#literally all bangers except for HIM who i could go my whole life without witnessing

[channelrat]

had to witness the inspiration for tornado warnings to get to this but 💗💗

[piccolosniccolo]

Conversation in the Afterlife

Creative writing practice. Discussions of death, but nothing graphic. 2442 words.

A sharp sting. Faint pressure. The desperate whispers of a friend. She could hardly register these things as her consciousness faded away.

She knew there was little to be done. The strength to keep her eyes open faded away. Her breaths became lethargic. Her fate was settled and a peaceful slumber beckoned her forwards. She no longer had the willpower to fight it off. As her body teetered between life and death, her thoughts shifted to the girl she pushed out of the way.

The reaction had been immediate. By the time she comprehended what she had done, it was too late to think twice. Her head was struck and she collapsed onto the ground. She did not regret this, no, not at all. What she regretted was not being able to journey with her friends any longer.

With that, Amara let out her last breath.

****

“Hmm, I wagered I wouldn’t see you for another ten years.”

Sound. Sound came back to Amara first. A voice, familiar, but coming from a person who was very dead. Somewhere in the background, she could hear the rise and fall of an ocean.

“I just lost fifteen bucks.”

Touch. She was lying down on something grainy, presumably sand. She dragged her hand to the back of her head, and to her surprise, the wound no longer stung.

“I hope you’re happy. There’s no currency here and I’m already in debt.”

With that, Amara’s eyes blinked open to the pouting face of her very dead friend, Adam.

“Gambling in the afterlife?” Amara narrowed her eyes and slowly pushed herself off the ground. “I’d have thought you’d be haunting some innocent soul.”

“I haven’t figured out how to get out of this realm yet.” Adam flopped onto the sand and gazed out in front of him. She followed his eyes and spotted the massive ocean stretched out in front of them. Amara had never considered that the afterlife may be a picturesque beach, but she certainly wasn’t complaining.

“So the only thing you do here is gamble and plot to escape?” Amara questioned.

“What else should I do?” Adam rolled his head and turned to Amara. “Quiet reflection? Narrate the story of my life to everybody and anybody?”

“You tell me! I just got here.”

“Hmph.” Adam looked forward and his eyes glazed in silent contemplation. “Well, there’s walking. Lots of that. Land stretches out for miles and miles in any given direction.”

He laid back on the ground and put his arms behind his head. “I don’t think there’s a limit.”

Amara tilted her head and glanced back at the ocean. The waves in front of her reached for her feet, but they fell short and crashed against the sand each time. She looked up to the sky to see the sun blocked by massive, fluffy clouds. Birds dotted the blue and dove from the heavens into the waters below. An ocean breeze brushed past her hair and blew stray ends into her face, no doubt tangling it in the back.

If what Adam said was right, that this ocean went on forever, she was certainly in for a treat.

“At least it’s a lovely view.”

“Of course it is! You can’t enjoy death without a spectacular view of the mountains, Amara!”

She opened her mouth to agree, but Adam’s words stopped her right on her tracks.

“Mountains? Where?” Amara turned her head and checked behind her, but there was only some type of tropical forest. She looked left and right, but to no avail. The only thing in sight was an endless ocean.

Adam tugged on her wrist and pointed randomly at a patch of water. “Right in front of you, you goose! Did you die of a head wound or something or something?”

“Hey! Aren’t you supposed to be more empathetic in the afterlife? With the whole, eternal rest eternal reflection thing going on?” She rubbed her eyes to check if her head wound had indeed distorted her vision. Still, no mountains.

Amara threw sand at him. “And who’s to say you’re no messing with me!”

“Just because I’m at rest doesn’t mean I can’t call out your bullshit!” Adam accepted the challenge and tossed a handful of sand at her face. Amara quickly scooched away before she could actually lose her sight.

“Hmph.” Mountains or no mountains, Adam was still as much of a jackass as he was when she last saw him.

They sat in silence, either in what was a few seconds or a few hours, with Adam possibly looked at mountains and Amara staring into her ocean.

Eventually, out of the corner of her eye, Amara saw Adam lean towards her.

“Have you found them, yet?” He asked quietly.

