by KJ Harlow
As I lay there vision growing faint, I could have sworn that I heard a phone clattering as it skipped around on cobblestones, unanswered phone calls momentarily bringing it to life.
And with that, I died - or at least I think I did.
Two
I was woken up by a sharp pain on my side and my face. The chairs that I had fallen asleep on were made of plastic, sort of like the ones you would find in suburban clinics. I sat up and rubbed my rib and cheek. No wonder I had woken up. I could see the outline of some drool that had leaked out of my mouth on the chair that had acted as my pillow. How long had I been here for?
I sat up and looked around. The room had four walls, three of them with chairs lined up against them. It felt clinical and sterile, like a doctor’s waiting room. Groggy with sleep, I rubbed my eyes and readjusted my glasses. As I tried to count the chairs against one of the walls, they seemed to extend into infinity. How was that possible? The wall only looked to be about eight, maybe nine yards across. Shaking my head, I looked at the wall in front of me. There was a desk, a door, and two lifts. It was a bizarre set up: the lifts didn’t have any buttons, the door looked like it had been carved out of a tree thousands of years old. I could see three monitors set up at the desk. Judging by the sound of the typing, the receptionist was under immense pressure.
I smacked myself in the face. Wake up, Rose! Think! How did you get here? I was suddenly aware that I wasn’t the only one in the room; there were dozens of people here. They must have thought I was a nutcase. But no one had seemed to notice. I casually looked around at the people sitting with me. Whatever doctor’s clinic I had come to, it was really multicultural. Melbourne was a pretty diverse city but there were people here who were wearing clothes that I’d never seen before. Was that an Amish over there? I thought they lived in the US?
Ding-dong… going up.
A bell chimed over the intercom, accompanied by a pleasant, female voice. The shiny doors on one of the lifts smoothly slid open. Some people stood up and started shuffling towards the lift. I watched curiously as the people lined up and quietly filed in. There were only ten to twelve people at first but I lost count after 50. How was this possible? The lift looked like it could fit twenty people, maximum. I don’t know what the hell I took, but it was tripping me out. I’m glad that I somehow made it to the doctor.
As I watched the last few make their way into the lift, the doors started closing. The people that were standing inside were all facing me. I stared at them stone-faced, but they looked straight through me. After the doors closed, the lift whirred up.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I didn’t have my watch on, but it felt like I’d been here for at least half an hour. I hated waiting for doctors. Even when you make an appointment, they still make you wait. Putting on my ‘I’d like to make a complaint’ face, I huffed on over to the receptionist who was working furiously. Peering over the counter, all I could see was a blur as her hands seemed to fly around her desk.
“Excuse me,” No response. Excuse me!” I said again, this time a little louder.
The receptionist glanced at up me, expression not changing. I noticed the name tag on her top.
“Natasha?”
“Yes?” She responded. She seemed really annoyed at my presence.
I was ready to launch a verbal assault but decided against it. I drew myself up to stand as tall as my five foot five frame could muster.
“How many other people are before me?”
I looked down at Natasha. I was a pretty good at touch typing but she was easily double my speed. She was an efficient receptionist, but she was garbage at customer service. Ten seconds passed before I loudly cleared my throat.
She stopped so suddenly that I took a step back. It was like someone had slammed the brakes on a bullet train that was hurtling down the tracks at top speed. I was pretty sure I saw sparks in her eyes as she regarded me disdainfully.
“You will be called soon.” And just like that, she resumed her keyboard hammering as if our little interaction hadn’t even happened.
My jaw hung wide open in outrage. Something about Natasha got under my skin and brought out the worst in me. My hands balled into fists at my side. I was going to slam the desk between us and demand to see the doctor – now.
“Don’t worry, I’ve been here for a long time too.”
I jumped as a pair of hands planted themselves firmly on my shoulders. I recovered quickly and spun around, breathing fire and ready to knock the lights out of whoever dared interfere.
I came face to face with a man with a boyish appearance. A smattering of freckles dotted his cheeks haphazardly. He had a cowlick in his sandy hair, making him look like he came straight from a farm. His eyes were sky blue. His smile was disarming. I didn’t even know who he was but somehow, I felt my anger ebbing away. My fists relaxed.
“Come on, let’s go sit down. I want to ask you something.”
Natasha was so absorbed in her work I’m pretty sure she didn’t even notice that this blue-eyed man-boy had just diffused a potentially disastrous brawl. I walked with my new companion back to the seats.
I slumped back onto the plastic chair, crossing my legs and my arms. The man-boy sat to my right, leaving a seat between us.
“So what’s your name?”
I didn’t respond. I was glaring as hard as I can at Natasha’s forehead, which I could just see above the desk.
“My name’s Greg. Greg Mills.” He extended a hand over the chair. I glared at his hand then at his face. Eventually, I relaxed, unfolded my arms and extended my hand to shake his.
“I’m Rose Eaving,” He beamed at me.
“No kidding? Another flower huh?” He chuckled to himself, looking in Natasha’s direction.
