2513

Matthew sat in his car and just stared out at the darkness in front of him. As dark as my world, he thought to himself. The dark expanse of trees seemed to close in on his Thunderbird. He glanced into his rear view mirror to look behind him as he thought he heard a sound. He didn’t pay any attention to his own reflection, he had looked at himself in the mirror enough lately to see the haggard look, the pale color of his face, the beard that was starting to grow after a week of not shaving and the bags under eyes that appeared lifeless and devoid of anything,

His mind began to wander to the fact that his home and work life had completely fallen apart. His family had started to act like he didn’t exist. His wife had actually started going out with her girlfriends, and even had a couple “work dates,” with male co-workers. One she had even brought home to meet him as their kids. He could have dealt with that, but when their youngest called the jerk ‘daddy,’ that is when a small amount of concern became the beginning of the downward spiral he was at now

For a while, he could take refuge in his work. After all, there was no drama in accounting. Every debit matched with a credit.

“Something has to give,” he said aloud to no one, “I can’t just keep it up.”

“Keep what up?”

Matthew jumped startled and looked the passenger seat. There sat a tall blond middle aged man, with piercing silver blue eyes. He had a hint of an amused smile as he looked first at Matthew, then out at the darkness that had enveloped the car.

Matthew stared at him startled, “Where? Who?”

The man reached out his hand, not able to think of anything else to do, Matthew grasped it and shook his hand.

“My name is Nikolai.” He smiled, “but you can call me Nick.”

Nick went back to looking out the window, without looking at Matthew, he nodded his head slightly. “I bet you are wondering why I am here.”

Matthew just stared at him in shook and terror, “That and HOW you got there…”

Nick gave a quick smile. “I’ve been here for a while.”

Matthew peered closely at him, “Oh great, now I am seeing things.”

He turned and looked forward in the driver’s seat. His hands clutching the wheel to the car as if it were a life preserver, slowly shaking his head as his closed his eyes. This is NOT happening to me…

“But it is Matthew,” Nick replied. “And yes, I can read your thoughts.”

“Of course, why wouldn’t you?”

Nick nodded and gave a knowing smile, “But reading your thoughts is not what you really want to know, is it?”

Matthew was silent for a moment before answering…

Miles Kohl tapped his pen on the desk, in frustration. He hated it when he had a story idea, but the words did not flow on to the page as fast as his mind raced.

“I know what I want to say,” he said to no one, ’I just can’t figure out how to put it on to paper.”

He frowned looking at the keyboard and the screen. Slowly tapping one of the keys as he thought about what to write next with a huff of annoyance began to type again.

“So, Nick,” Matthew said with dripping with sarcasm, “WHY are you here?”

Nick turned and smiled, “It is good that you should ask. I am sorry to say that you are a clerical error.”

Matthew looked at the blonde man who returned his gaze with an emotionless gaze from his silver blue eyes. “Excuse me,” Matthew said, “clerical error?”

Nick shrugged, “Exactly. And those of us in the spiritual collections business want to extend our heartfelt sympathy for your inconvenience.”

Matthew’s eyes narrowed, “Clerical error? Excuse me, but what the fuck are you talking about?”

Nick closed his eyes in frustration. Something had told him that he would have to explain this one. He took a breath and went on, “Well, you see. You are supposed to be dead right now.”

Matthew just turned and looked forward, his mind contemplating what he had just been told.

“Dead?”

“Right,” Nick replied, “Living impaired, having assumed room temperature, pushing up daisies...”

Matthew looked at him eyes filled with anger, “I know what dead means! What I want to know is why and what a clerical error has to do with it!”

“I am getting to that. Your continued patience is important to all of us at Spiritual Collections…”

Nick stopped talking for a second and then sighed. “Look I am going to stop with the corporate line for a second. We fucked up.”

Matthew looked at him in a mix of anger and surprise, “Fucked up?”

“Yes.”

“Care to elaborate?”

Kohl stopped typing and groaned. “This is going nowhere.” He pushed his chair back, “I need a break.” He grabbed his coffee cup and stormed off to the kitchen.

Kohl grabbed the pot and groaned. ’Empty” He set his cup down and began to grab the filters and the coffee. While he prepared another pot his mind began to wander back to his story.

“So how did they fuck up?” he said aloud.

“Not sure yet.” A voice in the back of his head replied.

“Then what happens next?”

“What would a fuck up as far as a grim reaper be?”

“I don’t know,” Miles replied, “it is a spiritual collection agent. And why am I arguing with myself?”

“Why are you asking yourself why you are arguing with yourself?

Miles shrugged, “Great, I am going nuts.”

He sighed and reached for the coffee pot and refilled his cup. He huffed and turned to walk back to his computer. Sitting down he cracked his knuckles and started typing again.

Nikolai Stewart looked thoughtful for a moment, “You see, you were supposed to die six months ago.”