“The only thing I see are miles of ocean.” A small grin formed on her face. “Perhaps you’re the one with the broken head. I can clearly hear the sound of the waves.”

“Hmm…��� was the response she got, and with that, Adam turned back to his view.

“Do you know if other people see different things?”

Adam frowned. His brow pressed together, possibly in an attempt to put some amount of effort into finding an answer. “I don’t think I’ve asked.”

“‘Nice weather we’re having’ was never a conversation starter?”

“More like ‘where have I met you’ or ‘so what’s your damage?’”

“And these are the same people you make bets with?”

“Nah, not to randos. You never know who knows who. I think I’d get slapped if I told someone’s grandma ‘I bet Steve will be here in five years.’” He paused to snicker to himself. “I learned that the hard way. You would have thought things wouldn’t hurt here. Some woman and a sandal told me otherwise.”

Amara shook her head and laughed. “Only you could find yourself in that situation, Adam.”

She closed her eyes and laid back on the sand. Or grass, if that’s what Adam saw.

“So, what brought you here, Amara?”

“Head wound.”

“Oh…so I was right! Wait, I mean…whoops.” For once in his life, Adam sounded sheepish. Who knew.

Amara rolled her eyes and smiled despite herself. “You’re good. Wasn’t the way I wanted to go out, but it’s not like I can change anything.”

“You have a preferred way to go out?” Adam sat up and rested his head on his hands. “Tell me, what did Ms. Amara want on her gravestone?”

“Not ‘annoyed to death by Adam.’”

“Hey! That’s a great way to go out, especially by yours truly.”

“I’ll take the headwound.”

“Hmph.”

Adam fell back onto the ground, and once again, they both stared into space before Amara’s thoughts got the better of her.

“Adam,” Adam glanced at her and narrowed his eyes, “what is this place?”

Never in her life had Amara heard of such a depiction of the afterlife. She had always expected to see, well, her mother. Her past friends and family. Adam, yes, but why was he the only one she could see? Why did they see such different things?

“I’ve been calling it the in between.” Adam said, drawing her from her questions. “I don’t see fire; I don’t see cherubs. I only see mountains, but apparently, they might just be a part of my imagination.”

“So, some form of Purgatory?”

“Maybe? I mean, we’re not being told to walk towards a paradise.” He stretched his legs out onto the ‘shore’ and stared at the ‘sand.’ “I guess we just make it as we will.”

“Hmm…” Puzzled, Amara sat up and walked towards the shore. Even with a higher viewpoint, she could still only see miles of ocean in front of her. She squinted and attempted to spot some island in the distance, but the sea was empty.

“Perhaps,” she started, “perhaps the answer is right in front of us? Maybe I have to swim across my ocean, and maybe you need to climb your mountain to reach the ‘other side.’ Maybe-“

“Oh my God, Amara,” interrupted Adam, “chill!” You’ll give me a headache by thinking to hard about whatever this is.”

Amara shot him a nasty look. “Adam. We are in the literal afterlife! Aren’t we supposed to do something? Like, I don’t know, watching over our friends? Throwing some kind of heavenly party?”

She stomped up to Adam, “You’ve been here a while, five years in fact. You cannot seriously tell me that you have not asked, or have not questioned anyone about this place?”

“What do you want me to say, Amara?” He shook his head in frustration. “I don’t know. No one knows. I’ve told you everything I know, and I’m not the type of guy to ponder my existence… death… whatever it is! Until you showed up, I haven’t even thought of having an existential crisis. Don’t you dare give me one now!”

“I-“

Adam threw his hands to his ears. “Blah-blah-blah, I’m not listening!”

With that, Adam shut his mouth and closed his eyes. Amara was left to, once again, stew in her thoughts.

***

“…I stepped in between Clarisse and falling rocks.”

Adam cracked open an eye. “Huh?”

“To answer your question, I got hit on the head by falling rocks when I pushed Clarisse out of the way. Only the shirts on our backs to clean up the mess, I guess.” She rubbed her hand across the wound and brought her palm to her face. No blood, no pain, no sign that she had been injured at all.

“Clarisse? Who’s she?”

“A friend of mine. You would have liked her. Everyone did.”

“Except those rocks.”

Amara whirled around. “Adam!”

