I did it. I'd gotten depressed enough, angry enough, and now the cooling body that had once been mine lay in the water, the red stain spreading from what was left of the head.
I'd hoped there was no afterlife, that all pain would be finally over, that there'd be nothing. I'd never heard the gun, not even the click, my brain destroyed before anything could reach it. One moment I'd been squeezing, the next... standing over the body as it sank lower into the water.
It looked, to me, like there's been some delay between the bullet ripping the top of my head off and my spirit standing here. I guessed, for now, that brain death didn't account for all of my soul.
I couldn't deny, though, that even though I was seriously dead... "I" was still here.
Standing under the bridge, the tide was carrying my former home, like a shed skin, outward. There'd been no witnesses as I'd stepped into the water under this bridge and chose my ending.
It's funny how I felt pretty much the same as I had, still feeling depressed, and hoped that this was no more than some kind of "echo", soon to fade.
Sure, I'd been a Christian, but I'd come to hope that there was nothing afterwards, simply because I felt no hope for an entry to Heaven.
Now what? If I was a ghost, what were the rules? Was I to be alone now? Is this how we're punished?
I'd been so intent on watching the tide race away with the evidence of my self-destruction that I was startled to hear a girl's voice behind me, saying "I tried to help you, but you wouldn't listen. Now... what am I going to do?"
I turned to see a teen-age girl standing near me.
An attractive teen-age girl.
An attractive teen-age girl, black, completely naked.
An exceptionally attractive, black, naked, teen-age girl.
And, even though I knew that I'd never met her "in the flesh", so to speak... she seemed very familiar to me.
I looked down at "myself" and saw that I still appeared to have a body, even though I knew it couldn't be real. It was not what I would have considered attractive. Especially now that I was unclothed.
Learning that this illusory "body" mimicked the "real thing" was a surprise when it responded to the sight of this young woman.
I looked back at her face and apologized.
"Hey, Jack, I tried to get you laid, but you didn't drink and you didn't use any drugs that would let me slide into you and drive. Either of those would have given me an 'in', so I could've influenced you, or told you things while you were open to it. Instead, I got assigned to a tee-totaler who couldn't cope with his marriage and was too damn 'honorable' to care enough for himself to get out!"
Now it was my turn to do something more than grunt. "What do you mean... assigned?"
"OK, let me clear some things up for you, now that you're dead, just like I am. Since you killed yourself, you'll be associated with a living person who's at risk of doing the same. It'll be your job to keep them from killing themselves, at least until they outgrow their need. The more time they live past their first real opportunity for suicide is credited to you so that you can move on when they finally die, hopefully when it really is their time. It seems to be a way to atone for shortening your own lifespan. I didn't stretch it out enough for you for me to get credit, so I believe I'll be re-assigned now... considering that I've failed."
This was staggering... but, it's strange, I could feel the truth of her words. I had to ask: "How long have you been with me?"
She smiled. "Just over three years, now. I've been in your dreams, you know, and I encouraged you to write stories. I liked what you wrote, by the way. I was with you when you wrote it, and could 'hear' your thinking and feel your response to the stories you wrote. Even though you didn't remember your dreams, enough remained so you wrote stories with me in them... which, I must admit, felt nice."
I'm sure she could tell I was confused.
"We can interact with living people in their dreams. You're able to participate with them in dreams, and, to an extent, direct the dreams by participating."
I nodded, getting the idea.
She smiled "I must admit that you were a very competent lover in your dreams, you know, and your desire to cuddle me and hold me in your dreams was... like a drug. It might have been better for you if you'd been able to remember the content of those dreams, but it seems you were never able to recall them."
I smiled back, but had to ask, "So, what's your name? And what's your story?"
Her face turned sad. "My name was Jessica. I took too many sleeping pills when I discovered I was pregnant, so I killed myself and my unborn child, so I ... carry an extra burden."
I nodded, saddened by her story. I reached out and was able to touch her, so I gathered the girl into my arms and held her, kissing her forehead and rocking her as best I could.
You know, for spirit bodies these were very complete, giving me sensations that I'd barely known as flesh and blood. So I cuddled her here at the site of my passing.
I was spooked, though, by the distraction of my sensitive penis against her skin. I shouldn't have a penis. Or any kind of skin. But it sure seemed like I did.
I was startled when my comforting of this young woman was interrupted as another woman seemed to materialize next to us. She appeared to be more my age and looked at us with an unreadable expression on her face. I held Jessica more protectively now in my arms, feeling she was a threat.
This blonde amazon finall smiled at us and said "Very touching, very touching indeed. Two lost souls... One who needs to be loved, the other to feel his love is worth something."
Jessica peeled herself away from me and turned to our sudden visitor, saying "All right, Patty, it figures you'd have to cut off that small comfort..."
The amazon, Patty, shook her head "no". "Jessica, Jack, you two will be working together on a case, a teen-age girl, so, if you have continued success with her, we'll see how well we can arrange things for you. How's that sound?"
Now I'm a bit of a paranoid, and perhaps I carried a lot of my cynicism into this ethereal form, but that sounded like we were being thrown together because it would take both of us. So I challenged her: "Are you sure it'll only take the two of us to be her Guardian Angels?"