“Excuse me?”

He continued, “you were supposed to die in a home invasion six months ago.”

Matthew just stared at him, not saying anything. Matthew could not decide if he was shocked at what Nick was saying or worried that he was even bothering to listen to him.

“And? Why am I still here? Was this some sort of attempt by my wife?” Matthew thought back to how distant and uncaring she had been. She had barely said a word to him and went out and acted as if he were not even there at times.

“No, your wife had nothing to do with it.” Nick took a deep breath, “You see, the afterlife has undergone some reorganization lately and it has just been a huge mess.

Well, to make a long story short. Several small things added up and your soul was never collected.”

Matthew just sat there are let that all sink in. “How?”

“Well, to begin with, there was a bit of a snafu with who controls the lightning. Thor and Associates were supposed to cede the South East United States to Zeus and Sons. Well, there was a turf war and Thor sent an unscheduled lightning bolt that knocked out a transformer. As a result, those would be burglars were late and never made it to your house on time.”

Matthew shrugged his shoulders, “And?”

“On top of that, Death Inc. had not finished reassigning all the territories for the Spiritual Collection Specialists and unfortunately there was not a field agent assigned to the territory that covers your home. “

“Spiritual Collection Specialists?”

“That is the name that Reapers are now known as,” Nick said with a slight tinge of bitterness. “Death decided to try and update its image. The Kinder Gentler Afterlife…”

“I do still not understand how this affects me.”

“ Well, usually if something like the territory spat interferes with the timely collection of a spirit, the Reaper, well now Collections Specialist, takes steps to ensure that the soul is collected and helped onto the afterlife.”

“Why?”

Nick stopped and looked at Matthew, “Why what?”

“Why bother?” Matthew answered, “If the person didn’t die like they were supposed to then why take away their lives? After all, it isn’t the person’s fault.”

Nick nodded in a sort of agreement. “That does sound like the way we should do it.”

Matthew’s eyes narrowed, “I sense a ‘but’ coming on.”

Nick smiled, “BUT…”

“I told you.”

“Despite what mortals might think, there is very little in your lives that are left up to chance. I mean the little things, like what shirt you are going to wear today, what color car you are going to buy. Those little choices are up to you. And those choices can change short term directions.

But, the long term directions, when you will die, who you will marry, how many kids you are going to have been decided by Fate.”

“I remember my Greek mythology, don’t you mean the Fates?”

“It used to be, but it is all handled by one of the sisters now. One retired to Florida, the other was bought out by the remaining sister. She now writes the fate of humanity with her outsourced writers. And ever since bringing on Edgar Allen Poe and Ernest Hemingway, you can see the interest deaths that celebrities have been having…. Poe has a knack for making those particularly interesting.”

Matthew smiled at that, “But I am still not seeing how this is causing my problems.”

“Well,” Nick went on, “You are sort of a spanner in the works and it has Fate all in a hissy fit.”

He continued, “You see, you still being here is upsetting the natural order of things.”

“Fate had already written timelines for your wife, and for your bosses. Timelines that cannot start until you are out of the picture. So they are kind of disjointed. On one hand, they have no storyline with you, on the other; they cannot continue any storyline as long as you are here.”

Matthew looked sullen into the darkness. “So you are here to take my soul.” He did not know why that was suddenly a scary prospect. After all, he had come here this evening for the express purpose of ending his life. Why is the reality of it better than the abstract of it?

“Can’t do it.”

Matthew looked over in surprise, “Why?”

“Well, you see,” Nick tried to explain, “we have a pretty narrow window to collect a soul otherwise the soul is trapped. It is how you get ghosts.”

“Then why am I still alive? And not a ghost?”

“Your mortal body never died, so you never became a ghost and so in a sense you are stuck and we have a problem.”

Matthew did not like the sound of that, “Then you are here to kill me.”

“Not that easy. To kill a living person with a soul that has passed its expiration is a higher level call. And Death would rather not tell Hades that there was a mess up of these proportions. So we have to figure out a solution that is low key and sets things right.”

Nick looked over at a now pale Matthew, “And that is why I am here.”

“So what are you going to do?” Matthew’s mind was filled with many different scenarios of painful deaths and dismemberments. Tortures that would make even the cruelest of sadists cringe in horror and disgust.

Kohl moved his hands away from the keyboard. He moved his right hand to the mouse and moved over to click on Facebook. He looked and noticed that he had a message from someone. The last thing he needed was a distraction, but this was a person that he talked to very rarely so he answered.

“Hey, how are you?” the message read

“Working on a story,” Kohl answered hoping that he would take the hint. Kohl held his hands up to his head and held them there. He yawned, the late night starting to get to him.

“Oh, tell me what you decide to do with Matthew.” With that, the Facebook user disappeared and the chat window closed. Kohl looked at the message in the seconds before it disappeared perplexed. How did the person know who he writing about, and how did he even know that there was a problem to be solved. Kohl noticed that the chat window was closed.

He looked over at the clock on the desktop and noticed that is was nearly three in the morning. “Probably imagined the whole thing,” he thought, “time for bed.”

With a final yawn, he saved his work and stumbled off to bed.

The next day had Miles Kohl going through the motions of teaching. All day his mind was on his story and how to handle Matthew, but for most of the day, it escaped him. Finally, it was when he was dealing with one of his students that he stumbled upon the answer.

“Jesse!” he bellowed out at a dark haired girl. “you need to pay attention.”

The girl looked up from the laptop she was writing in and stared annoyingly at Miles.

“But History is boring Mr. Kohl.”

Kohl stared at her, “and what are you working on?”

She started to close the laptop aware of the stares and the giggles of her classmates. “A story she mumbled.”

“What kind?” Kohl asked his interest suddenly piqued.

“About a girl that gets her wishes fulfilled and she is whisked from her boring life.”

“That’s good,” Kohl answered his mind suddenly racing, “keep up the good work.”

Kohl’s heart was racing as he sat down in front of the computer. He was excited as he booted up his computer. He found himself impatient as Windows opened and he raced to open the file he was working on. Finally, it opened and he wasted no time in starting to type.

Nick Stewart smiled wryly. “Well, our problem is finding a way to restore the storyline for the people around you and at the same time, remove you from the picture all the while not letting the big cheese in the afterlife business in on the fact that we screwed up.”

“No easy task,” Nick went on. “Especially since we cannot kill you to do it.”

Matthew closed his eyes and groaned. “Here comes the kidnapping and torture,” he thought.

“So we are going to give you a new life.”

Matthew opened one eye and looked at Nick, “A new life?”

“Yep. Think of it as a soul relocation program. We are going to allow you to move anywhere, in any time period and live out your days however you want.”

“Anywhere? Anytime?” Matthew looked suspicious. “How did you arrange that?”

“Well, Fate had a hand in that,” Nick said with a bit of a grin. “You see, they should have told Hades what was going on when the story line flubbed around you. You got lost in the shuffle; they are willing to help make this go away.”

Matthew still looked uncertain. Nick continued his sales pitch, “Just pick a situation you want to put yourself in and we will whisk you away. Just let your mind wander.”

Matthew closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Kohl stopped typing, “Where does Matthew want to go?”

Kohl looked over to a portrait of Mars that hung on his wall. The softly glowing red orb seemed to cry out to him. He smiled and went back to typing.

The space craft hung in the dark expanse. The large solar sail reflected the bright red of the planet Mars. Matthew Andrews, newly appointed Captain of the UN Star Frigate Artemis gazed out the window at the planet. Part of the patrol that made sure that Pirates did not attack robotically piloted space transports on their runs from the asteroid belt to the Earth, he marveled at the planet above him. Already you could see the dim glow of the settlements on Mars. He was amazed that the long term plans of turning the Red Planet blue.

He smiled to himself, “So it worked.”

He turned around and looked over at his navigator.

“Status report Mr. Davies.”

Davies looked at him and shook his head, ’All systems are working normally just as they did when you asked ten minutes ago. You have watched Star Trek one too many times in the holotube.”

Matthew grinned and floated over to the command station.

No sooner than he had strapped himself in, several alarms started chiming. He smiled sarcastically at first, “I doubt I won an award for being the 100th person to sit in this chair.”

“We have a proximity buoy going off by asteroid 645-26!”

Matthew looked perplexed for a minute, searching his mind for what that could possibly mean. In a panic, he decided to wing it. “Could it be an anomaly? Or maybe a malfunctioning buoy?”

Davies looked at his instruments. “Checking.”

Seconds ticked by as the computers ran diagnostics while the alarms continued their steady rhythm. Matthew grew fidgety and sweat started to appear on his brow.

“Negative Captain! Sensors from three other buoys signal the same readings. All systems check out within working parameters.”

Damn, Matthew thought, I picked the wrong day to have my dreams come true. Well, let’s make a go of it.

“Best speed for the disturbance!”

“Yes, sir!.” Davies called out.

The woman sitting at the counsel in the very aft of the compartment chimed in, “Solar sails deployed. Firing propulsion laser now.”

Matthew felt his insides knot up as the craft began to accelerate.

“Time to intercept?”

“Twelve minutes.”

Matthew closed his eyes, certain that this was not going to end well.

“Very Well.” He gulped.

The minutes passed and all Matthew could take any comfort from was the slow steady hum of the sensors and the computers around him. Since the alerts had gone active, the windows had largely been covered by thick armor plates except for two smaller ones directly to the helmsman’s front making the room dark except for a haunting red glow of the instruments. The command area had become humid and was now starting to become chilly sense the ship automatically switched ‘non-essential’ systems off to preserve as much battery life for activation of weapons and other defensive equipment.

