by Geoff North
“Fuck it.” He lowered the car window half way. He threw the remaining smokes outside and tossed the half-finished one out after. “I don’t need them anymore.” It was about the four hundredth time Hugh had vowed to quit, but in that moment of guilt and fear he felt confident it would be the last. He pressed the passenger window button down as well and watched with satisfaction as the remaining smoke was sucked out into the cold.
A sudden, freezing blast of wind struck the left side of his face, buffeting the car on the slippery road. Hugh gripped the wheel tightly and attempted to steer it back. He overcompensated and the back end began to fishtail on ice. He gave it a quick tug to the right and felt the vehicle come back under his control. His heart felt like it had jumped into his throat. He laughed nervously and congratulated himself for not panicking. Winter driving was one thing he hadn’t forgotten over the summer months.
He started to raise the driver’s side window when another gust of wind hit the car. Hugh was ready this time; he held the wheel firmly in place. The lottery ticket and newsletter lifted off the passenger seat and headed for the open passenger window.
Hugh clutched at the fluttering papers, taking his eyes off the road. In that short eternity he wondered why he was even bothering.
How can people make such stupid decisions in so small an amount of time?
His cell phone began to vibrate in his coat pocket, diverting his attention for another fraction of a second.
He ignored it and his fingers caught the newsletter. The ticket; a possible forty million dollar slip of paper that could change his life forever, was gone, whisked out of the car into the early evening air.
He was about to laugh again when he saw something red and white out of the corner of his eye. Through the small, clear portion of his windshield, now the size of a dinner plate, he saw the stop sign. Hugh slammed on the brake with both feet and the car began its final, uncontrollable slide. The sign passed by and there were two words now glaring at him in bright yellow.
FENCO FUEL
Even through the melting ice, Hugh could see the orange border around the letters. He could even see where the metallic stenciled ‘L’ was beginning to peel from the top. Dirty, grey snow was beginning to stick to the letters and gather on the metal rivets running vertically along the sign.
“Jesus!” Hugh screamed as his car smashed against and underneath the semi-trailer tank at forty-seven miles an hour.
Chapter 2
Brown.
Everything around him, everywhere he could see, was brown. Not that he could see far, or close for that matter. He wasn’t sure how far he could see at all since there was absolutely nothing to focus on but the single color. There were no objects around him, no ground beneath his feet, no sky above, no discernible horizon ahead or behind. It was as if he’d shut his eyes, but instead of seeing black, it was all brown. It wasn’t even a nice brown. It had a dark, rusty quality about it. Hugh sniffed the air. It had a metallic smell, thick enough for him to almost taste.
He didn’t expect the afterlife to be like this.
Where was the tunnel of bright light? Where were all the dead relatives and friends from his past?
Hugh knew he was dead, of that he was certain. In the split second after the collision he’d seen his body torn in half by the semi trailer’s undercarriage. It was as if he could see through the twisted metal and mangled roof of his car. His jacket and shirt had pulled away with the upper part of his body leaving his neatly severed lower half still sitting in the driver’s seat. Surprisingly, there was little blood, just a mass of innards and below that his bare, white belly and hairy navel. He felt embarrassment knowing his friends on the Braedon Volunteer Fire Department would see him like that. Would they be sickened by the gruesomeness of the wreck, or would they marvel at how far he’d let himself go the last few years?
Only half of the poor devil left, and he’s still overweight.
Hugh felt remorse at how his body had ended up. Besides a few minor bumps and breaks here and there, it had treated him pretty well. Now all that remained of it was a flabby gut and two legs straight as boards hammered down on the brake pedal. At least there hadn’t been time to piss himself.
He sighed at the thought of that last sad moment of his life and looked at his hands in the brown. His right one still held the crumpled lottery newsletter.
Who said you couldn’t take anything with you?
He saw his feet below, the shoes still wet from the snow and ice he’d stood in. He breathed in deeply and lifted each leg experimentally. Not bad, he thought, at least he wouldn’t have to spend eternity in two pieces.
He held his arms out protectively like a blind person and took a few steps forward. It felt as if he was walking on soft pillows. He stopped and did a complete turnaround. There was nothing to anchor his senses to and the sensation made his stomach turn. Hugh closed his eyes and waited for the sensation to subside. It didn’t. The feeling of vertigo made him dizzy and he sank to his knees. The hand with the newsletter clutched at his gut, the other covered his mouth.
No fair. You shouldn’t have to puke in the afterlife.
“Quit feeling sorry for yourself,” someone to the left said.
The sickness left Hugh instantly as he snapped his head in that direction. There was nothing but brown. “Who said that?”
No one answered. All he could hear was his own labored breathing; all he felt was the accelerated beating of his heart. It ached in his chest and thudded between his ears. Was it possible to have a heart attack here and die twice?
“Quit thinking like an idiot,” the voice from the left said.
“I don’t understand,” Hugh said. His own voiced sounded muffled. “You tell me to quit feeling sorry for myself and stop thinking like an idiot…how am I supposed to act? I’m dead, for fuck’s sake.”
“For fuck’s sake.”
“That’s what I said!” Hugh shouted. He remembered the last second of his life, what he had said in that final moment. He’d yelled Jesus. Hugh never attended church, and had in no way been a spiritual person. Sure, he believed in something, perhaps some universal intelligence with its own unfathomable agenda, but he never had a clue what it might be, or what plans it had in store for him. He should’ve yelled for ‘fuck’s sake’ when he plowed into the semi-trailer. It would’ve been more fitting…it would’ve been more Hugh.
“Why do you think you’re here?” The voice asked.
It wasn’t coming from the left, Hugh noted, it was only being heard in his left ear. He felt his right one carefully to see if it had been damaged. It seemed all right…no blood or brains on his fingers.
“You’re not all wrecked up here, Hugh. Might look like you were beaten, bashed, and bruised back on the highway, but here you’re fine.”
Beaten, bashed, and bruised? What a strange thing to say, Hugh thought.
I was severed neatly in half.
“Why do you think you’re here, asshole?” The voice in his left ear asked again.
“I guess I’m dead, but I don’t know why I’m here…I don’t even know where this is.” Hugh thought about things for a few moments. “Why did you call me an asshole? Shouldn’t you be nice?”
“Nice? Why? Where do you think this is?”
Hugh wanted to say heaven, but he didn’t want to risk sounding like a hypocrite. This wasn’t the pearly gates and the voice definitely didn’t belong to Saint Peter. The voice did seem familiar, though. Was it someone he’d known when he was alive? It was neither male nor female, it was just there in his head, and he didn’t want it to leave. It’s all he had now.
“I’m sorry,” the voice said. Hugh could actually hear it sighing. “I really don’t know where this is either, but I do know I’m here to help you.”
“Are you going to take me somewhere else?” Hugh asked hopefully.
“Not too sure where to go myself yet.”
“But you’ll stay with me, right? You won’t leave me alone?”
“I-I did my best,” Hugh struggled. “I loved my wife, my kids.” It was the first time he had thought of them since the accident. A moan of despair escaped his throat. How would they take the news? How would the kids be without their father?
Oh Cathy…I’m so sorry.
“In the last ten minutes of your life you called Cathy an ungrateful bitch, you thought of your three children with contempt, you recalled your lifelong friendship with your boss with secret jealousy and hatred, you considered what it would be like cheating on your wife again, you called Gary Reynolds a prick, and you flipped off a complete stranger, calling him an asshole. Would you like to recall the ten minutes before that?”
Hugh was speechless.
The voice spoke again after a full minute of silence. “Don’t feel too bad, most people are like that. We’re all cruel and petty.”
“Is this hell?” Hugh finally asked.
“No such place. If it were, there would be a lot more people.”
“So what now?”
