Story

“To answer your question, yes you are dead. But there is an interesting opportunity here for you. You see, I am moving on.”

Natasha looked at the lithe form in front of her. Her mind was trying to comprehend the magnitude of that statement. How could she be dead?

“If I am dead... am I in Heave...”

The translucent form in front of her cut her off in mid-sentence. “Of course not. You didn’t go to Church a day in your life. Hell, you weren’t even baptized!”

“Hell…” she repeated his word.

“No, no…you were no demon. Surely you know this?”

“But then…” the answer came to her before she even finished the thought. Of course, she was in purgatory. She was stuck between Heaven and Hell. “… Did you say I had an interesting opportunity?”

“Yes”, said the ghost, “I am moving on. My time here is done.”

“How long have you been here?”

The ghost looked at her forlornly “I have been here…” the ghost stared into space and the finally just shrugged.

“Most souls don’t get a choice, but you do. You can either enter Purgatory and serve your time… or you can take this job.

“Job?” She asked slightly confused , “The man, or the occupation?”

“Both. You will serve your time here controlling events. Balancing, adjusting. Would you like to see?”

“Yes.”

Her gaze shifted and she realized she was looking at a stairway. A man struggled to climb the stairway, but he was having some difficulty. With one leg in a cast and a crutch under his arm, he grimaced as he hoisted himself up onto the next stair. She didn’t know how she knew, but he was a superstar football player whose career had just ended.

“He could have been amazing.” She said reflexively. The spirit nodded.

On the second floor, a teenage girl opened the letter she had been waiting for. Next year, she would be going to the University of Wisconsin! She spun an excited pirouette and laughed out loud. A rush of emotion filled Natasha.

The spirit made a small motion towards the football player, and he hustled up the last few stairs. At the top, he bumped into the girl, who turned and looked into his eyes for the first time. Natasha could feel the sparks between them. She smiled for a second, but then another feeling came to her.

Strangely, she knew how their lives would unfold. The two would get together for a fling, and the football player would take much comfort in the girl. The girl, on the other hand, would get pregnant and miss her opportunity to go off to college.

“You pushed him up the stairs.”

“I did.”

“She could have gone to college. Her true love is in that college, she could have had a great life. She could have had it all.” She said it without emotion, without regret or remorse. It wasn’t an accusation, it was simply a statement.

“It doesn’t work that way here. Everything is balanced. Good and bad, yin and yang. That’s how it goes.”

“And you control that? You caused the collision that wrecked his knee?”

“I did”

“Without you, he would have been happy?”

“He will be happy with her.”

“But he will never be great. He wanted to be great”

“My time is short. Decide now, will you do the Job, or will you live in that world?”

She didn’t have to answer. As the ghost faded in front of her, she knew that her desire had spoken for her. She would be the one to keep things centered. Reward the crestfallen, punish the exuberant. Pain would replace pleasure and pleasure would replace pain. She knew that she could never enjoy her job, but she appreciated having it.


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Thanks for reading this story. Please let me know what you liked or did not like about it.

Story

::bump::

Comments welcome

Story

::bump::

How can this be better?

Mermaid on the breakwater

"Natasha looked at the lithe form in front of her. Her mind was trying to comprehend the magnitude of that statement. How could she be dead?"

Natasha brought her hands up to her face, all the same patterns on her palm, the same fleshy colour. 'How can I be... Dead?'



"If I am dead... am I... in heave...?" Get rid.




"the translucent form in front of her cut her off in mid-sentence."

the translucent form in front of her cast his eyes over her."




"The ghost looked at her forlornly "I have been here..." The ghost just stared into space andthen finally shrugged"

"Natasha noticed the sadness in his eyes, his body was translucent but his eyes were misting over. 'I have been here...' He sighed and his shoulders sagged the smallest measure.




"Job?" She asked slightly confused, "The man or the occupation?"

"Job? You're offering me a job?"




"Both. You will serve your time here controlling events. Balancing, adjusting. Would you like to see?"

"Yes. Balancing, adjusting. It means you get to serve your time here controlling events. Would you like to see?"

Mermaid on the breakwater

That's as far as I've got into the critique, I may do some more a bit later. I've just changed some minor details to help it read a bit better.