I looked at him pointedly, arching my eyebrow. He noticed and waved dismissively. “Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just that my last two girlfriends were also named after flowers,” he paused, looking wistful, “Violet and… Lily. Not that I want you to be my girlfriend or anything…” he trailed off.
The awkwardness clung in the air. I resisted rolling my eyes. Forcing a smile, I steered the conversation to a safer topic.
“Greg, where are we?” He crossed his arms and looked towards the receptionist’s desk.
“We’re in the Waiting Room,” he said plainly.
Waiting Room… why did that phrase sound so familiar? I scrunched up my face in concentration to try and remember. It was frustrating, like when a word’s on the tip of your tongue but you can’t quite remember it.
“Who are we waiting for?” He slid down his chair slightly, straightened his legs and crossed them at his feet as he pondered this question. His blue eyes seemed to cloud over as he thought.
“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging.
We sat in silence for a while. I’d already forgotten the awkwardness from a few minutes ago. It was good having someone to talk to in a strange place, even if he was as clueless as I was.
I turned my gaze to the other people sitting around the room. Now that I thought about it, not once had any of the other patients here ever said anything or even looked at me, not even when I was slapping myself in the face.
I moved to get up and hesitated. What on earth was I doing? No, I knew what I was doing. I was just going to look like a maniac.
I casually strolled to the left side of the room where I spied some patients to conduct my little experiment on. They looked were twin teenage girls. Their clothes looked familiar. Jeans with slight rips here and there and band t-shirts. One was wearing Nirvana and the other Linkin Park. Why would a pair of twins be here, sick together? Maybe one was here to support the other? I stood in front of them. Their faces remained sullen and unblinking, eyes downcast.
Slowly, I crouched. I needed to look at them in the eye. I was right in front of them, but their expressions didn’t change. I reached out, tentatively waving in front of their face. Still no reaction. I stopped waving, letting my hand hang in mid-air a
s I considered what to do next. I looked over my left shoulder back at Greg, who had now sat back up. He had his elbows on his knees and was cradling his face in his hands. A look of mild amusement danced about in his eyes. He subtly gestured towards the people I had just been trying to get the attention of.
I turned my head back and promptly let out a shriek before falling on my backside. One of the twins had moved to within an inch away from my face. I scrambled back onto my feet then cautiously moved towards the two sisters again as I heard Greg suppressing his snickering behind me.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scream like that,” I said, apologising profusely.
My apology fell on deaf ears. I stood up and slowly looked around at the other patients. No one else had even flinched. Could anyone hear me? A chill ran through my body. Were they ghosts? I didn’t believe in the supernatural, but this was starting to creep me out. There was only one way to find out.
I extended a hand again to the left twin’s face. I paused, held my breath then touched her, only for my hand to pass through.
I collapsed to my knees. What on earth was happening? I passed my hand through the back of her head then brought it down through her body. I did the same thing with her sister. They looked so solid but the moment that my hand should have touched skin, it went through.
Now I was starting to panic. I loped back to Greg and sat right next to him.
“Greg, why are we in a room full of ghosts?” I paused as a realization dawned in front of me. “Why can we see each other and touch each other?”
Greg’s amused face was replaced with a somber look.
“Rose, I’m pretty sure that everyone in this room is dead.”
I stared intensely at him. Now was no time for games.
“What do you mean, dead?”
Keeping his eyes fixated on me, he flung his hand out wildly. I gasped as he made contact with a portly man’s face sitting next to him, only for it to pass through.
“If that isn’t proof that everyone here is ghosts, I don’t know what is.”
Fine. I would suspend my disbelief for now because nothing was making sense. First I woke up in a doctor’s waiting room with no idea how I got here. Then I saw the laws of physics get broken as dozens of people filed into a lift that’s too small to fit them all. Then I tried to touch another person and my hand goes through them. As a forensic scientist, this was beyond upsetting. I weighed up my next question carefully.
“OK. So everyone here are ghosts. What does that make us?” Now it was his turn to look at me quizzically.
“Wait, you don’t remember?” I paused.
“Remember what?” I said, enunciating each syllable.
He looked at me incredulously. He was about to say something but was interrupted by the crackling of the intercom.
“Greg Mills.”
The voice was different to the last announcement. It was a male’s voice, deep and commanding. Greg stood up and started walking towards the front. He arrived at Natasha’s desk who paused to tell Greg something. Greg made his way to neither lift, but to the gnarled wooden door instead. He knocked.
“Come in,” the deep voice boomed.
“Remember what?” I blurted again, this time across the room.
Greg turned the gold wrought door knob and opened the door slightly. Before he went in, he paused and looked back at me over his shoulder. With a half-smile, he said: “how you died, of course.”
How you died.
The words echoed in my mind as the wooden door clicked shut after Greg. I was dead?
I stilled as visions started appearing. I always daydreamed at work, but this was something different. It felt too real, too vivid. I was there again, in the alleyway behind the lab.
