Next!

 

Dorothy Davies

 

It was almost impossible to get a toe inside the room, let alone actually go in, but if I wasn't inside, how would I hear my name called? I had no plans to spend eternity on the outside; I needed to know where I was going and who I was going with. Admittedly the second part was relatively incidental, eternity was eternity even if I liked the person /people.

I pushed a little harder.

"Give over!" someone muttered. "There's no room!"

But at that moment I heard "NEXT!" shouted from the other end and everyone moved up a fraction, just enough to let me in.

Just my luck to die when there was - seemingly - a plane crash, a capsized cruise liner and a train wreck all at the same time. That was my first impression, considering how many spirits were crammed into the large area. Some were holding steering wheels, some had half a face where they'd been burned; some had holes where knives or bullets had entered. It took me about five minutes, if I remember what five minutes felt like, to realize there were no major disasters, this was the usual amount of people trying to find their destination after death. The second thing I realized was that everyone there, including me, had died violently. There were no cancer or heart victims or those who had died of sheer old age among this crowd. Everyone carried signs of violence of some kind or another.

Interesting.

Well, for someone who likes people watching, it is.

Ha! Amend that. Spirit watching.

"Move up!" someone grunted but no one shifted an inch. We couldn't. There was no room.

"Move up!" The voice got louder. It produced a chorus of "Push off! No room! What do you think we're doing, standing around like this for our health?" and other such comments. Some were unrepeatable. People don't change when they cross over, that was blatantly obvious. I heard words I'd never heard before, some actually made me blush. I thought I couldn't be shocked by anything anymore.

Not after Arthur Menton killed me.

Look at that, would you? I said his name without spitting blood or curses or both. I seem to have mellowed a little in the few minutes since dying and arriving here. Well, at least one person has mellowed: judging by the sound of the profanities and abuse going on around me, few of the others have.

Nothing changes.

Same old - same old.

I'd hoped for better... but then, I should have known better, shouldn't I? Been told enough times from the platform in all those spiritualist meetings, our loved ones don't change when they get to the other side. Nor do our hated ones, it seems.

I'm saying that because I've just spotted Arthur Menton in the crowd. Ha! So I did do him in as he did me in, after all! Thank everything that needs to be thanked for that small mercy. I can face eternity better knowing he isn't walking the earth plane whilst I'm crammed in this room/way centre/gathering place/whatever it is waiting for someone to tell me where I'm going. And he's pushing and shoving and swearing just as he did before I carved him up from navel to throat. Never thought I had it in me.

"Next!"

We all moved along a fraction and Menton came closer to me, eyes glittering with hate, just as they did half an hour earlier. It's no more than that since we arrived here.

"You..." He begans his curses again, but someone thumped him in the ribs, hard.

"Shut it, big mouth! We're all dead! Chew on that and wait your turn!"

Surprisingly, he does. The mouth slams shut like a vault - my wish is to turn the huge handle slowly and carefully, only with him inside it.

We're all dead. Chew on that and wait your turn.

I'm as guilty as him in thinking we're still alive.

Just when I thought we would all be stood there for days, if not weeks, as we were selected for this or that destination, something happened that took me - and a lot of others - completely by surprise. A bunch of hooded skeletons with grinning skulls fought their way in. Actually, despite the crush, it wasn't difficult for them as you took one look and, space or no space, you moved back.

They stormed through, bony fingers reaching out touching this one, that one, a tap on the head, on the shoulder, on the nose and that person followed them obediently, as if drugged. Arthur Menton was one of them. No fight left, just puppy-dog devotion following the black robe through the crowd which eased back to let them pass. By then there was a lot of room, they took a whole swathe with them.

"Heading for hell," someone commented behind me. "No need for selection for them, their deeds signposted their destination before they got here."

That left me wondering where I was going. I had been guilty of killing as much as he had, only -

Mine was self-defence. His was out and out murder for the sake of it. All I had done was criticise his car.

Wouldn't you? I mean, a bright yellow thing with spoilers and big fat tyres and a horn that played a ridiculous tune...

It was his bad luck I had a Stanley knife in my pocket.

I was a good deal closer to the door now, awaiting that 'Next!' call.

And getting scared.

Stupid, isn't it? I mean, there I am, stone dead, standing in a waiting room of stone dead, worrying about where I'm going...

Ha! The alternative has arrived. The alternative to the skeletons, that is. Golden haired white robed beings with bland benign faces; the ones I hate as they reveal absolutely nothing. That means you have to work twice as hard to find out what they're thinking. Whatever... they walked through, touching this one, that one, muttering names under their breath, until they had a whole crowd which followed them out of the room.

