faith. From religion. From Reverend Rundle.
“If Bob Graham is going to Heaven,” I said. “Then I don’t want to be there.”
I watched him wriggle in his seat, stroking his greying beard, digging deep within the folds of his sanctified brain for an enlightened ping to my pong. The reverend was typically so prepared with something well-rehearsed, as if divinity school had consisted of memorizing one-liners in response to questions of faith, complete with the condescending delivery and professorial smirk. He picked his ear, sat back, crossed his fat arms, and rolled the waxy green finding between his ring finger and thumb. Eventually it dried, cracked, turned to dust, and disappeared.
He leaned forward, and this was his righteous answer: “Luke, Heaven is a big place. I’m sure you won’t bump into Bob up there when the time comes.”
And that was that.
A holy union of idiocy and defeat, and I was playing ringbearer for the main event. To me, the only thing Confirmation confirmed was that Reverend Rundle had no idea what he was talking about, and that with religion, if you don’t know the answer to a challenging question, you simply make one up — whether responding to a question of faith, biblical interpretation, or the approximate square footage of Heaven.
After a forced apology for sentencing Bob Graham to Hell, I went through with the Confirmation to please my mother.