“Sir,” Davies called out, “we are approaching the designated area.”

Matthew narrowed his eyes trying to peer out the windows, hoping to see whatever had brought them here without having to move in close enough to become a target.

No luck at that, he huffed to himself. Maybe a quick burst of speed then a quick turnaround is in order?

“Can we increase speed any?”

The woman quickly replied, “We can put the laser at 115 percent of operational levels for a brief time. However, we run the risk of overload.”

The risks did not seem that big a deal to Matthew. He looked over at Davies, “Increase power to propulsion. Prepare weapons and plot a course out of here if anything goes wrong.”

Davies looked back over at Matthew, ’Sir that is an awfully big risk.”

Matthew’s eyes grew big and he looked back. “Oh?” he asked, hoping to sound as if he were just hearing him out and not grasping at straws. I could be back on Earth in my car, just looking at the stars; but NO, Nick and his bureaucratic idiocy had to screw that up.

“If we increase speed to that limit, the only way to prevent a certain overload would be deactivating the defense grid. If it is hostile..”

Matthew shuddered, I want to run home, not stand and fight. He thought hard about what convincing thing to say,

“I would rather be nimble than take a punch.” He said, trying to sound confident, “sting like a butterfly and all. You heard your orders.”

Davies sighed, “Yes sir.”

The craft shuddered as the defensive platforms started to go offline. Matthew had to shield his eyes as the windows protective armor opened and the brilliant light from the sun, though millions of miles away filled the room. Matthew looked forward and saw that the marked buoys were closing faster. ’I don’t see anything.”

The relief flooded through Matthew, a false alarm!

He started to smile when Davies shouted.

“Attack frigate, bearing 250 yards! Port Beam!”

Matthew scanned the windows desperately trying to find it. He noticed the burn of the rockets closing quickly. Missiles!

“Evasive!”

“Too late!” Davies screamed, “Incoming!”

The ship shuddered under the explosions of the two missiles. A large hiss began as a section of one of the windows gave way and the vacuum of space began to suck out debris and air from the control room.

“Activate countermeasures!” Matthew screamed at Davies. He stopped for a second and noticed that the helmsmen hung lifeless in his chair, arms floating in the weightlessness of space and a large gash on the side of his head.

Matthew felt panic come over him. He knew that if he did not close the blast windows, he would suffocate in the darkness of space. He reached for his harness buckle.

“So you plan on turning him into orbital debris?” an older voice asked Kohl. Startled, he swung around in his desk chair to see an older man with pepper gray hair and a goatee.

“HADES?!”

“In person,” Hades answered, “boy, remind me never to get on your bad side. This young fellow seemed to really make you mad back in the bar.”

Kohl snorted, “It’s not that.”

Hades nodded his head in disagreement, ’No, it is EXACTLY that. If you asked me, the little jerk had it coming. Who does he think he is?”

That took him by surprise, “Really?”

“Of course,” Hades replied, “In a way, writers and god are a lot alike. I know if that little shit had said half of what he said to you to me, well. let’s just say my realm has some crevices where you can scream all you want.”

“Gods and writers?”

“Of course,” Hades smiled, “think of it boy; we both control the fate of those in our realms. We create them to make sense of our worlds. And we control their every action.”

“Never thought of it that way.”

“Many don’t.” he shrugged, ’for all you know, the gods you hold in reverence and fear could be nothing more than the writers of NBC trying to come up with the next best Sitcom since Friends. Hell, Jennifer Aniston might be in the next scene with us.”

The thought that Hades knew what a sitcom was, let alone Friends, made Kohl smile. Hades smiled back, then grew serious, “However, with power like that comes much responsibility.”

Hades disappeared, but his voice rang out, “tread carefully.”

Matthew opened his eyes to find himself back in the driver’s seat of his car. Next to him was a somewhat perturbed, yet startled Nick.

“Didn’t work?”

“No.”

“So what happened?”

“One second my ship is falling apart, the next second I am back here.”

Nick glanced at him, “So how did you get back?”

“I have no clue, I was being sucked out into space and now…”

That earned a huff from Nick. ’Okay, so what happened in your new life?”

“It wasn’t what I wanted.” Matthew explained ruefully, “I had no idea what I was doing. I was a fish out of water.”

Matthew looked thoughtful for a moment, “Maybe if I had knowledge of the life that I was entering.”

Nick nodded, deep in thought. “Then we will try again, just this time we will make sure that the life you go into, you go in prepared.”

Matthew looked over at him, “I suppose…”

“It will work this time,” Nick said, “ready to try it again…”

Matthew looked over at him, ’Again?”

Nick smiled, “once more into the abyss, Mark Andrews.”

With that, he touched Matthew on the forehead. Matthew felt woozy as the world around him went dark.