//------------------------------// // Bureaucratic Cosmology // Story: Death of a Salesman // by EveningShadows //------------------------------// 'Bullet by Hollywood Undead' or 'Bureaucratic Cosmology' "Felix Grayson, yes?" A skeleton said to me in a voice like frost in the veins. "... Yes," I responded, nonplussed. The abomination check-marked a form. "Age?" "Twenty three." Another check mark. "Gender?" "Male, last time I checked." "Mr. Grayson, your sarcasm is not appreciated." Check. You know how people say that when you die there's a dark tunnel, a bright light, and a choir of angels surrounds you as you float up to the pearly gates where maybe Saint Peter lets you in or maybe he drops the clouds out from under you? That is not what happens. In 'reality' you end up alone in a waiting room, panicking. Then a skeleton in a gaudy black cloak escorts you into his entirely too standard, and slightly too small office to begin processing your 'Application for After-Life.' "Your cause of death is listed as 'shot while resisting a mugging.' Is that correct." It wasn't my smartest move. "Yes." Check. "Religion?" "Christia-" "Mr. Grayson," the skeleton coolly interrupted me, "I believe your people have an expression, 'dead men tell no tales.' In my office that expression means dead men do not lie to me. Is that understood?" "Yes." No check this time. "Religion?" "Uh.. Agnostic?" The skeleton looked at me for a moment with his eyeless sockets, "I'll mark you as undecided." Check. "Okay..." "Now then Mr. Grayson, in order to continue to your after-life experience you're going to have to apply to a religion. Many options will now be closed to you, such as your Christian heaven, however there are other places you can go. Hell, for example, is always willing to take new applicants." My panic was starting to come back. I would absolutely NOT spend the rest of my eternity in Hell of all places. Whether I went to church or not! The cloaked bureaucrat grabbed a file out of his desk and scribbled symbols meaningless, to me, on it. By the time it looked up at me I was nearly hyperventilating. "Now then, this form will take you to The Department of After-Life Selection. All you need to do is prick your right thumb and place it in this box." "Uh.. Okay." Quelling my shaking hands, I took the form and needle it offered me. After some hesitation I did as the thing said. *Prick* The tiny dab of blood formed itself into a finger print and then began swirling. My last thought before being sucked into that tiny, swirling thing was 'If I'm dead, how am I bleeding?' The next thing I thought about was pain. It felt like being squeezed through a quarter sized tube, except the tube had spinning razors lining the sides. It was over in less than a second. Recovering from the shock took significantly longer. After I finished panting like a dog and the ringing in my ears stopped I looked up. What I saw did not ease my nerves. Decorated booths and debilitating crowds spanned out in front of me as far as I could see. They were over flowing with odd assortments of things and peoples. I saw one booth covered in skulls, its attendants were dressed in flamboyant, monkish garb of crimson and white. They had odd crimson painted Xes over their eyes. How they accomplished dressing both flamboyant and monkish was a mystery to me but there it was. "Sithrak! The god who hates you!" "Let him into your heart! Blame him for everything!" A quick glance upward revealed the words 'Doomsayers of the Blind Gibberer' painted in bright happy letters upon a banner. I couldn't resist. I had to know more about these odd 'people.' Stepping forward, two of the missionaries moved up to me, trying not to wave in my face a flaming skull with wooden nails in its eye sockets which they had affixed to a staff. They failed. "Are you trying to kill me for the second time? I don't think my relatives could handle a second funeral. Besides, how would they travel here?" "We're very sorry, sir," the light skinned proselytizer with the beard said to me "We're here to give you the good news," the darker skinned monk with stubbly sideburns broke in, "God hates you! Personally!" An eyebrow was raised, "And this is good news?" 'Oh yes'es and 'Most definitely's were exchanged and the monks nodded to each other and to me with an eagerness that made my skin slither. "How, pray tell?" "Oh no!" "Don't pray!" "If you pray Sithrak might hear it!" "Then you'll never get what you prayed for!" Their voices seemed to have mixed together in an odd rhythm. It was disconcerting. "Does that mean you're not going to tell me why God hating me, personally, is good news?" The smooth transition by which their large smiles moved from supreme comfort to twitched anxiety and back again grated against a deep part of me. I was disconcerted. The odd monks looked at each other for a moment. When they gave their attention back to me it was with a calm that doesn't come from a healthy mind. "Have you noticed that existence is cruel and insensitive" "Do you have regrets?" "Were you a bad person?" "Are you trapped in an endless cycle of misery and boredom?" "Have no fear!" "Your miserable life isn't the result of bad choices on your part!" "Its the result of the curse placed on us all by our angry and insane creator, Sithrak!" "The Blind Gibberer!" I looked at them in silence for a moment. Enormous smiles were plastered on their faces. "So you two are telling me that nothing bad in my life in my fault?" "That's right!" "And nothing you do can make Sithrak angry!" "He was angry already," sideburns winked at me. These crazy cultists were sounding better and better by the minute. No responsibility? No consequence? No guilt? Sign me up! "Well guys, you've just about sold me. I just need to know what kind of after-life package The Doomsayers offer." They glanced at each other, faces filled with twitched anxiety again, "Well you see..." "In the Book of Dismay..." "Sithrak promises..." "... Unconditional torment." The Doomsayers looked at me with nervous smiles. I looked at them with a blank face. "... You know what I think I hear