Chapter Four

Death was an unusually cruel circumstance, I was just realizing. Perhaps where I was now actually was Hell. What kind of person—God—would allow someone to remain in a world they really didn’t belong in? I felt like I was being fickle, having wanted to get out of that tunnel with everything in me, but after spending not even an entire day as the unseen dead, I thought I was willing to face that tunnel again. It was more torturous than standing outside and getting bit by mosquitoes over and over.

I willed the tunnel to appear, as I trekked down a highway that would eventually lead me to Minnesota. I wished it with all my heart. But the sky didn’t open. I didn’t float up to it. And I somehow knew, though no voice whispered it to me, that the tunnel would never come back. It was a once-in-a-deathtime opportunity. I’d made my choice… or had the choice been made for me?

It was not important, anymore.

As time went on, and the road continued to be endless, though I knew I would be walking for many, many more miles, I grew bored. I supposed that even in death, teenagers needed some sort of entertainment as they “lived”. Existed would be a better term. But what was there to do? There was steady line of cars, and for a while I attempted to amuse myself by walking through them and listening to what the people said in their phones or what they listened to on their radios.

I heard the Miley Cyrus song See You Again so many times I wanted to puke, and I gave up on that. The conversations were often tedious and also held no interest for me. Death was turning out to be a morbid and dull affair. The sun beat down on me, and I could feel its intense heat. It was the one thing, besides boredom, that made the journey intolerable.

A biker suddenly passed me on the road, oddly swerving around the area I was walking. I gaped at him. Wasn’t it illegal to bike on a highway?

There was a cop car sitting under a bridge. As the biker passed him, I waited for the policeman to stop him. The biker went right past him, and the cop didn’t move in his seat. He merely continued talking in his walkie-talkie. I frowned, but mentally shrugged. Maybe I was wrong, and it was legal down here.

Darkness fell as I traveled and left the city completely behind. Forgetting the biker, I dragged myself onward. I wasn’t tired, of course, but I didn’t want to walk all night and day. Yet I didn’t see how I had much of a choice.

Then, just as suddenly as I had made the conclusion, my prospects brightened. A Holiday Inn came into view, alongside the busy highway. Perhaps being dead could have its advantages. No one could see me, could they? Well, they wouldn’t be able to see me if I used one of the rooms for the night.

Excited now, I stepped off of the road and crossed the grassy knoll between the Inn and it. At the front door, I ignored the guests chattering and leaving, and grabbed the door handle. My hand, as I should have expected, passed through. I sighed and stepped past the door. It really was odd how I didn’t even feel something passing through my entire being.

Inside, the air was cool and pleasant. Air conditioning. I smiled with pleasure and followed a group of girls to an elevator.

It had been so long since I’d stayed in a hotel. We’d had one in my hometown, and I’d slept there only once for Kelley’s birthday party. This was an experience I didn’t want to forget.

“And then she told me that I deserved to be dumped!” a girl was saying with a sneer. “Can you believe that? Her and Scott, like, hate each other, and she cheats on him, like, every day! Last weekend, she went to the beach with, like, an eighteen-year-old guy.”

“Oh my god, she is such a slut!” another girl responded. I listened with some confusion. My friends and I had never spoken in this way to each other. I suppose I might have in time, if I had had the chance to get as old as these girls. They looked to be about seventeen or eighteen. I would never have the things they did. I would never have a boyfriend. I would never go to the beach again. My light mood had vanished at these thoughts.

The girls got off on the third floor, but I didn’t get off. The idea of being on the same floor as those girls didn’t sound nice to me. Luckily, the elevator was heading up. It stopped on the fourth floor, and opened to a bald man with a suitcase. I hurriedly stepped out as he went in. His smell wafted past my nose, and I wrinkled it in aversion. He smelled like cigars and old clothes that had been in a drawer too long.

Picking my room became a game. I would poke my head through a door, and see whether or not it was occupied or clean. I came upon several comical situations. In one room some teenagers were playing Truth or Dare, and two of the boys were unclothed. Though I was shocked, I couldn’t help but giggle at the sight of him with a green mask all over his face.

In another room a couple was having their honeymoon. And I knew that it was wrong and perhaps even perverted, but I watched for a few minutes. I was full of curiosity. My mother had told me of sex, but it was something that was not discussed further, much less watched. Their expressions fascinated me. They appeared to be enjoying themselves immensely, at times moaning and continually clutching each other. But when the man began to grunt, my eyes grew round and I ducked out of the door again.

In yet another room two men were fighting, hitting one another and shouting. Playing cards were scattered all over the floor, and the air was full of smoke. I choked, and left. Soon two security guards rushed in. I didn’t follow.

I wearied of my game, and eventually found an unused room. I plopped facedown on the bed, thankfully being able to.

Did souls sleep?

Evidently they did because after a time, despite the blaring of the TV in the room next to mine, I drifted off into an oblivious sleep.