"Heading for heaven," said the same voice which said Menton and others were heading for hell.

I turned round. Yes, there was that much room now I could do that. I looked into a face that was vaguely familiar but then again could have been the face on a hundred people during my life. Ordinary, comfortable, aged, you know the type.

"Hallo, mate!"

A chubby hand thrust at me. I took it without thinking. "Hallo back to you," I said, desperately trying to remember who he was.

"You don't really remember me, do you?"

"Well ... you're very familiar, I have to say that."

"I should be. I delivered your mail for almost a quarter of a century. More times than not you didn't see me. I was up too early for you, in the days when the postman came early and didn't knock at all."

"I thought this was a waiting room for those who died violently."

"I did. Irate householder with an equally irate guard dog. Got me, so it did."

"Sorry about that."

"I'm not. Sick to death - excuse the pun - of the job and the customers and the gates which jammed and letter boxes which trapped my fingers. This way I got out of the job and the Missus got the compensation."

"But - you've left her on her own!"

"It won't be long before she's over here too. Bad heart, bad kidneys, bad back, you name it, she's got it bad."

"Look, I know this sounds stupid, but you don't know where you're going, so how will she find you?"

"Who said anything about wanting her to find me?"

"Oh. Right."

"Next!"

We moved up a bit more.

The room was emptying out fast. I hadn't seen where some of the dead had gone, those not collected by the skeletons or the angels, definitely not gone through that menacing door, where the man shouts "Next!" like some sergeant-major or something. They were just - not there anymore. I wondered if they found their destination. Was there a map on the wall, like one of the underground system, they chose somewhere and just - went?

I turned to ask someone but I was suddenly, surprisingly, alone.

The room was vast, cathedral-like in its space and echo-ness. The floor, I realized, was marked out in concentric circles and spirals which would drive you insane if you decided to walk them. I didn't try. I stood in the corner by the door, which held even more menace than it had before, and tried to look innocuous and innocent and timid and everything that would avoid one of those skeletal people coming to tap me on the shoulder or somewhere.

The door opened and a smiling man sporting a pocket stuffed full of pens looked at me.

"Come in."

"Thank... thank you."

"Sit. Don't be scared. Nothing's going to happen you don't agree to."

He sat behind a huge, and I mean huge, desk. You could have landed a 747 on it and had room to spare, I swear that's true. Well, all right, not quite but you get the idea. There was not a scrap of paper on it, no telephone, intercom, nothing. Just a vast expanse of fine grained wood.

I looked at the man. He was still smiling, his shock of pure white hair was every which way, his eyes were twinkling, well, if I said he could have been an understudy for St Nicholas, you get the idea. All he needed was the beard.

"Process of elimination," he said, chuckling.

Can you do that? Talk and chuckle at the same time? He did.

"I'm not entirely..."

"No, of course not. Let me explain. First everyone arrives. Then the hell-bound go to hell. Then the heaven-bound go to heaven. Then the others sort of drift away, knowing where they're going. 99% of them are going back to what we could call real life, to start over again. Reincarnation. It's real, believe me."

"What about the ones you called in by shouting 'Next!' Where did they go?"

"Ah, yes. The Next. I bet you thought every last one of you had to come in, be interviewed and sent on your way, right?"

"Right."

"Wrong. What happened each time I shouted was one individual came forward, someone a bit special, someone who had a pivotal role to play somewhere. They were sent for special training before going back to start a new life. They're your leaders, your movers and shakers, the ones who really get things done."

"I see."

And I did.

"So..."

"Where does that leave you? Last man standing? Simple. I want to give up this job. I'm tired of it, been here about a thousand years now, I want to go do something else. I understand God needs a secretary..." He patted the pens. "I'm good at taking notes, keeping appointment diaries, being an organizer. I've been asked to move on. But I couldn't move on until I found someone to take over. Would you like the job?"

"What do I have to do?"

"Open the door and shout Next! and see who comes forward. Tick their name off the list - it's right here in the drawer - and see them on their way. Be friendly, calming, comforting... I suggest you grow a beard or something, make yourself less daunting. You're a fine looking man but you look a bit fierce with that jutting jaw. You can have the job for as long as you want. All you have to do when you want to move on is ask what vacancies there are in heaven and find someone to take your place."

"Is it really that easy?"

"Try it."

"What - now?"

"Sure. Go open the door, see who's out there. Shout 'Next!' and see who comes in."

"Where will you be?"

"On my way to God's apartment."

I decided to take the job. I mean, why not? I'd been Last Man Standing: someone chose me for it; so I might as well do it. I had nothing to lose, did I?

I went to the door and opened it.

The place was packed...