Death Sucks

by Andrew Mallen

  “That ain’t Jesus mom, that’s the old dude who caught the fish,” Jordan shook his head as he stood to stare at them in youthful defiance.

  “Lenny help me find my cane so I can get up,” Roger cried while frantically searching the tall grass around him for it.

  “You don’t need it,” God informed him.

  Roger eyeballed the old fisherman with suspicious curiosity. “Get up babe,” Lenny urged.

  The big man pushed himself up onto his feet with ease and stood tall, straight and pain free for the first time since he’d been shot. “Holy shit! It’s a miracle! Lenny look!” he yelped with delight.

  “Ha!” God barked.

  Everyone turned.

  “Sorry,” God shrugged. “I never really cared for that word, so grandiose.”

  “But it is a miracle,” Jackie was still on her knees.

  “Okay,” God smiled.

  “Praise Jesus,” Jackie whispered and crossed herself again while Jordan rolled his eyes.

  God studied them as they studied Him. His eyes brimmed with unconditional love. “Even surrounded by such wonder you still find me more interesting?” he asked.

  “Yes Jesus,” Jackie testified.

  “Not Jesus my child, he was the first Angel and you will have your chance to meet him but I am not him,” God corrected her lovingly.

  “But he’s your son?” Jackie insisted.

  “You are all of me and from me but his story is one that has been twisted by time although he is worthy of the praise your world offers him. He accepted a path of true sacrifice to bring light into a darkening world. He gave of himself without hesitation and saved your kind from destroying themselves and the world I gave them. He owns a special place in me but he is no more or less my son than you are my daughter.”

  Jackie blessed herself again.

  “Please, get up,” God said as He strolled toward the awestruck woman. “You do not need to lower yourself.”

  Jackie panicked, squeezed her eyes shut and began blessing herself like a madwoman. God crouched in front of her and stroked the side of her face lovingly. “Jackie, I love you,” he whispered.

  Her eyes sprung wide open and her antics ceased.

  “And you love me.”

  She nodded once, slowly, her eyes locked on the old fisherman’s. He took her trembling hands in his own, smiled and spoke gently, “Kneeling is a way of showing submission or fear for someone you think is greater than you. I do not nor have I ever wanted anyone to feel less than me and the last thing I have ever wanted is for anyone to fear me. I do not need praise or prayer or sacrifice, all I ask of my children is to follow the truth inside them. The laws and the rules of the living, although written with the best of intentions, are just vague interpretations of what the authors feel in their own hearts. You have in your heart a compass that directs you to what is truly good and no words, no matter how skilled the hand that takes up the task of solving its mystery, can capture its purpose and transcribe its intention. To follow what I have instilled inside you insures a life well lived, a good life. To ignore it, to choose another way in spite of what you know is right, will lead only to pain and sorrow.

  “You have lived a good life, Jackie Simmons, but it has never been an easy one and for that I am truly sorry. You have been tested by what has become of your world, the rules and values humankind has set upon you, the horrible casting of gender, race, religion and every other frivolous difference that has kept it divided. Despite all you have suffered you stayed true to yourself, to what you knew to be right and good even if it meant you had to suffer because of it. It is I who should kneel before you my love. It is you who should be praised.”

  God knelt before the trembling ghost.

  “Oh Lord! No! Don’t!” she clasped her face between her hands as if channeling Macaulay Caulkin.

  “Why not?” God asked.

  “You’re the heavenly Father,” she cried.

  “You’re Jackie Simmons,” he replied softly.

  “But…” she tried to explain but God wouldn’t let her.

  He pulled her hands from her face, tilted her chin up to look into her tear filled eyes and smiled. “There is no ‘buts’ Jackie. We are the same, you and me, all of us. No one is greater or lesser. You are all cut from the same cloth, woven from the same thread, and I love you all.”

  Jackie saw the truth in the old man’s crystal blue eyes. God offered his hand once again and she took it, gasping as the warmth and the peace that flooded through her when she did. Together they stood, she was at least six inches taller but felt like a child standing before Him. “Okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. Thank you,” Jackie replied with a smile so wide it nearly split her tear covered face in two.

  “Let’s hug it out,” God suggested and opened his arms.

  “Really?” Jackie wasn’t sure she heard Him right.

  “Did I say it wrong?” He looked embarrassed. “I try to keep up with the latest sayings.”

  Jackie dove into the fisherman’s embrace and he laughed as she cried against his chest, “Sorry about the smell, that fish left a nice layer of stink all over me.”

  Jackie didn’t care. She was hugging God.

  *

  “So, Lenny and Roger?” God addressed the living after breaking free from his long embrace with Jackie. “I believe congratulations are in order.”

  “Huh…what?” Roger grunted.

  Lenny elbowed him, he disapproved of his husband’s lack of manners.

  “For what?” Roger was willing to risk another rib shot to find out what the old guy was talking about.

  “On your marriage,” God replied with his usual smile.

  “Oh, right,” Roger has forgotten he was a newlywed with all the crazy shit going on.

  “I thought God didn’t like gay dudes?” Jordan, as usual, spoke his mind.

  God turned to the boy while shaking his head. His eyes spoke of his sadness before he said a word, “Jordan, there are those who use my name to create laws that I never would. Life is a gift and it is to be lived. If you love then no man has the right to deny it. Love is pure. Anyone or anything that would corrupt it is not doing so on my behalf, in fact, they are perverting my greatest creation. Love is my finest achievement and I have given it to every living thing in every world so they can feel for others what I feel for each of them. It is very powerful and there are some who struggle to understand it but it is meant to be shared feely, embraced openly, rejoiced and cherished. Those who deny it, condemn it, judge it, they are the truly lost and I ache for them.”

  “Wow my dude, that’s some deep doodie,” Jordan replied, shaking one hand as if it was covered in the doodie he spoke of.

  “Super deep,” God cracked and winked. “Like grab a snorkel deep.”

  “Do we have to call you God cause it’s kinda weird and stuff?” Jordan asked.

  “Yeah, it’s weird. My fishing buddies call me Gordon,” God offered his alias among the surfcasters of the east end.

  “Gordon?” Jordan tried to hide his smile behind his hands but failed miserably. “Really?”

  “Jordan!” Jackie cried, mortified.

  Jordan burst out laughing. God did as well, He loved to laugh.

  “So Gordon, you gotta explain that one,” Bobby asked once the old fisherman had recovered from his latest bout of hysterics. “You could pick any name you want and you go with Gordon?”

  God look at him skeptically, “You really don’t get it?”

  Confused glances and shrugs were exchanged between the visitors but nobody got whatever it was God wanted them to. God shook his head as if disappointed, “Gray beard, old white guy, fisherman?”

  “Oh shit!” Roger erupted.

  “Roger!” Lenny scowled.

  “I’ve heard a lot worse Lenny,” God winked at the nervous husband of the overexcited riddle solver. “It’s only a word.”

  “The Gordon Fisherman! The fish stick guy! You’re the guy from the commercials,
the guy with the old fashion yellow slicker and the big hat! Ya’know! Ya’know! ”

  “I do know,” God replied with a chuckle.

  This time is was Maria and Bobby who lost it in a gut busting session of tear inducing laughter. The others smiled as the Angel and the Reaper responded to something only they found funny, a secret only they knew. At only ten years old even Jordan could tell they were in love.

  Everyone felt so good and so at peace in God’s presence. They’d all been living in a constant state of fear and stress but now, with Him, everything felt right. They were far from home, in a place out of a dream and with no idea of what lay ahead but none of it mattered. When He smiled, when He set His eyes on them, they were filled with His love, wrapped in His Peace and they were home.

  *

  Can’t we just stay here? I could live here forever.

  “You can but that is not what you really want.” God replied in his mind.

  Whoa! I forgot you could hear me.

  Bobby didn’t have to give it much thought and hated himself for it. He wanted to let it all go, to leave it all behind him and live for eternity on Yoba with Maria. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t. In his heart he knew his path didn’t end there. Something bad was happening, innocent people were getting screwed, hard and fast, and he couldn’t just turn his back on them. Hell sucked, it really, really did and if he could save just one poor soul from suffering its horrors then he had to do whatever it was God needed him to do to stop it.

  “No,” Bobby answered even though he’d been the only one to hear the question.

  “Well done.” God commended his thinking.

  Hey?

  “Sorry. I hear everyone’s thoughts even if I don’t listen.” God apologized.

  Bobby felt guilty for calling Him out, He was God after all.

  No biggie, just a little spooky sometimes.

  “So what now?” Lenny asked the odd group gathered beneath the bright orange sky.

  “We need a plan,” Roger suggested.

  “I think that’s already been taken care of,” Bobby looked at Gordon.

  He nodded and added, “What has to be done only involves Robert, Maria and I.”

  “No way!” Roger protested. “We’re all in this together.”

  “Yeah, we’re a team!” Jordan cheered.

  “I understand you all want to help but you cannot, your part in this is done,” God looked at each of them as HE said it. “We would not be here if not for each and every one of you and I thank you for that”.

  “We can help!” Roger wasn’t giving up.

  “No Roger, you can’t, not anymore,” God replied firmly but without anger. “Where we go and what we have to do is not for the living or for the dead.”

  “No fair! Why?” Jordan wasn’t a big fan of being told no either.

  God looked at the boy with prideful amusement. “You and your mom have a date with a young lady who’s been keeping me company for some time and I promised her I’d send you along as soon as I could,” He said coolly. “It’s a promise I plan on keeping, she’s a special girl.”

  “Wendy! My Wendy!” Jackie cried out with such relief and such joy that Roger and Lenny both burst into tears, if he could Bobby would have as well.

  “Yes, Ms. Wendy,” God smiled. “She is quite wonderful, you should be proud of her and of yourself for raising such a wonderful person.”

  Jackie nodded, she was too overcome with emotion to speak. Jordan wasn’t, “Where’s she at? She’s in big trouble right mom?”

  “No Jordan,” God answered for her. “She did nothing wrong. She was the victim of a predator, tricked into taking the poison that killed her. She had no part in her death, her only fault was in trusting someone unworthy of it. You knew it all along Jackie, in your heart you knew it.”

  The wailing mother nodded, tears and snot leaked from everywhere they could.

  “She loves you as you love her, unconditionally,” God assured her.

  “Where is she?” Jordan interrupted once again.

  “In Heaven as you call it,” God replied.

  “So how do we get there?” Jordan pushed.

  “You simply ask,” God smiled at the boy.

  “Come on mom! Let’s go!” Jordan shouted as if he was next on line for the world’s greatest roller coaster and Jackie was holding him back.

  “Really?” she asked God, ignoring her son.

  God nodded.

  “It’s over?” her voice trembled.

  “For you and Jordan, this is over, yes.”

  “What about the boys…Lenny and Roger?” she looked at her friends who stood holding hands as they cried tears of happiness for her.

  “They have a different path.”

  “Why? Where?” she didn’t want to leave them even if it meant delaying her long awaited reunion with her daughter. She loved them, they were her family too.

  “They have a life to live,” God informed them all. “They are not done yet.”

  “It’s okay Jackie, we’ll be okay,” Roger tried to comfort her even as fear began to swell inside him at the news. “Me and Lenny still got a long list of stuff we wanted to do, ya’know, we haven’t even been on our honeymoon yet.”

  “But…”

  “No buts, uh uh,” Lenny wouldn’t let her argue any more. “You go see your girl and tell her Uncle Lenny and Uncle Roger will be there soon.”

  “Come on,” Roger opened his arms and invited her in.

  Jackie threw herself across the space between them and into the big man. Lenny sandwiched her and Jordan, his smooth cheeks wet from silent tears he was too cool to shed, nuzzled his way between the men and against his mother. “Come on you guys, let’s make it a group hug,” Roger summoned the others.

