BECOMING DEATH: CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 2
Not sure how much time had passed since I took that gas station employee to the other side, but by the time I was faced with the burden of guiding my mortal father to the afterlife, it wasn't long at all. In fact, for me it felt like the same day was repeating itself endlessly; it could have been five minutes, an hour, or a thousand years. It didn't make much of a difference to me, though. I wasn't as jaded, still felt sort of human.
I'd just dropped off a trucker I found outside of a massage parlor at HQ. I was holding the freshly printed work schedule, walking out of the elevator and through the labyrinth of offices that make up our headquarters. It was customary for me to check my schedule as soon as I stepped outside onto the vast, desolate plains of Limbo. Looking up into the cavernous sky, I always felt a deep sense of wonder, gazing up towards the glimmering crystal stalactites that speckled the dark, black subterranean roof that closed us off from the mortal realm. They seemed to be mimicking the dead stars that cast their shadows down upon the surface of the Earth.
Limbo is the shadow of the mortal world. It lives in your shadows, familiar shapes and forms, but an eerie imitation of reality nonetheless. For that reason, the people who lived in the middle of good and evil reside here. To me, these people are almost worse than the wicked. Too chickenshit to pick a side; an amalgamation of souls with weak auras.
Of course, they make good workers for the Underworld, which counts as low-level torture. Most of them just have to stand all day or shred documents from our headquarters. I prefer my job, I guess.
As I headed to the exit portal, I finally saw the picture. I was supposed to take a Mr. Jason Hall to get processed. Suddenly, I was struck by a memory.
I was heading to school in the middle of winter, my father struggling to buckle me into my seat. That particular day was the coldest on record for our town, and the car hadn't quite warmed up yet. My father was a methodical person; he shoveled the snow in a precise cadence, so it was all the more surprising and hilarious when he slipped and fell down the driveway, cursing the whole way down.
Our driveway was steep, which prolonged his fall. He said he never felt the same after that day, but throughout my life, we always managed to get a laugh out of it.
As time passes, so do memories. And time is relative, especially when you're Immortal. I remember that scene as clear as day, but my memories prohibit me from going anywhere before or after. I remember the driveway, I remember the scarf I was wearing (it was blue and woolen), and my dad hadn’t shaved. But I do not remember where we lived, what our house looked like, or my mother's face; so many details have been washed away with time.
Yet, I remain. I do wonder about my mortal life. How could you not?
He was living in a trailer park somewhere near Spokane, Washington. Was I from the Pacific Northwest? Or had hard times pushed him there? Impossible to know.
I walked into the living room of the trailer home and found him trembling like a small dog in the corner of the so-called "living room."
The place was disgusting. It looked as if it hadn't been cleaned in years. A myriad of TV dinners, lottery tickets, and empty cans littered the floor. I guess he didn't take my death well.
"What happened to you?" I said, kicking a can toward him.
"Who...who--er, you?" he managed to slur out.
"Hey, Dad."
"What?"
He didn't recognize me. That was to be expected.
"Never mind. You've passed away. Your report says from alcoholism...I'll be taking you in so we can process everything."
A dull look came across his face, and his eyes started to dim.
"No...I think I'll stay here for a while."
"That's...impossible. We have to go. I'm sorry."
His eyes were welling up. Watching anybody cry was tough, but seeing your mortal father cry at the face of death stirred the remnants of my soul.
In fact, I thought I would’ve felt more. I thought I would’ve had some revelation, found some meaning in the absurdity of my situation. But instead, in that moment, I found that I just felt repulsed by it all.
In that moment, I felt that the Fates were against me, making me play this demented game of mental chess before they pummeled my consciousness back into oblivion.
That's what I wanted really; to be nothing.
The root of my dread was that although my feelings were fading, I was left with the "why" of it all. Like a child, I toddled about, taking souls into this fantastical land of the recently departed, all the while the question of "why" burned through my mind like a wildfire.
But I realized then, with tears in my father's eyes, and the word "why" branded into his corneas, that there was no answer.
Or rather, we don't even want the answer.
The fear in his eyes betrayed his soul. There is the fear that there is nothing after death, and the fear that there is something after death. That is the paradoxical existence of a mortal.
All we know are tears and flesh.
In my line of work, I have seen the most pious folk try and sell their souls for a few extra minutes under the sun. Rarely do I see those absolute in their own convictions.
My father wasn't a holy man. Even before my passing, he never went to church. Never an outspoken atheist, but never committed to any certain God or ideology. I was never quite certain of what he believed.
As a child, I asked him as we drove past a church if there was a God. He took a long pause, then turned toward me in the backseat and simply said, "It's up to you to decide."
I didn't understand the profundity of that statement as a child, but now I understand why he felt like that. He didn't know, and he didn't want to pretend like he did.
I admired him for that later in my life, to live in the unknown, but at the same time, I pitied him. Perhaps that was because I had my own convictions.
As I stood before my mortal father, as the sole mediator between life and death, I realized I still pitied this man. He still didn't know. He still didn't want to know.
All he knew was flesh and blood, and what is, is, and it was in that ambivalence he wished to remain.
"Son, let me go back. Please, let me feel the warmth again. It's so cold."
He recognized me?
I could feel my face contorting and tears falling down my face.
Despite that, I took him in to get processed.