He put his hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. Amara picked up another pile of sand but found herself beginning to laugh with him. For a few moments, they laughed as if Adam hadn’t insulted Amara’s sacrifice and instead had made some awful dad joke.

“Ha, I’d forgotten how rude you could be.” Amara shook her head and smiled. “Go back to the way you were in my mind, I think I like you better there.”

“Hey! And here I thought you befriended me because of my wit.”

“Sure…. I remember, when you died-“

“I’d have preferred the falling rocks.”

“Oh, you hush! I remember that you intentionally made your last words sound heroic. Something along the lines of ‘it is time for all of you to see another dawn in my place as I cannot go on any longer.’”

“Please tell me that made it to my gravestone!”

Amara shook her head. “You and your public image! Your death may have been preventable if you hadn’t stopped speaking!”

“It was fifty-fifty, I wanted to make sure I went out with a banger!”

Amara glared at him. To this day, she had never been as frustrated with Adam as she was then.

“So that’s a no?” Adam asked, hesitantly.

Amara nodded her head. “I had no control over your funeral.”

“Ugh, all that work for nothing?”

“Unfortunately, but that’s not the point. I took your stupid advice.”

Adam kicked her knee. “Don’t insult a dead man’s words!”

“Then don’t mock a dead woman’s fatal wound!” Amara retorted, kicking him back. “Anyway, I took her stupid advice. I set out to see the world.”

Adam flipped himself over, rested on his stomach, and propped his head on his hands. Well, where’d you go? What did you see? What did you do? I’m all ears.”

“I got on a boat and sailed around the ocean for a year. Then I joined a quest to find more resources for Aspen. We were heading back when-“

“Smack!”

“What did I say about insulting someone’s death, Adam!”

“Am I wrong?”

Amara reached over to smack him, but Adam scrambled away.

“Sorry, sorry, but that’s what you get for calling my last words stupid!”

Amara stuck her tongue out at him. “Fine, but the next time you say something snarky, you’re going into that ocean whether it exists or not!

“Anyway, as I was saying, I died when we were heading back.” She looked into the ocean, part of her hoping to see her ship in the ocean. “Only the stars know if they’ll be successful.”

“Adam leaned in and patted her on the back. “I’m sure they’ll do well. Especially since they won’t run into half as many problems without you on board.”

“Want to bet? And do your math right! I only cause a fifth of their problems.”

“Did you even do this ‘math?’”

“No, but it’s a good estimate.”

“Then I’ll keep my original estimate, and I’ll bet five bucks on it!”

“You do that Adam, you do that.”

They both settled into a familiar silence. Amara looked at her ocean and Adam faced his mountains. She made a mental note to ask any new person she came across what they saw in the distance, and on that note…

“Adam, why are you here?”

“I got stabbed in the gut,” he deadpanned. “You were there.”

“No,” Amara sighed, “no, I mean why can I see you?”

“Did you think of me when you died?”

“I can’t recall.”

“Hmm,” Adam gazed off into the sky, and he, surprisingly, seemed to be on to something useful. “When I want to find someone, I simply think of them and walk in some random direction. I’ll usually find them in the next minute. Or they’ll find me.” He paused, then added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if someone pops out of nowhere wanting to talk to you.”

“How do you know when someone dies?” Amara didn’t know how she felt about random people knowing when she was in the afterlife.

“You just get a feeling, like, ‘oh, this person has passed on to our realm now. I should go talk to them, it’s been a while.’ That kind of thing.” Adam shrugged. “You’ll get it when you experience it.”

“I hope it’s not anytime soon.”

“You’d be surprised. Sometimes it’ll be for a random person you’ve only had one conversation with. It’s…weird and spontaneous.”

“Interesting.” That was all Amara could reply with. Every second, her afterlife seemed to get odder and odder, but the pieces were starting to fit together.

“So you wanted to see me right when I got here?”

“Yes.” Adam smiled, “Like I said, I was bored.”

“Well, attitude aside, I’m glad to see you too.” Amara made an additional note to find Clarisse, hopefully in the distant future, when she entered the afterlife. And the meantime, she’d find her friends and family.

Adam would also find out that there was actually an ocean the entire time.