Young Writers Society

Where do you go when you die?

I know it plagues them up there. I can smell the curiosity. I know they've got theories of Heaven and Hell. God. The Devil. Whatever you do in your first life will be reflected in your second.

I got news for them. It wouldn't make one damn bit of difference. If you grew up to be a monster or a saint. If you pursued in the killing of others or the protection. Where you take your final breaths. In the executioners chair. By Christ the Redeemers side? In a pub fight in Hull, blood running down the gutters. On a three piece sofa, in front of your television with your family. In the hospital, as they switch off the machine. As you switched off. Wherever it was or whoever you were, you probably had some expectations after you died. A brilliant whiteness? Perhaps you thought you were destined for the flames? Perhaps you thought there was nothing. Whatever you thought as your eyes closed for the last time, chances are you were wrong.

You'd wake up on a table. It would be cold and made of steel. It would be rusty. There's no guarantee that your legs wouldn't hang over the edge. It wasn't made specifically for you. You'd open your eyes and see a dimly lit room. You'd see everything as you saw it before. You'd see water leaking from a pipe in the corner. You'd hear rats around the floor. You'd grab the candle beside you and realise something was different. You'd get up and turn. The walls would feel close in on you. You'd stumble through these corridors until more familiar sounds began to present themselves. Rain? Shouting. Laughing? The roar of engines. The crackling of fire. A grey light would prevail over what was a seamless darkness. That much I remember myself. Everyone gets a chance to look at themselves before they leave. A chance, however small, to come to terms with what they had become. And so as you approach that grey light, you'd turn to see a mirror. And you'd step or trip or fall back into the damp wall behind you. Or maybe you'd stay calm and still, and slowly lean in closer, just to be sure. Your skin is stretched. It's yellow. Your eyes are dry and glassed. Capillaries are all broken. Your ears just stubs on the side of your head. To the touch, you're plastic. You'd hear something approaching you from behind, and you'd grow scared. You'd step out into the grey light. You'd move up some steps, under a plastic covering, no differently to leaving the Underground. The city would be grey. The sky grey. The shop windows would display grey produce. Motorcycles would ride past, and you'd duck when you heard the sound of gunfire coming from an apartment block, two streets over. Eventually the coverings would no longer protect you from the rain, and every inch of its cold touch would run through you. You'd blink twice. You'd pinch yourself. You'd try yelling or screaming as you saw what you were praying you weren't seeing in the middle of the streets. And then a man or woman, just like you would smile widely and hand you a pamphlet.

Congratulations, John Doe. You are dead.

Sparky Donovan had been staring at the clock for the past 15 minutes. His office was small, and the only thing he had to keep him company was the dull, warm breeze drifting through his square foot window and his framed certificate of “Afterlife processing employee of the month” hanging over his door. After some deliberation over which way his snow globe should be pointing before his final client arrived, he decided he'd offer some comfort, and directed the image of the happy little man holding the baby in the air with big smiles on their faces towards the entrance. Just as he did so, a woman of about 4ft, dressed in a tight and uncomfortable looking grey dress slammed the door open and wandered in. Sparky noticed his certificate make a shift on his wall. Was that cement dust?

“Your 4 O clock, Mr Donovan.” She spoke matter of factly, not looking up from her clipboard, before turning to walk out.

“It's 5.15.” Sparky replied with a sigh. “I finish at 5.”

You could hear the screeching of the tiny woman's nails on the door frame as she forced herself to turn around. Looking up as much as she could without her skin cracking.

“I'm sorry, Mr Donovan?”

Sparky shuffled in his plastic backed chair and turned his snow globe back around towards himself. Sod 'em.

“My shift's over.”

She hobbled in a little closer and slammed the door shut. He noticed the picture make another shift on the wall. That was definitely dust. The closer she got to him, the older she looked. Nobody looked good here, but there was something about her. Her comb over. The way one eyelid constantly just had to flicker. The way her nostrils flared as she looked up, and Sparky could swear he could see right into her brain. Not much there, he thought, and foolishly let out the tiniest of giggles. Her eyes grew wide, and the one flickering eyelid opened to 100% capacity to reveal an even darker shade of yellow then he'd expected.

“Mr Donovan. If you have an issue with your hours then I suggest you take it upstairs with the boss.”

The warm breeze mixing with the bad atmosphere had started to arouse a certain aroma in the room that he could have done without. He got up and closed the window, looking out on the street to see two Does scrabbling around in the mud like animals. He sighed.

“Well then, can I?”