someone offering reincarnation. I think I'm going to talk to him..." As I walked away I hear them whispering loudly to each other, "We were much better at this before those villagers burned us at the stake." "I know, brother, but fear not, Sithrak will torture them endlessly soon enough." The other one let out a long sigh, "That's what I fear..." ------- As I waded through what resembled the biggest job fair imaginable. Booths spanned in front of me as far as the eye could see. The crowd was endless. I seemed to almost be one grand entity, entirely separate from myself. That entity was loaded with people of every shape, size, color, dress and age. It was diversity's wet dream. I couldn't shake the words of The Doomsayers while I wondered aimlessly though the mass of people. What they'd said make so much sense. Existence was absurd and cruel. Who would create such a thing other than an angry and insane god? I do not know how long I wondered but I heard many things spoken by many people. None of them offered the salvation I sought after. "Come unto me, if thou are without sin!" That ones a bust. "Reincarnations over here!" "If your death was a warriors death come and feast in Valhalla!" I wonder if resisting a mugging counts... "Hell ain't a bad place to be!" "Accept Allah and be rewarded in heaven!" "I can't believe you're hitting on me here of all places!" I spend a very, very long time among the crowd, listening to sales pitches, having pamphlets shoved in my face. and generally having a bad time. Until a man in a pinstripe suit came up to my side, "Havin' a hard time decidin'?" I glanced at him without looking directly at the man, "You could say that." "Took me a while to figure it out too, I went with an option they didn't present to us." This got my full attention, not that I wanted him knowing that. I pretended to look at some hokey booth of another cult I'd never heard of, "What would such an option look like?" "Earth ain't the only world they got out there. You play it right you can live a little in one place, an' hop around to the next." "What would this cost me? "Someday I may need a favor. If I ever ask, you can't refuse." The idea that these booths were one last joke given by a cruel god had haunted me incessantly. Would any of these booths take me anywhere that wasn't endless torment? There was no promise. No way to know. Only the great risk of the great unknown. Reincarnation was the only option that gave a sliver of hope. In the end though, I'd end up in this giant fair again and who knows if I'd make the right choice after the next lifetime. It didn't take as much thought as one might think to make my reckless decision. I know its shady but if the option was a new life and a favor to some dead man's mafia or joining some random religion with only the promise of doubt. I choose life. "Deal." The man turned to face me fully for the first time, he held out his hand. I turned and shook it. He palmed me something I was lucky not to drop. "You get in trouble with the authorities just demand a lawyer, we'll send someone." The man walked away before I could say anything. One last glance at the hokey cult's booth and I walked away. It took a while but I found seclusion in a crowd gathered around a Christian speaker. He was spouting something about it not being to late for those of us with good deeds at our sides. Unfortunately I didn't have many of those. I unwrapped the chunk of folded paper I'd received. It was another transfer form and a small needle. I took a deep breath before pressing a bleeding thumb into the box. That moment of total pain wasn't any better. I came out choking on the air I desperately grasped for. Why do dead men breath? When I was finally able to see my surroundings I noticed a mass of eyes on me. Very large eyes. In the heads of very small creatures. Little pony like creatures. Painted in every color. They were standing in a line, bored. After regaining my composure I walked over and nonchalantly placed myself at the end of the line. I was the only being that could be seen as 'calm.' I was not calm. I was freaking out. I was standing in a line with ponies. The kind from My Little Pony. I couldn't keep the smile off my face. My line-mates shrank away from me, some even had the nerve to shiver at my presence. I pulled my lips together and tried to be less creepy to the mostly herbivores around me. I spent hours in that god forsaken line, my excitement at seeing real live ponies faded after a few failed attempts at conversation. On the plus side I had plenty of space. I had nothing to do in that space but it was space none the less. Finally I was spat out for a cherry haired, dandelion furred mare to droll out, "Next!" in a voice not suiting her cheerful coloring. Neither her disposition nor her expression fit her coloring either. Droll, dull, and near lifeless was this odd being in front of me. She was an after-life long bureaucrat, she hated her job, and she was very close to cashing in her pension. She stared at me with eyes that mixed hostility and ennui, "I have this form," against reason a hoof grasped the bled-on form I gave her. After looking at my form for a moment she said, "A human in Equestria? What a ridiculous notion." "I just go where they send me." The bright and dull creature mumbled something inaudible. I wasn't sure if even she understood what she said. "Your transfer form," she passed me a new paper to immolate myself for. "Thank y--" "Next!" I glared at her for a full second before sending myself through the soul grinding portal. ------- Pain, retching, and pulling myself together were quickly becoming standard operative procedure for me. When I finally did get a hold of my self I took my purposeful breath. I breathed! Real air! On a real world! With real, living lungs! I made it! I was alive! But gods did it have to be so hot?! I looked around me and saw baked dirt sprawled as far as I could see interrupted only casually it seemed by rocky crags and hardy plant life. There was nothing here. Nothing at all. I was surrounded on all sides by hot, overbearing death. "Fuck."