“That’s completely up to you. You can leave this place and carry on to some other dimension. You can try the reincarnation thing and go back as a dog or as a tick on a dog. You can be born into a sheepherder’s family in northern Afghanistan, or you can try life as a baby girl in Brazil. I’m new to this too, you know.”
“Did you just die as well?” Hugh scratched his left ear and tapped the right one with the fist holding the newsletter. It was as if he was wearing headphones that had only one working speaker. The voice didn’t answer. “I’ll take that as being none of my business. Any other options?”
“You can surrender your soul to the cosmos and let some other being claim it.”
Hugh didn’t like the sound of that. “What else?”
“You can try again.”
“What do you mean try again?” Hugh asked. “Like go back to that last minute of my life and make sure I don’t slide past the stop sign?”
“Life and death aren’t that easy, idiot.”
Who did this voice belong to? Why was it sympathetic one second, and so cruel and cutting the next? Why was it so alien yet so familiar? “So what, then?”
“A lot of people never suffer any kind of remorse when they come here, or so I’ve been told. You’re not a great guy, Hugh, but you’re not a stupid one either. Your conscience is still pretty much intact, and you have the basic understanding of where you went wrong.”
“Yeah,” Hugh said weakly.
“So are you willing to try it again?”
“Do you mean live my life again as Hugh Nance?” His mind, his whole spirit filled with renewed hope.
“Don’t get too excited. It wouldn’t be easy.”
“You’re offering me a second chance…right?”
“I’m not God, you dink. I don’t have that kind of power.”
Hugh smiled. There was the voice’s flipside again. The part that seemed familiar to him. “But you’re here to make the offer, and someone, or something else can make it happen?”
“Now you’re beginning to get it.”
Hugh looked about in the brown. He feared that if he remained here much longer, he would become a part of it. “I want to do it, I want to go back.”
“It won’t be easy.”
“You told me that already,” Hugh said anxiously. He was almost prepared to accept the tick reincarnation at this point. “Just let me go.”
“Sure.”
“Who are you?” Hugh wished he’d asked the question earlier.
“It’s time.”
“I’m sorry I was such an asshole,” Hugh called out. He had the voice’s identity on the tip of his tongue, a sense of who it was, but he knew there wouldn’t be enough time to put a face to it. It was like trying to remember a certain song when another one would keep playing in your head.
“Cover your eyes and count to ten,” the voice in the brown said.
Hugh did as he was told.
“One…two…three…four…five…”
Chapter 3
“six…seven…eight…nine…ten.” Hugh opened his eyes and shut them immediately to block out the blinding sun. He opened them again slowly, shielding his vision against the bright with his left hand. “I’m back,” he said with stunned relief.
It was no longer winter. He was standing in green grass, his shoes no longer wet and covered in sleet. They weren’t even the same shoes. They were black ankle sneakers with white laces, about six sizes smaller in appearance than he was used to.
I remember these.
All the kids used to wear them. The last time he’d seen a pair was almost forty years ago…when he was ten.
“You’re supposed to say ready or not here I come,” a voice called out, and unlike the voice in the brown, Hugh knew instantly who it belonged to. He hadn’t seen Caroline Sterling since their high-school graduation, nor had he any idea what had become of her since, but he recognized the young voice as if it were yesterday. A child’s voice.
He studied the hand he was blocking the sun out with. It was small and smooth, dirt shoved up under the fingernails. Like Colton’s. His other hand was holding something.
“Holy shit!” He was still clutching the lottery newsletter. Hugh buried it the front pocket of his size-seven jeans as the girl ran toward him from around a crabapple tree. It was Caroline all right, wearing her trademark red polyester coveralls and white tee-shirt.
“Quit swearing, Hugh,” she scolded, standing in front of him with her hands set on her narrow hips. “You sound like your dad.”
My dad’s dead.