“Certainly not!” She exclaimed as she turned back around in a flurry of impatience and flaking skin before re-opening the door, storming out and slamming it behind her. The framed certificate made another edge towards collapse. Sparky turned just in time to see the old lady's skin land on his desk. He wandered back over and slumped down. For another 5 minutes, he laid back and rolled his pencil over and over the flakes of skin. They'd started to meld with the pencil to form some sort of artificial finger. There's a metaphor in there somewhere, he thought. Just as he realised the pencil needed sharpening, his door burst open again. The framed certificate was hanging off the wall by its fingernails now, but Sparky was all too preoccupied with the heffalump of a Doe that was trying to make its way through his door. Well over 6ft, wearing a rain mac and soaked to the bone. Not having been raining today, Sparky could only assume this man had recently drowned at sea. Sparky knew full well that this doe wasn't making it through his modest office door and stood up, gesticulating to hold back, pushing his desk towards the door just as the doe tried to push his way through the frame. There's grinding on both sides. Sparky screamed to stop. Fucking stop. The doe made some sort of grunting noise and dribbled as he smiled, trying to reach out for Sparky. The frame came down off the wall and crashed to the floor, shattering glass by Sparky's feet. His pencils rolled off his table, he could hear bellowing from down the hall and he could see his beloved snow globe sliding along the desk panel. At that point he's holding the doe back with his right arm and reaching out for his snow globe with his left, which he just managed to grab before its collision with the floor. Sparky felt like he was never going to be able to stand again. Not properly. His legs split apart, one leg hooked around his desk support, he pulled himself upright. The storm was over. The War had passed. He looked down at his shattered certificate and sighed before pulling a Jackson Tack cigarette from his shirt pocket, popping it between his cracked, green lips, and lighting it. He inhaled deeply, standing face to face with the doe, which still maintained its smile. After taking down most of the Jackson, he narrowed his eyes and exhaled the full amount into the doe's face which made its eyes crinkle. Sparky could tell he didn't like it. He stood and did it again. Breathing in deeply, unblinkingly. He leaned in close to the doe, eye to eye. He filled its face with the thick, black smog, but this time the doe crinkled its nose hard. Its face began to spasm. It heaved its shoulders back, and before Sparky had time to take cover behind his desk, the doe had sneezed a thick gloopy, red substance all over his face, overcoat and trilby hat.

“So you're my 4 o clock?”

The doe nodded. He looked ridiculous. Tongue hanging out. They say some lose intelligence, coming through, but this had to be one of the more extreme cases that Sparky had come across.

“Well, first of all. Fuck you very much.”

There are some things you should know about Sparky Donovan. Firstly, that is not his real name. Nor will he ever remember what it was. Just as you won't. Everyone that comes through is assigned a new one. Until then, you're just a Doe or John Doe. Secondly, this is not Sparky's ideal job. Not in the ideal sense. It's the job that he's most suited for. Once upon a time, he was a credit manager. That was no more ideal than this, but one led to the other. He now processes applications for fresh Does. Not everyone can handle being dead. Not here, anyway. People could expect too much. Religious types never did too well here. Sparky wasn't a religious type. In fact, he had no obligations of any kind. He spent 45 average years in his average life. His average job was perfectly average to get by. And so when he was forcibly thrown from a 56^th floor office window by a rogue copywriter, he had no problems adjusting to where he was now, averagely.

Upon his desk laid a countless pile of forms. Each one simply held two boxes. After each evaluation, he'd pick a box. One would mean he'd deemed the applicant fit for this world and begin putting them through the long winded system of relocation, work affiliation and life orientation. One would deem that they were not fit to be here. They were released to their own devices, but everybody knew what it meant for them. Why he did this? Why he was the man doing this job? He didn't ask. He just was. Anyone that asked, wasn't meant to be here.

The Doe nodded at every question that Sparky asked him. He also nodded at anything Sparky said that wasn't remotely related to a question. Surprisingly, this didn't mean that the doe failed in his application. In fact, the more stupid a person was, the easier they were to fit into the working machine of whatever it was they found themselves living in.

Sparky ticked the right box. And moved around his desk to begin picking up the glass.

“Okay, I'm going to give you this form. You take this down the hall to your left.” He grabbed his head and twisted it right around to the left and making the doe yelp as he cracked something in the poor guy's shoulder. He pointed in the same direction, hoping this would be enough to get him where he was meant to go. He didn't bank on it. The doe was starting to cry.

“Now you give this to a woman named C-L-A-I-R-E.” He spelled the name out, hoping it would help. “And stop crying, you damn fool.” He finished picking up the glass and laid it on the desk before putting his frame back up on the wall. Checking his shirt pocket and flicking open his silver cigarette case, he could see he was empty. He looked up at his framed picture one more time, before lowering his head, shaking off as much gunk as possible, walking to the door and kicking the doe sharply in the stomach to send him sprawling out into the hallway. He walked out and over the doe as it sobbed and reeled in pain.

“Welcome to Grim City. You'll forever be wanting more or less.”

Sparky made his way through the grey stained corridors, decorated with pictures of bureaucratic leaders. Men in black coats. Secret smiles. And right before the elevator was the boss man himself. His fat fucking face looming down over every employee. No way to reach him. But he was always watching. Bowler hat and dinner jacket. Teeth whiter than any he'd seen since he'd been here. He didn't want to, but as he stepped into the elevator, he couldn't help, but wonder what he was doing now. At the top of the building. He drowned out his own jealous thoughts with the bellows of the poor fat doe until the elevator reached the bottom. As long as someone else was always a little worse off than him, he could live with that.