  God didn’t hesitate. Maria and Bobby followed his lead. They clung to each other, a sobbing mass of arms and legs in the middle of a golden field, for a very long time.

  “We are almost finished,” God whispered.

  They all heard Him. They all believed Him. Bobby, as happy as he was at the news could not help dread what is was would be asked of him to see it finished. He had a very strong suspicion it wasn’t going to be easy.

  *

  After a long, drawn out round of tearful goodbyes Jackie and Jordan were ready to move on. Holding hands beside God while studying the others as if trying to commit their faces to memory, they were torn by the sorrow of loss and the joy of the impending reunion. “Ready?” God asked.

  Jackie simply nodded. Jordan cheered, “Let’s do this Gordo!”

  They went.

  There was no flash of ethereal light or no puff of magic smoke. They were there one moment and not there the next. God smiled.

  “That’s it?” Roger felt cheated.

  God shrugged.

  “What about us Gordon?” Lenny asked as his stomach churned in fearful anticipation.

  “You two must stay here for a while,” God explained. “When this is all over, when it’s safe, we will come back for you.”

  “Here?” Roger looked around at the fantastic scenery but frowned despite the beauty. “Just sit here and wait? That’s bogus.”

  “Roger!” Lenny wished, and not for the first time, his man would learn to think before he spoke.

  “It’s okay, I understand but it is the only way to keep you safe,” God replied and looked around. “It is a bit barren.”

  Roger nodded. God smiled and a cabin blinked into existence on the horizon.

  “Wow,” Bobby yelped, impressed.

  “That’s like the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Lenny said as he stared in wonder at the little home that looked as if it had been plucked from the side of the Alps complete with a deeply slanted roof and billowing, stone chimney.

  “Thanks,” God replied humbly. “It’s all set up for you too, customized you could say. You should be quite happy there for a while.”

  “Really? Customized? Like what?” Roger cried with excitement, his anxiety forgott
en.

  “Everything,” God informed him. “Anything.”

  “Anything?” Lenny kept himself contained but was internally just as thrilled as his partner.

  “Anything.”

  “So it’s, like, full of all the stuff we’ve ever wanted?” Roger would have gotten it in writing if he thought Lenny wouldn’t blow his stack at the proposition.

  “Yes,” God reassured them patiently.

  “No shit!” Roger was super stoked with jelly on top.

  “No shit,” God agreed.

  Bobby burst out laughing, hearing God curse was definitely the funniest and the most unexpected thing he’d ever heard. Maria, Roger and Lenny were helpless to resist joining in. God smiled as he savored the fit, He loved the sound of laughter above all others. “Time to say goodbye then,” he announced once it passed.

  Nobody wanted to be first so God led the way. “Goodbye Leonard,” he hugged said and hugged the awestruck man then kissed him tenderly on one pock-marked cheek which caused Lenny’s heart to soar and his anxiety to vanish with the touch.

  “Good bye Roger,” God did the same to him as the big man stood captivated by the gesture which banished his every worry and his every fear leaving him feeling happier and more alive than he’d ever felt before.

  Maria hugged and kissed the stunned men, lingering longer in Roger’s arms as she cried silent tears into his chest. She loved him and she missed him. She had watched him grow and felt a special love for him in her heart. “Be careful,” Roger whispered into her thick, curly orange hair.

  “You too Roger,” she replied weakly.

  “Please take care of our boy,” Roger pleaded.

  “I will,” she didn’t dare promise.

  Bobby was next. He squeezed Lenny so tight he almost broke him. Lenny let him and cherished every painful moment. “Be careful Bobby, please,” he wheezed.

  “No way, not my style,” Bobby replied, hiding his pain the same way he always did. “Gotta drive fast and take chances!”

  “Idiot,” Lenny groaned as they parted.

  “Yep,” Bobby winked.

  Bobby stared at Roger for a long few seconds of uncomfortable silence before Roger finally couldn’t take it anymore. “You better come back,” he warned.