Alone Beyond Death

Almost an end.

  I can tell you a sob story of how my life was shit. How the world is unfair and pushes a good man down, but you already know that is bullshit.

  Everyone likes to complain about how world is against them, but deep down we really all know it's just because we are crap lazy people.

   .....

Motels suck, at least the ones that I usually drag myself into after attempting to drown myself at a bar. I tell everyone who will listen my drunken rambling that my travels from motel to motel are for inspiration and a quest for quiet solitude.

  Really it's because I outstay my welcome at what most would consider an alarmingly quick rate. Each room blurring into the next, but that motel room, I will never forget.

  Orange! Why the hell orange? Like disgusting burnt orange. The carpet looked like someone ate old roasted carrots and threw up all over the floor.

  The walls were papered with terrible pea soup colored wallpaper. Orange and green? God why? No coffee maker and no microwave. There was one twin bed, a small table with an old black rotary phone, and a small dresser. The single chair was the simple metal sort that looked like it was taken from a movie about an old prison or asylum.

  The ceiling was high with a few cross beams, one holding up an old fan. Of course this crap heap was built before the luxury of central heat and air. One could only be so lucky. But why orange?

  I was finally sober. Raging hangover beating a drum while drilling a hole into what was left of my poisoned brain. I was contemplating the ceiling fan. Wondering if my cheap belt and that old fan could support one hundred eighty-five pounds of useless alcoholic.

  I figured it could. I was broke and had reached the end of the line. I hadn't written more than a paragraph in six months. Not even the newspapers I occasionally freelanced for would return my calls, let alone my agent.

  This was it, I was going to take that final step into oblivion. I got up and dragged the steel chair under the fan. I climbed up and started undoing my belt. I looped my belt to the buckle and tide the end to the shaft of the fan.

  I gave the belt a few hard tugs, and it held. I stuck my head through the loop... and the old rotary phone began to ring. I froze and stared hard at the phone. I knew that piece of shit didn't work. I checked.

  More than once I had gotten drunk and forgotten it didn't work and tried to use it to call my agent. There wasn't even a damn wire running to the wall. Yet there it was, merrily ringing its mechanical bell jingle.

  My only thought was what the actual fuck. Then I slipped. Twisted like I was in the chair straining to look at that damn phone, my feet came out from under me. Then nothing.

.....

  My eyes opened. My whole body burned and it took several moments for my vision to clear. The pea green walls and carrot vomit floor swam sickeningly into focus. I couldn't move my body and everytime I did the fire in me burned hotter. I wanted to scream but my breath wouldn't come. Then a man walked into my line of vision.

  "Well well well, Bill my friend. You fucked up big time. Ha, 32 and you're fucking dead in a cheap motel with a belt wrapped around your neck! Good, thing you weren't jerkin' off. Hahaha ha!"

  The man looked like a 30s gangster, hat and suit and all. A handsome young Italian, maybe late 20s, with some kind of New York accent.

  He moved and sat on the bed in front of me with a huge white tooth smile. He crossed one leg over the other and leaned back supporting himself on his hands.
 
  "Bill buddy," the gangster said. "You weren't supposed to do that dumb shit. You were supposed to answer the phone. Why didn't you answer the damn phone?"

  He looked at me expectantly for a moment and said, "Oh, fuck that's right you can't talk. You crushed your fucking throat, Bill goddammit!"

The gangster threw his arms out with frustration clear on his face and I heard a snap above. The next thing I knew I was looking up at the ceiling. The fire in me raged and finally I did scream.

After a few seconds the fire died down and I was able to quit screaming and focus on the gangster. He was standing over me with his arms behind his back and had a deep look of pity on his face.

  "You fucked up Bill, I had shit all planned out for you. You were supposed to answer the phone. I had to pull a lot of strings to get the spirt of that old woman to call you.
  
  "You were supposed to talk with her for a month or so and go try and find her. You were supposed to meet up with her daughter and marry her, but no now you're fucked. You're dead. What the fuck Bill?"

"Are you the devil?" I managed to croak out.

"No, that guy is a fucking angel. Beautiful, kinda looks like a broad."

  "What are you?"

  "Just a man. Well, used to be back when I ran around in a meat suit like regular folks."

  "Why are you here?"

  "Some of us get to leave heaven and mess around with shit down here. Kinda nudge things in a certain direction." The gangster explained with a gesture of his hand. "That's what I was doing with you before you decided to whack yourself. "

  "Why me?" I coughed, it was hard to breathe and seemed to be getting harder. The fire was growing inside me.

"I like you Bill-"

  "My name is David."

  "I like you Bill, I liked the stories you wrote when you were younger before Kate left you-"

  "Sarah-"

  "Before Kate left you! Stop interrupting me! I thought if finally you found a good woman you would quit drinking and start writing good stories again." The gangster finished with a glare.

  "Why do you look like a 30s gangster?"

  "Because I was a gangster, sort of. Let's just say I did some real bad shit to some real bad cats to help out some kids. Turns out Saint Philomena really likes that kind of shit and smiled on me when I found myself swimming in the Atlantic. Earned my self a oneway to the pearly gates and got to meet Saint Peter in person. One cool cat, him."

  Just then a deep bell tolled and it reverberated deep in my chest. The sound seemed to come from the walls in every direction. The gangster straightened.

  "Times up Bill, let's make a deal. You have to make a choice. You can either pass on and be judged or you can take door number two."

"What's door number two?" I began to panic, but I still couldn't move. The fire was raging inside me and I truly believed I must be feeling the heat from the fires of hell. I didn't want to be judged. I knew I had been a shit person.

  "Can't tell you that. Make a choice!" The bell tolled again, this time louder and the whole room shook.

"Door, number two!" I tried to yell with my horse voice. The gangster smiled a to large uncanny smile.

"Good choice Bill! Shits about to get real fuckin' weird, haha!" The gangster cackled as the bell tolled for a third time. Everything went black.