II
Riley was already standing over his corpse slowly realizing what just occurred. He just stood there looking over at himself, trying to remember what he was thinking before his brain disconnected from his spinal cord. He couldn’t remember. He was just about to look up at the rest of the world in it’s newly filtered gaussian blur-esque quality when a voice broke the silence. He could place it as directly behind him but, he felt no breath on his neck. Though, he contemplated that it would probably be stranger if he did feel a breath.
“When you die your body stops functioning but your ‘soul”, as you guys say it, still functions. Not forever though, you’ve only got a few days before you’re completely dead and it will be end of the line for you,” came a voice from behind Riley. The voice sounded like that of a woman who could make a living as a phone sex operator.
“Once your body dies, your soul just lives on and you can now wander the earth without the usual physical boundaries that would contain you.” The voice continued.
“So now with that, I bid you ad—“
“Are you Death?” he interrupted before she could finish her sentence. He turned around to see what he had always envisioned as the perfect woman. She had long cherry blonde hair and everything about her was to his specification. Coca-Cola bottle curves with voluptuous breast and piercing blue eyes. Speaking of Coca-Cola bottles, I’m pretty sure you rest one on her derrière but, that’s beside the point.
“Why yes I am. Most people don’t even turn around to say hello to me. I would ask how you are doing but I think it’s pretty obvious.” She with a smiled.
“I figured death would be a beautiful woman. God is probably really hot too.” He said and turned back to the car crash. He bent down and looked again at his own mangled corpse and semi decapitated head hanging over the brim of the bloody window. “Could you do me a favor and change yourself to look like someone I’ve never seen before. It would make it a lot easier to talk to you.”
“Well, I don’t plan on speaking to you more than another minute but I guess I will consider it your dying wish.” Said the voice, which went from a beautiful voice to a monotone bellow. The woman shifted into a white male between the ages of 25-30 though it didn’t really matter to Riley as long as the person dooming his existence didn’t give him a hard on. That is if he had a fully functioning penis anymore. Another concept he quietly contemplated to himself.
“Is there anything I could do to speak with you further or must you attend other arrivals?” Riley said as he got up and turned to his new friend.
“No, I’ve got all the time in the world and it’s mostly an automated process. Why you feeling lonely?” said Death as moved next to Riley. “Sheesh buddy, I’ve seen some horrible shit in my day. This one goes into the scrapbook.” He said as he took a snap shot of the contorted cars and corpses on the street. The Polaroid camera seemed to have been dangling from his neck the entire time though I guess Riley didn’t notice or care for that matter. “Well, what do you want to talk to me about? It’s not very common for someone to want to talk to me.”
“Why not? I find you fascinating. I find this entire ordeal fascinating,” said Riley staring Death in the face. “So do I reincarnate after this or stay in this limbo forever.”
“Yea, no. You’re pretty much doomed to a fate of nonexistence after a few days. The rest of the human race just wanders around the earth and looks at everything they couldn’t. Mostly, they just follow their physical body around as it goes to the hospital, funeral then eventual final resting place. I’ve seen some folks lay in the incinerator with their former hosts or even just let themselves be buried with the casket.”
“Creepy,” Riley said.
“Yea, I always thought so too.” Death said unapathetically. “Kind of pathetic if you ask me. If you picture a place in your mind you will just appear there if you want to. You have no body to carry anymore so science and everything you learned don’t matter. I could try and give you the scientific reason why you can do it but, we don’t have any scientists and I’m the only one that sticks around here. So, why follow yourself when you could just relax on top of the Sphinx or hangout in the Oval Office and find out what really goes on.”
“I would want to see what happens backstage at a wrestling match.” Riley laughed. “These huge guys pretending to hate each other probably go back stage and hop in the jacuzzi together. Paint each others toenails and watch Oprah.”
“You’d be surprised,” Death said ponderously. “Actually, not really.”
Riley sat down next to his car and looked down at the street. Everything had an ominous fog, as if the road ended in a few feet. All those artists that tried to visualize the afterlife did a pretty good job. It never startled him that he was no longer alive, he seemed more curious as to how they pegged it so dead on in those paintings. No pun intended.
“So do ghosts exist? Am I a ghost?” Riley blurted out.
“Well, I guess you can call them ghosts but, nobody can see you” Death replied. “In the freak accident that a living human being sees a ‘ghost’ it is only for a few days. If they continuously see the same ghost then after that, then they are just either hallucinating or on expired medication. That’s why you can’t see the cops and media wagons that are all over the place.”
“Hmm…interesting,” said Riley.
“I mean you can if you will it.” Death said with a shrug.
“Maybe some other time.” Riley replied.
“Well, it seems that I can’t get rid of you.” Death said putting his arm around Riley. “This place seems pretty bleak if you ask me. Let’s head somewhere with some pizzaz.”
“What do you m—?” uttered Riley. Though right before the last word could find it’s way out, he was looking over miles and miles of green landscape with white spots of civilization below. Death looked over at Riley and smiled.
“So what else are you curious about?