Amadeus

There's a voice here, but nobody cares about religion or football; write about something that matters maybe!

Story

Mermaid: thanks for the suggestions, I like the changes. I think the question of where she is needs to be addressed though (am I in heaven or hell, that would be my first question.. but I wouldn't think to ask about purgatory. That is the intent of this line)

"Natasha noticed the sadness in his eyes, his body was translucent but his eyes were misting over. 'I have been here...' He sighed and his shoulders sagged the smallest measure.
^ I like this very much, it gives a better descripton of both his physical appearance and of how weary he is of doing this job.


Amadeus: Thanks for your opinion, but I hardly think that nobody cares about religion or football. Its too bad this one doesn't speak to you, hopefully the next thing I write will.

Mermaid on the breakwater

That's not a fair critique. If he is expressing it, then it is of importance to him, and therefore other people, too.

Story

Quote:

There's a voice here, but nobody cares about religion or football; write about something that matters maybe!

"…nobody cares about religion or football"

The absolute absurdity of this statement made it stick in my mind all night. It is a trivial matter to disprove the statement and maybe that is what makes it so fun to think about.

So then I began day dreaming of a world where "…nobody cares about religion or football" is a literally true statement.

Where do the millions of advertising dollars spent on the super bowl go? Well, I guess they go to advertising another big sporting event. But what if this statement was extended a bit, to “"…nobody cares about religion or sports"?

Now we are really changing reality. Forget about homecoming dances and high school football heroes. Forget about the college athlete who makes a fortune based solely on his athletic ability.

With all sporting events gone or trivialized, what does entertainment look like? How about recess, do grade school kids still invent competition? Are people still separated into winners and losers?

Maybe those same millions of advertising dollars now go into a writer’s forum competition? (Remind me to enter that one, even if it’s a long shot)

Religion, wow; what would the world be without any form of religion? How would we describe the every day events that go on around us? How would we view the end of our lives, or for that matter the beginning? How would we comfort a child when their beloved pet dies?

Do we also throw out the fatherland (and, as equal opportunity, the motherland) because of their similarities to religion? Sure why not.

How would people form social networks, would they be strictly on language or family ties? Maybe social events would be the same as in the world we see, arranged by things like interests (but not sports, nobody cares about those).

And I realize that by saying that nobody cares, they may still exist. Like a short story written and ignored. Religion and sports exist just like they always have, but nobody at all goes to Church, or to the Super Bowl.

What seemed like a simple (if inaccurate) statement, blossomed into the creation of an entire new reality to think about and dissect. It can be taken into so many strange directions that quite a bit of time could be devoted to it without risk of betting bored.

I have other projects going on, so this will go on a back burner. But at some point, I’ll explore this further and possibly come up with a short story of it all.

Mermaid on the breakwater

lol, loved it, you owned that guy. But, he meant nobody cares about those things in literature, something which is disproved by the fact you wrote about it. You don't need to do any more than that.

Story

No, I actually want my first response to stand. I understand that the piece didn't move him, and thats fine. I am not asking everyone to love everything I write (although, it would be nice if everyone did). I am not taking offense, I am just doing what I do... creating worlds in my mind.

Apologies if this came off as a slam, I just like where the line of thought went.

Ari Mar

Only thing: Job, the man, is pronounced like 'Jobe', so when speaking, nobody would get it confused with job, as in, an occupation.
But other than that, I found it strangely sad and moving.
The part with the football player and the girl was so well-done it was rediculous. And I say "rediculous" in the absolute best form of the word. That really made the story for me.
Another thing. It held my attention. You don't know how hard that is to do.
So good idea, good writing. The Job thing was all I found wrong with it, and that's really more of a technicality.

Story

Wow, thanks for that review.

I was playing with the deliberate mis-pronounciation as a sort of trick on the reader. In my mind the spirit was speaking with a slight accent that may be confusing, but mostly trying to catch the reader using the wrong pronounciation (this won't translate well to the book on tape.. even if Jim Dale reads it

Leofric

I liked it but it was like the opening paragraphs of a longer story. Waht did she do when she started in her new job? How did she reward or punish?

snorrie

Did you get this idea from Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil?