The sounds of clanking metal and grunting men were the first indications that John was no longer near his soft and comfortable couch. As the room around him came into focus, John felt the wind get knocked out of him. Not because he was surprised, but because a large man socked him straight in the gut. “Welcome to Valhalla, warrior!”
“Here, here!” The crowd of giant men cheered.
“Valhalla? Like Odin’s Valhalla?”
“There is no other.” The man who had punched him laughed heartily at the small man cowering before him.
The great hall stretched out as far as the eye could see. There were men fighting with swords, clubs, and fists. Around the skirmishes there were crowds of equally giant men cheering the contenders on and begging to be allowed to take on the winner. Other groups were seated at long banquet tables feasting on delicacies of meat and bread. Cups ran over with grog and beer as drunken partiers loudly sang songs that were far older than John.
John snuck away from the man who had greeted him. He was afraid that he would have to fight him while somehow managing to not die again from the punch to his stomach. Compared to the men gathered in this room, John was as small as a child. He weaved his way through the crowd over to a dark corner, hoping to blend in with the wall until he could figure out how he had ended up in this place.
John’s confusion mostly stemmed from the label ‘warrior’. John noticed that the man had addressed him that way, but he knew better than to correct someone who was at least three times his size and not above hitting him. As he pushed his back as far into the dark corner as possible, he was surprised to feel a warm and soft lump. Behind John was another, equally small, man.
“Quick,” the lump whispered, pulling John flush against the wall. “Before they notice us.”
“Who are you?”
“Shhhhhhhh! You have to be as quiet as possible. If they hear you, they’ll toss you into one of those matches out there, and since you can’t die, you are stuck fighting until they get distracted. It’s endless torture.”
John nodded to indicate to the man that he understood, but was unsure if he could be seen in the pitch-black recesses.
“How in the world could this have happened? I am not a Viking,” John pleaded in a hushed tone.
He heard at least four distinct giggles from next to him. It seemed that the runts all had the same idea to hide, and had ended up banding together.
“You must have died in battle. That’s how we all got here. That is a one-way trip to Valhalla. Odin opens his paradise to those that he deems worthy warriors, and every once in a while, one of us gets in.”
“Battle? I have never been in a fight in my entire life! This has to be a mistake!” His objection was just a bit too loud, and it caught the attention of the table of men near his hiding spot. The runts were not about to give up their location, so they gave John a quick shove out into the hall. There would be no more hiding for him, at least, not with them. The only chance he had was to figure out how to get a seat at the table as opposed to being thrown into one of those nightmare matches.
“Warriors!” John tried to make his voice as deep and booming as possible.
The group of men took a second to size him up before simultaneously deciding that there was something hysterical, if not the tiniest bit admirable, about this overly confident midget in their midst.
“Come, sit warrior!” They called to John in unison.
John had watched enough fantasy movies to know that you just have to act loud and confident, even if you are trembling with fear inside. He would have to figure out a way to hide in plain sight, and luckily for him, that was a skill he had spent a lifetime developing. As he sat down, the two men seated to either side gave him a hearty slap on the back as a welcome. If he had been alive, that alone would have been enough to kill him.
The vibe at the table was one of merriment. The warriors were not enemies, and the fights were not due to disagreements. They were games played by men who were much better inclined to enjoy themselves with this kind of sport. The feast was something all men were inclined to enjoy. Roasted pig and turkey legs sat directly in front of John. Salivating, he took a chance and ripped off a hunk of meat. It was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. When he reached in to grab another bite, he was surprised to see the slab was whole once again.
“Ah, little man! You must have the best story of all to have ended up here with us! You must have bravery abound. A man of your size would have to be a mountain of a man in his heart to have fought the battles required to dine with the Gods. I am Sven, son of Ivar. My last battle was one that the Vikings would sing about for a hundred years.”
“My name is John, son of none.” John was unsure what else to say since his battle had not been one to sing about. His battle had not existed at all.
“Drink some grog, John, son of none, and tell us of your last moments with the living.”
John had hoped that he would be able to blend in at the table, but he should have known better. He was too much of an oddity. He was grateful for the oversized mug of grog. Maybe if he was drunk, it would dull the pain of the pummeling he was about to receive. About halfway through his serving, he realized how he had gotten there. The mouse! That damn mouse. No matter how you twisted it, that fight was his one and only battle throughout his entire life, and he had died in the middle of it.
As a result of this, he was sent to warrior’s heaven, as opposed to slacker’s heaven or even limbo, like he deserved. Now he would have to figure out how to spin such a ridiculous mistake to these giants to make it sound as though it was a perfectly normal and acceptable battle between equally matched foes. He took a giant swig of the awful, but extremely strong, libation and began to weave his tale of glory.
“We locked eyes across the battlefield, and Mickey knew that our fight would be one to the death.”
“Tyr!” The others cried out.
Unfazed, probably due to the grog, John continued, “We locked eyes, and neither of us could move. We were each waiting for the other to launch the first attack. Everything else around us ceased to be, and I was able to slow down time as I grabbed for my trusty club. As I pulled it up over my head, Mickey took off, knowing that he would surely be bested. The chase that ensued destroyed many precious artifacts as we tumbled around trying to send each other off to the great after!”
The words flowed out of his mouth, and while it wasn’t quite a lie, it sure as heck wasn’t the truth. John was so wrapped up in the moment that the embellishments became bigger and more daring, and the Vikings cheered him on, excitedly listening to every detail.
“He came at me with the ferocity of a man who knew his end was near. Our weapons could be heard for miles around. He tried to overtake me three separate times, with each pass at me pushing me one inch closer to death. I rallied myself and was able to land two of the most powerful blows that any man has ever inflicted on another in the history of all war!”
The crowd around the banquet table was growing larger with each detail John crafted. The other Vikings had stepped away from their battles to see what all the commotion was about. With each new audience member, John’s confidence grew. With wild disregard for his own safety, he hauled off and punched the man next to him to emphasize his points. The punches landed, and the man was thrown back in pain. John’s eyes grew wild at the thought of being able to hold his own against one of these monsters.
“He was able to get away from each of my blows, by the grace of his god, but it would all come down to the final moment. There we were, near the top of the mountain, grappling with each other when he was able to break free. He made a mad dash for the peak, trying to escape our fierce fight. I followed behind him with all that was left in me, and he dodged out of my way. This sent me head first through a wall of ice and off the side of the mountain.”
“I cried out to the Gods to save me, so I could go
back and finish him off. Instead, I was devoured whole by a beast and sent straight to this great hall!”
The Vikings clearly approved of John’s tale of glory, and let out cheers as they smashed their mugs together.
“Clearly, John, son of none, you are a warrior at heart. I bet you are aching to take a turn in one of our tests of strength!” Sven boomed as he smacked John in the back.
This time the pain was not as severe, and John held his ground against the much larger man. Convinced it was the grog, John chugged two mugs right in a row and belched loudly while wiping the film from his face. His hand felt something it had never felt before when wiping his mouth. John had been one of those less fortunate men, who had been unable to grow facial hair, even as an adult. Well, it would grow, but it was wiry and patchy. He kept a close shave because it looked ridiculous.
Now, his face was covered with a thick scratchy beard. He looked down at his hands, happily clutching fists that were now the size of a grown man’s head. His fear was gone, and he longed to try out the new form against the warriors around him. His whole life he had hung back in the background, but now he was a larger than life creation of Odin’s playground. He almost flipped the table as he leapt up from his bench.
“Easy there, brother. We’ll find you an opponent as quickly as possible. No need to break the furniture on your way over,” Sven chuckled.
“I am John, son of none, and I am ready to rumble!” He shouted at the entire great hall.
The wall of runts let out a collective gasp. They couldn’t comprehend how John had managed to not end up fighting in his tiny human form, but instead had grown to be the size of all of them combined. What none of them knew, including John, was his transformation had nothing to do with the grog. Odin was seated at the head of the dining table that John had joined. He knew of John’s battle with the mouse, of course. However, he was impressed by John’s bravery when it came to facing his fear of the Vikings.
He was secretly watching a play by play as John described his last moments in great detail. The tiny man had amused him so much with his ability to stretch the truth without deviating from it that Odin had decided to gift him with his heart’s desire, and in that moment, his desire was to blend in. Odin used his power to not just make John look like the Vikings, but he also gifted him with their warrior spirit.
John had never felt so alive in his life, as he raised his glass and thanked the gods that he would be allowed to spend eternity feeling like this. He slammed his drink down and ran off to the closest circle of men that were knocking each other around. His excitement allowed no time for etiquette, and unlike the other warriors who were patiently waiting around for their turn to prove their strength, John dove in and started swinging.
The End
45 years is a long time, that is, unless it is all of the time you have on Earth. Years have an interesting way of going by at different rates. The ages of birth through five years fly by for both the child and the parent. Changes are so drastic from day to day that you can wake up each morning as a completely different human being. On your first day, you are a mushy little person that has three basic functions. Then you quickly add into that mobility and communication. It is quite a shock for many parents when they wake up one morning and look down to see that their baby is no longer a baby but a small person.
They are by no means an adult yet, but the next few years fly by until they are capable of taking care of themselves. Each day, they grab onto a bit more independence and mold themselves through their experiences into the person that they will ultimately become. We, as a society, make the assumption that by age 20, you are a full-fledged adult, but for most, that simply isn’t true. Most people get stuck in a weird transitional phase between childhood and adulthood, only to break through the last barriers somewhere around the age of 30. Many are already parenting children of their own before that wall is broken.
For John, that wall was never breached. He hit 20 and skated from then on. Forty-five years felt like longer to him because he had spent most of it stuck in one place, never really growing or going on to do fantastic, or even mundane, things that the rest of the world manages to accomplish in their time spinning around that giant fiery ball of gas. John never really questioned his purpose on the planet. More so, he questioned why others expected so much of him. Truthfully, nobody expected very much from him because John had trained them not to, but he always felt like the world was forcing him to be something he wasn’t designed to be.
On this particular morning, John was headed out to one of his favorite places in the whole world. It was a road that led to nowhere. Whenever the world became too overwhelming for him to deal with, he would get in his car and drive towards the end that road. Lately, John had noticed he was going there more frequently.
The world and the people that John knew in it had already begun distancing themselves from him, but sadly, that wasn’t enough for him anymore. For a long time, he had been searching for a place to go hide on a more permanent basis, but there always seemed to be something holding him back. That was why this road and the solitude it allowed him would have to be enough for now. He crossed over the last of the bridges and pulled his car into his usual spot.
Clicking the radio on, he popped one of the discs from the book-on-tape he’d been listening to into his system. Just like every other time he sat in this parking spot, John reached his left arm down and adjusted his seat to a comfortable angle. The narrator wasn’t the best or the worst that John had ever heard, but the story was on the better side as far as audiobooks go. His eyes closed and he began to drift off, away from it all. Unfortunately, there was one thing that John hadn’t counted on.
His car had a slight exhaust leak, and when he parked and left the car idling, the exhaust had slowly started to fill the passenger compartment the vehicle. What John believed was a normal transition to a nap was actually him slowly suffocating from a lack of oxygen. By the time the convulsions set in, it was too late. John passed away, painfully and alone at the end of that road to nowhere. Only this time, he didn’t transport anywhere else.
His eyes didn’t open to a new world or new reality. It was over after 45 short years, and there was nothing after that. John had never questioned his afterlife because he believed there wasn’t one. Sadly, he wouldn’t be around to point out that he was right to anyone. But really, the important thing was, having no afterlife at all fit John Robert Thompson just right.
About the Author
Valerie is New Jersey born and bred. This has means that while she speaks English as her first language, sarcasm is a close second. She is a creative soul, that has interests in many things. Writing, is just one of her many loves, that also include, painting, crocheting, photography, singing, and of course, reading. As a mom to seven children ranging from a newborn to teenagers, she is a master of multitasking. Parenting has help develop her sense of humor, and also the importance in her life for being prepared. Valerie has always been unafraid of new experiences. She is or has been a certified massage therapist, reiki master, balloon decorator, gorilla gram, studio photographer, pizza delivery driver, and now writer. Life has so much to offer, and she is always looking for the next big adventure!
The Many Afterlives of John Robert Thompson is just one of several projects Valerie has slated to be released in 2017, and she also has a few titles sitting on Amazon ready for you to dive into!
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I hope you enjoyed the story of John Robert Thompson. If you have a chance, please leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or both! If I get 100 of them, someone promised me a unicorn! Thank you, and I can’t wait to hear what you tho
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Valerie
The Many Afterlives of John Robert Thompson Page 15