I could feel the slickness of the brick wall that I had pushed myself against as I edged closer to the angry yelling. I remembered feeling sick with terror when I blew my cover and both men turned to me. I remembered having the wind knocked out of me as I slammed into one of the men. I remembered cold gun metal pressed against my temple, the ringing in my ears and…
I clasped my hands together tightly at this point. My knuckles turned white as I remembered the overwhelming regret that had washed over me. Then my nails dug into my skin as I remembered the bloodlust that had filled my being for a few moments as I felt an urge to kill like never before. I remembered a face. Sharp jawline. Dark blonde hair tight and tied back. A look of pure hatred as he planted his gun on my head and killed me. That’s where the memories abruptly stopped.
I remembered everything. Pieces started falling into place around me. I came out of my reverie and realized the truth. I was dead and I was in some sort of afterlife. I was with other people who had died from all around the world. We were all here in this room, waiting. Waiting for something.
“Sorry about all this. I might see you later in the Waiting Room.”
This was the Waiting Room the blonde man was talking about. But how did he know about it?
Ding-dong… going down.
The lifts, they went to heaven and hell. Going up must have meant they were going to Heaven, which meant…
My mouth went dry. No, it wasn’t possible. I was a good person. I gave bums spare change when I had it. I donated 50 bucks to a charity during Christmas a few years ago. I volunteered that one time at a soup station. OK, so maybe I wasn’t as good a person as I thought I was but seriously? Hell? I knew people who were far eviler than I was.
My hands gripped the sides of the chair as I started gently rocking backward and forwards. I was an atheist. Anything that couldn’t be proven by science didn’t exist in my books. Yet here I was, dead and in a purgatory with a snappy workaholic receptionist and hundreds of other evil souls who were destined to take the lift down and plunge into the fiery depths of Hell.
Now I knew why those twins were looking so sullen. I stopped rocking and surreptitiously looked at them out of the corner of my eyes. They didn’t look that evil, but they were both here. That means they must have both died somehow. What life must they have lived to warrant eternal damnation? Maybe they were serial killers? Did they lure unsuspecting men expecting a good time to a house of horrors? Did they form a one-two combination in bars, one striking up a conversation while the other spiked drinks? I shook my head. I had to lay off the tacky mystery novels. Oh, wait. I was dead.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as serial killers, rapists, murderers, maybe even cannibals started getting up all around me and lining up in front of the lift on the right. I couldn’t believe this. How could I be one of them? I didn’t budge from my seat. I hated lining up. In the airport lounge, I would always wait until the last person had joined the line until I tagged on the end. Now that I was going to Hell, I had even less incentive to line up.
I watched as the waiting room emptied. Eventually, the line was down to about ten people. I sighed as I got up and slinked to the end of the line. Maybe Hell wouldn’t be so bad after all. Maybe it wasn’t all fire and suffering. Maybe the Devil was a cool guy.
“Rose, not you,” Natasha’s voice cut through my musings and rooted me to the spot. The line of sinners had disappeared into the lift and were all facing me. The doors closed and the lift whirred down.
I walked slowly towards Natasha’s desk until I was standing in front of her again. My mind was churning with a tsunami of unanswered questions. I only uttered one.
“If I’m not going to Heaven and I’m not going to Hell, where am I going?”
“Rose Eaving.” A deep and commanding voice spoke my name through the intercom. Natasha stopped typing again to look at me intently through eyes that gleamed crimson. She extended her left arm towards the gnarled, wooden door and smiled mysteriously.
“You’re about to find out.”
Three
I walked slowly and deliberately towards the wooden door. Natasha had told me to knock before entering. I raised my left hand, hovered, and then rapped my knuckles tentatively against the do
or.
For what seemed like minutes, there wasn’t any sound except for Natasha’s furious typing. Then I heard it.
“Come in,” said the deep voice from behind the door.
I rested my hand on the knob. It felt warm as if a vein of heat pulsed through the metal. I turned the knob, pushed the door open and slipped inside. It closed behind me on its own.
There was only one word to describe this room: opulent. Just like the waiting room, this room’s dimensions seemed to defy physics. The walls either side of me looked to be about 10 yards apart, already pretty big for many rooms. The longer I stared at a wall, the further it seemed to be. On the wall to my right, a fireplace crackled merrily. It provided the only light in the whole room, casting shadows of the tall, velvet-bound chair and the expensive-looking working desk at the other end of the room on the opposite wall. I craned my neck looking up and felt dizzy. The ceiling just went up and up until it disappeared into a cloudy nothingness. Any light from the fireplace was swallowed up by the darkness above me.
I reached out to steady myself, putting my hand on the door I had just come through. It felt like I was meeting a billionaire in his private office. Hopefully, he was more of the Elon Musk type billionaire with an invention that could bring me back from the dead than the 50 Shades of Grey type billionaire who enjoyed SDSM.
“Rose.”
The deep voice came from behind the tall chair. I peeked cautiously, but I couldn’t see who the voice belonged to from where I was. I could see that there was a second source of light in the room coming from a desk lamp on the table. I could also just make out the noise of pen scratching on paper.
I straightened up and started walking as assuredly as I could towards the man with the deep voice. As I came closer, I could make out his features. If there were billionaires in the underworld, the person in front of me looked the part. His hair was auburn and wavy. It oozed confidence.
