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Short Stories Miscellaneous Stories Heaven? Hell?
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Heaven? Hell? |
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| Written by David Neve | |
| Saturday, 15 March 2008 | |
Derrick eyes shot open and he woke up gasping for air. The pain in his chest was unmistakable - he was having a heart attack. Rather than jump up and make things worse, he decided to just lie there and try to relax. He remembered the dream he had right before he woke and shivered. Old man Benson was standing at the foot of his bed screaming, "You're going to go to hell for this! You're going to go to hell!"
Derrick stared at the ceiling recalling those words. He decided, all things considered, that he wasn't a nice person. Anybody that made a living out of skimming fifty percent of a client's estate when the client fell over dead couldn't be. But that is what he did, and that is what he does for a living. Somebody's got to do it, why not him?
Going to hell? Is there a hell? That had been the topic of conversation at one of the partner meetings that he had recently attended. If there was a heaven and there was a hell, then judging by their daily actions - they were definitely hell bound. By the end of the meeting, they had unanimously voted that there was not a hell, and that they should continue business as usual.
Thinking that he had moved well beyond the heart attack moment, Derrick decided to get up and go to the bathroom for a drink of water. He wasn't particularly thirsty, he just needed to ‘walk it out'; shake the heart attack feeling. He swung his legs to the floor and sat up on the edge of the bed. Something felt different, almost as though he had turned into Superman. He almost felt weightless. He glanced at the foot of the bed and noticed that his feet were still on the bed. Standing up immediately, he found that his entire body was still on the bed.
Derrick stared at his still body in wonder. "Shoot. I did have a heart attack."
He raised his arms up in front of him and looked at his hands; they were translucent. Awed by the experience he turned and started to walk to the bathroom, but his feet didn't quite grab the floor like they used to. It took a great deal of movement on his part, but he slowly made his way to the bathroom. Walking in his present state was like walking on a half-inch coating of mud - once he got a little forward motion, he would judge the distance and then slide to a stop.
He maneuvered himself in front of the mirror and reached over to turn on the light. His hand passed right through the switch, but not without a certain amount of resistance. He could feel the switch, but he lacked the density to move it. Next he tried the wall and found he could pass through that also. So he did. Standing outside the bathroom door, he decided to venture out of the bedroom and go downstairs.
He skated over to the bedroom wall, slowly slid through and came to a stop at the top of the stairs. Out of habit he reached for the banister and slowly stepped forward. As his foot left the first step he bent his knee to lower himself to the next step, only to find that he could not lower himself. There was a barrier of some sort that kept him at the level he was at. He could not go downstairs; he was now floating in mid-air. He turned to go back to the bedroom and found that he had a new problem. No floor, no traction.
He clawed at the banister in hopes of pulling himself back and made little progress. On the edge of panic, he stopped and thought about his situation. Without something to work against, he was stuck. He had the banister, and although it wasn't the best he could wish for, it was all he had. He just needed to be patient. He proceeded to lie down on the cushion of air and do the best Australian crawl that he could, thrusting his hands through the banister. He went on tirelessly until he was on hardwood again. This may have been the first time he had ever wished for wall-to-wall carpeting.
He waded back to and then through his bed and floated quietly on the edge. What to do. A person could only sit for so long, so Derrick stood and looked around the room. He decided, since the bed is the largest ‘propulsion' unit he had available, he would push through it - then off of it, and into the next bedroom. Having successfully done that, he returned to his bedroom in the same fashion. Bored, he looked at the clock. In two more hours the cleaning lady would arrive and the show would begin. That should be an interesting sight.
Passing the time he scooted from one room to the next, enjoying his newfound ability to walk through walls. He had plenty of time to consider the possibility of heaven and hell, and decided that neither existed. They were just contrived to keep the general population in check. In a display of the sheer arrogance one has when they uncover a secret, every time he passed through a wall from one room to the next he would proclaim, "Heaven" and then on the next pass back he would proclaim, "Hell"
Much like a child pulling the petals off of a flower saying, "She loves me, she loves me not"
As he got better and better, he went faster and faster.
"Heaven"
"Hell"
"Heaven"
On the next pass he overshot his bed and passed through the outside wall of his bedroom. Derrick now hung weightlessly in the air, ten feet away from any solid object.
"Oh..."
"Hell"
Comments (7) |
 03-15-2008 13:34, Aw hell. » Reply to this comment...  03-15-2008 13:45, GREAT stuff. Reminds me of certain dreams I have. Very experiential. » Reply to this comment... 03-15-2008 14:13, I guess there IS a gord...and he has a sense of humour. » Reply to this comment...  03-16-2008 05:49, Its funny when people have conversations in general about heaven and hell, they always decide there is no hell at all. What ever gets you through the night eh. But in this case,,I guess not. » Reply to this comment...  03-18-2008 11:50, Cockiness is never good. » Reply to this comment...  03-28-2008 08:51, Wasn't expecting this turn of event, that narration of yours kept me expecting something, but the ending was just great, what indeed can a ghost do to kill some time? I just smiled, awesome Mister Neve! Where in hell do you get all those crazy ideas? Hehe » Reply to this comment...  04-10-2008 22:27, This is good second time round, serves him right. Can i say that the partner meetings he goes to must be quite philosophical for the topic of the afterlife to come up as a business agenda! » Reply to this comment... |
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