Between them sat an odd moment of silence in which Walter could actually hear the blood in his veins. He flexed his fingers and the tingles continued. His stomach growled. He had to take a leak. Physical realities for a living person. He was no more dead than he was a bird.
“That’s not very funny.”
“I don’t joke.” The boy smiled, a small nervous flutter of a smile, that hit Walter like a kick in the gut.
“What the hell are you talking about? Is this the psych ward?” He bumped the desk when he stood, sending files into the little shit’s lap.
“Please, sir, sit down and I swear I will make this clear.”
Walter sat, mostly because he was lightheaded.
“People always have a hard time with the news, which is why we’ve changed the policy.”
“The discharge policy?” He must have been taken to a different hospital, that fancy one in Milwaukee. “This isn’t St. Mike’s, is it?”
“No, Walter, this is not St. Mike’s.”
Walter nodded and swallowed. He felt the mechanics of his throat, the solid lump of worry and fear that refused to be swallowed.
I’m not dead. This was another one of those dreams. Damn drugs.
He felt foolish for having been worried. A dream would explain the gray walls and this half-baked kid. He relaxed back in his seat.
“In the previous millennium, people could linger here after dying and watch their funerals. Watch their children grow and their spouses grieve. Most of the time, the soul gets tired of watching these things and moves on—”
“On? On to where?”
“I am aware you are no great believer, but let’s not be obtuse.”
“You’re talking about Heaven?”
“And Hell.”
Walter grunted. Usually his dreams weren’t so damn philosophical. He swiveled in his seat hoping Dan Saunders might stumble in to talk about that ladder.
“In any case…” The boy leaned back, putting his hands behind his head, and Walter thought he could see the blue of the sky through his black shirt. Like it was see-through, except he couldn’t see the kid’s arms. The whole thing was a little transparent.
“We’ve always had some stragglers, people who have hung around to see what happens on Earth. Conspiracy theorists and religious fanatics mostly, but the numbers have grown. Times have gotten increasingly more difficult—heart disease, obesity, diabetes, murder, war, school shootings. People are taken from their lives before they are ready and thus don’t have peace with leaving their families, their loved ones. So they stick around and we can’t accommodate everyone anymore.”
“Kick ‘em out.”
The boy scowled at him, which reminded him of the puppy he’d gotten Jennifer for her seventh birthday, a fierce little thing despite its size and overgrown paws and ears.
“It doesn’t work that way,” the boy said. “Instead, we have come up with a plan to help people gain closure and move on. Everyone has to do this. Without exception.”
The boy paused dramatically and then, as if there had been a drum roll only he could hear, he announced: “You get to relive one day.”
Walter’s stomach turned. Maybe he’d eaten something that didn’t agree with him. That chicken thing with all the sauce was probably at the root of this.
He pressed a hand to his chest and burped. But felt no better.
“Honestly, Walter,” the boy said.
“Pardon me?”
“One whole day…most people are quite thrilled with the opportunity.”
“Guess it depends on the day.” There were plenty of days he’d tried to forget.
“That’s the beauty of the new system. You get to pick.” The boy held out a page to Walter. “I have selected a list of dates for you, including the highlights that our studies have shown are most popular. Wedding days, birth of children—”
“I missed Jennifer’s. I was in Omaha at a conference…”
“Right. Well, then…big promotions at work…”
“I didn’t get mine.” Walter looked down at the list of dates that he couldn’t place in his memory and ignored that slick run of shame down his spine. “I was put in the warehouse.”
“These things do happen,” the boy told him, and Walter wanted to ask to whom? Obviously to him, but Walter was ready to bet that he had pissed away his big moments better than most.
“Which is why…” The boy beamed like a circuit breaker had been flicked on inside him. Walter felt the hair on his arms lift with charged static electricity. “…I’ve taken the liberty of adding a few. Sadly, people have tried to go back to the day of their own birth, but we find that only complicates things for the mother. All that awareness in a newborn’s eyes tends to lead to hysterics. And frankly, some things need to remain a mystery. But you will get a chance to sample from the dates I have selected for you before choosing which of these days to relive. It’s a highlight package, one of our finest.”
Walter stood, shoving the paper back into the boy’s hands.
He didn’t want to talk about this. He didn’t want any dream to lead him backward to reopen old wounds. He had to wake up in the morning and deal with the ghosts this dream had let out. Relive a day? Not in a million years.
“I’ve had enough. I want out.”
“That’s not possible.”
Ignoring the cream-sauce-induced apparition, he closed his eyes and imagined himself in his hospital bed, imagined the nubby scratch of the sheets and the steady beep of the monitors. He felt himself surrounded by the warm stuffiness of his hospital room, the smell of overcooked green beans, and disinfectant that didn’t quite overcome the odor of illness and fear. He created the backward spiral toward sleep and then opened his eyes, expecting to see the light of the hallway under the door creating shadows in his hospital room.
Instead, the kid was staring at him, wincing. “You’re not dreaming.”
“I want off these drugs.” Walter pushed up the arm of his bathrobe to rip out IV tubes to stop the pumping of whatever hallucinogenic they had him on, but his arms were unscathed. Empty of open sores or old wounds.
“You aren’t on drugs anymore. There’s no more pain for you. No more heart attacks.”
“I want to go back to my room.”
“You can’t.”
“The hell I can’t.” Walter wrenched open the door and staggered into the hallway. Trick mirrors must have been set up, because all he could see up and down the hall were mirrored reflections of himself stepping out into the bleak passageway.
“What the…?” He swayed on his feet, and the millions of reflections did the same. He lifted his hand and the mirrored manifestations did the same. Bile welled up in the back of his throat and he closed his eyes, shutting out the mirrors. The inevitability he felt creeping up on his blindside.
Dead? Dear God.
“Mr. Zawislak.” Walter felt the boy’s soft touch on his elbow but he didn’t open his eyes in fear that he would get sick. “You’ve died. You are dead. There’s no hospital room to go back to.”
“Where’s my body? If I’m dead why can I feel everything? My heart is beating and I can breathe, full breaths. I haven’t been able to do that in years. And my fingers. I can feel my fingers and my toes aren’t…” He trailed off, abruptly mindful of what all that might mean.
“Where are my glasses?” he yelled. “I can’t see anything!” His poor vision was the only concrete thing he could seem to keep in his brain, everything else was moving too fast, was too fantastic to believe.
“Your eyesight will correct itself in time.”
“Where’s my body?”
“I imagine it’s still in the room. You haven’t been dead long.”
You haven’t been dead long, what a ridiculous thing to say to a man who had to take a leak.
“Show me.”
“Your body?” The boy shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not allowed.”
“I don’t care what’s allowed. If I’m dead, show me the body. I want to see my body. Show me I’m dead. Prove it.”
The boy pulled his phone out of his pocket and read whatever it was telling him. “Okay. Fine! Apparently it’s okay.” The boy watched him warily. “But you have to calm down. You can’t go in there like this. You’ll only get more upset.”
Walter couldn’t imagine being more worked up, more distressed. His heart fired too fast and his bowels shook.
The boy grabbed the file on the desk. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s your body. Dead and cold on a bed. It’s not pretty.”
Walter nodded, because speech in the wild cataract of feeling had deserted him.