Undead and Unforgiven(3)
“Playing?” Say one thing: death wasn’t dull. Then: “Welcome Wagon?”
She sighed, as if he was putting her to enormous trouble. “Before I died I was an office manager, but before that I was an admin assistant, and before that a receptionist. See?”
“Afraid not.”
“Before you can run the place, you have to know how it works on all the other levels. But I can’t work my way up here—I kind of agreed to the top job—so I’m doing a real-life version of Boss/Employee Exchange Work Day. A real-afterlife version, I mean.”
“Oh.”
“Tackling it any other way would be insane.”
“You bet.”
She beamed at him, probably mistaking his stunned agreement with actual comprehension. “And of course my roommates’ response to my incredibly sensible plan is to undermine me with stickers at every turn. So why do you think you’re in Hell?”
The subject change made him blink. Apparently he still had to do that. He was also still breathing. And . . . he slid his fingers over his wrist and picked up a pulse. Did he have to still do those things? Or was it just habit now?
“Mr. Andersson?”
“Sorry, sorry.” He thought about asking her, but she didn’t even know why he was in Hell. She might not know why he still blinked and breathed. “Got no idea. I’ve done some bad things—everybody has. Nothing to deserve an eternity of suffering in the Mall of America.” Now, if it had been Home Depot . . . “But it’s not like I, y’know, killed anybody or blew something up or did something really bad.”
“Did you just sort of assume you’d end up here?”
He shook his head. “Mostly I assumed Heaven, I guess. But I dunno. Heaven’s probably great for the first few decades, but I think it’d get boring after a while. Everything in my life was boring and/or took too long and . . . and here I am.” He was getting hungry while they talked, which made him happy. Which was not how he’d expected to feel in Hell. Toward the end, he hadn’t wanted anything. They’d kept IVs with fluids running into him so he wouldn’t dehydrate before the cancer could finish him off. For the first time in forever, he wanted a wax paper sleeve of Ritz crackers. Maybe a beer to wash them down. Two beers. With spray cheese on the side.
“I know I just got here and all, but I gotta tell ya, Hell’s not terrible.”
“Thanks, you should definitely put that on the comment card later.”
“Comment c—?”
“Listen, Tom, I’d like to put a check in some of these categories.” She showed him the clipboard, on which were a number of questions with multiple answers. “So, religion? You were raised to believe you’d end up here so here you are? You lost a bet? You feel like you’ve left something big unfinished? I know, I know,” she added when he opened his mouth to reply. “Then you’d be a ghost, right? Makes sense? Except sometimes the soul ends up here instead. We’re all trying to work on figuring out why.”
“You’re not a ghost, though.”
She shook her head, making her ponytail whip around. “Nope.”
“But you’re dead?”
“Yep.”
“But you live in St. Paul.”
“So?”
He shook his head. “Nothing unfinished. Except maybe the hospital bill.”
“Says here no immediate family. Alive, I mean. So the good news is, you’ll never have to cough up the dough for that gigantic bill.”
“I was mostly bored. And if I troubled myself to do something, it was boring, or it took too long, or both.” He looked around the mall again. “I guess I just want something to happen. Something interesting.”
She grinned at him and he couldn’t help smiling back. She was just the cutest thing, so studious about her clipboard while occasionally peeking down to admire her shiny shoes. “Oh, interesting we can provide. No problem. We can do interesting.”
“Yeah?”
“You bet. So come with me, and I’ll show you around, and we’ll figure out your damnation or new job or family reunion or rebirth or whatever.”
“Okay.” He was amenable, because the last two minutes had already been more interesting than the last five years (doctor’s visits notwithstanding). This place sure didn’t seem like Hell . . . though it explained everyone wearing different clothes from different eras, and how they were scared to look at Satan 2.0. “Listen, ah—” He paused, mentally groped for her name, found it. “Listen, Betsy, is there somewhere around here I can get some Ritz crackers?”