“Hi Caroline, been a long time, hasn’t it?” His voice sounded weak, smaller inside his throat. He cleared it instinctively, but knew there was nothing wrong with it. He studied the girl. Her brown hair was straight and ended neatly just above her shoulders. She wore thick, brown-rimmed glasses that made her big eyes look more intense, her youthful indignation more focused. Hugh giggled and shook his head. They would make out when they were teenagers. She’d be a lot cuter then.
“It’s been ten seconds. Why do you have to be such a smarty-pants? You’re wrecking the whole game.” She stomped off to the grove of crab apple trees and called back. “Try it again!”
“Try it again,” he repeated in a whisper.
Hugh looked around and realized where it was he’d ended up. They were behind the Braedon Elementary School playground. He could see the chain link fence off to the east, and remembered fondly how he and his friends would sneak over it during noon hours to play in the woods. There was the abandoned outhouse to the south, overgrown with bushes. His parents had used it when they attended school back in the forties, before indoor plumbing.
Was he really here? Had he actually died and gone back in time to live his life over? Or had he fallen out of one of these trees just moments ago and hit his head? Perhaps he’d only imagined that other life. It could have all been brought on by his wild, ten-year-old-old imagination suffering a mild concussion.
A boy called out. “Are you playing or not? We gotta get back to class soon.”
It was Billy Parton. After Bob Richards, Billy had been Hugh’s best friend growing up. Remembering back, Hugh knew the boy was probably a better friend than Bob had ever been. They had more in common; there had been none of that unspoken, competitive nature between them.
Don’t think like that. You’re here to learn from your mistakes, not repeat them.
He would have to bury those old feelings of envy and jealousy if he was going to make a difference this time.
“I can’t play anymore,” Hugh yelled out. “I gotta go.” He may have been a child again, but he still thought like an adult. The last thing he wanted to do was play hide and seek.
Billy emerged from the outhouse shaking his head. He wore glasses too, the lenses twice as thick as Caroline’s.
&n
bsp; I wonder what Billy would’ve thought of contacts?
The skinny, freckle-faced kid would be crushed by the back end of a grain truck before his fifteenth birthday. Did he get a second chance as well?
“Don’t be a suck, we still have time for one more go,” Billy said.
“I’m not going back to school today.”
“As if you got a choice,” Billy laughed. He pulled the blue ball cap off his head and ran his fingers through the greasy, red curls beneath. “Maybe I should play hooky too. What’re you gonna do?”
Hugh looked at the school beyond the fence. The brick building would be torn down in the early eighties and replaced with a modern facility. He dreamed to this day the old one was still there, that he was still wondering down its labyrinth of dimly lit hallways, between the empty classrooms of second, third, and fourth grade. In the dreams he could still smell the damp wood, the pine sol aroma masking the faint scent of mold and urine, chalkboards and rubber boots, old text books and eraser shavings. New buildings didn’t have those smells, and for a moment he considered going back to class with his friends. “I’m going down town…you know-- to check things out…then I’m going home.”
“Sounds cool,” Billy said. “If I had any money I’d go with you, maybe buy some stuff.”
Hugh nodded. Billy didn’t have any money, nor did Caroline. Most little kids back in seventies Braedon never had more than fifteen cents in their pockets. He checked his own and discovered a crumpled dollar bill beneath the newsletter. A small fortune. He wondered what particular day in the past this might be, and how he’d ended up with so much cash. Hugh unfolded the grimy note and studied it nostalgically. Paper dollar bills had been out of circulation for over two decades. He should put it away; keep it as a collector’s item. He giggled at the idea. There would be plenty of these to spend in the coming days, just as there would be plenty of afternoons to spend in the old school.
“You gonna share that?” Billy asked excitedly.
“Go screw yourself.”
Aww, shit. Be nice!
“Let’s go Billy,” Caroline said. Hugh hadn’t seen her return from her hiding place. “Let potty-mouth have his money. I’m sure Mrs. Stimm will want to hear all about him skipping school.”