Patty shook her head, adding "You aren't Guardian Angels, they exist to shield from external threats. You two now continue to exist so she can handle internal threats."
I sighed. It's funny how "complete" this body was, allowing me the illusion that I was still breathing. Heck, I still had the illusion of having an erection, which had felt very good when I'd been cuddling Jessica.
"All right, a dumb question, why us? Why do you choose the successful suicides to help someone avoid it?"
I saw Jessica's eyes widen at this, apparently she hadn't thought of this question herself.
Patty smirked at us. "Simply because there's nobody left from your life that you care enough about. If you'd cared you wouldn't have disposed of your life like this, and... it's one of the ironies that our creator gets a chuckle out of. Also, well, you've got to re-learn to care before you can hope for more."
"So... Jack... You and Jessica need to get it together, here and now, so that you can be ready to work as a team. You both need to be prepared for your work. I do think you will both like the experience." Her smile at the end of this worried me.
Wait. I was dead. What was there to worry about? So I tried to work out what she wanted.
I could only stare at her in confusion and could feel my brow furrowed in thought, trying to get her meaning. Even Jessica seemed confused.
"Guys, guys, I'm telling you that you need to fuck. Here. Now. With me watching. You'll understand. Afterwards."
The look on Jessica's face was, well, pleasant. Looking at myself, I still looked like a fifty year-old man, she looked like a 14 year old girl, and I felt bad for her. I thought it a stupid thing to throw us together like that.
Patty, whoever she is, was not to be denied. "Jack, you're dead now, your wedding vows are no longer holding you back. You want her, right?"
She was right. My spirit left hand was unencumbered by a wedding band. Even the indentation where it had been for so many years was gone.
I looked at Jessica. Yes, I wanted her. But I also didn't want to offend her, either. I nodded, adding, "But... why should she want me? What's in it for her?"
"She's been with you for some time now, following you, able to observe you. All of you. The good. The bad. The ugly. The fights. The love. The hurt. Masturbating. Shitting. Showering. The pleasure and the pain. If she didn't fall in love with you... she couldn't have lingered here. If you didn't fall in love with the girl in your dreams, she would be elsewhere, perhaps reassigned, perhaps re-born."
Jessica shivered. "Nobody told me that! I thought I'd be reassigned!"
Patty turned to her: "Failure is usually treated harshly." I saw Patty shudder. "I doubt that you'd want to be born as a human again, would you?"
Oh. God, what a punishment. Life had been bad enough just the once. I could see Jessica shudder, as I felt a wave of revulsion run through me.
There were some sensations I could do without, even in this form.
"Jack, do you like holding her?"
I nodded, "Yes, very much so."
"Jessica, do you like holding him?"
Jessica sighed, nodding, "Yes, Oh, God, yes."
"Good. Now hug, kiss, work each other up, and fuck."
We stared at Patty.
"Guys ... guys... now would be a good time."
We continued to stare.
"Jack, what would you like to do with Jessica, here."
I looked at Jessica and I think my face softened as I felt compelled to answer "Hold her, cuddle her, kiss her, love her."
This ethereal body was very complete; she stepped into the circle of my arms and I wrapped them around her, rubbing and scratching her back, feeling her naked skin on my own, feeling her hands and nails on my back. It only took seconds before we were kissing... and I could feel a shift.
Either she got taller or I got shorter. More changes seemed to be happening as we shifted in the kiss rubbing our bodies together and ...
... My erection found her opening without any help and soon slid in her as far as it could go.
Our kissing had gotten rather intense and we stroked back and forth, trying to become one in our fucking, when ...
... we became one.
Returning to myself was almost a disappointment, except for the memory of being mixed together in our hearts and souls.
Pulling back from that climax left me with mixed memories that clung to me, memories from her too-short life. Through this I knew she had memories of my own clinging to her.
We'd stopped kissing with our climax but we smiled at each other, waiting for our more intimate connection to part.
She'd changed but little, her skin lightening a little bit, a rich smooth brown, but still an utter knock-out. I'd changed more, though. Looking down at myself again I saw myself as a teen-ager, though even when I was this age I don't think I ever looked this good.
I looked at Jessica who smiled at me, our eyes meeting. In some ways this gazing into each other's eyes was a very intimate embrace itself.
A cleared throat from Patty, "All right, you two. Now I can give you both some background for your assignment. Kim has learned she's got some lesbian tendencies and is very upset. She needs to be willing to tolerate her bisexuality right now since it's not necessarily a life-decision just yet. She is very likely to take her mom's sleeping pills tomorrow night. You have some openings tonight when she starts dreaming. Keep her alive through to her 'time', about seventy years from now, and you can move on. Blow it and you'll be born as twins. Boy and girl. Capiche?"
We nodded. Twins? Ick!
"Off with you, then."
Vanishing from under a bridge of one of Tampa's many causeways we appeared in a teen-age girl's bedroom, the girl there reading a magazine and yawning.
She seemed no older than Jessica looked... or I looked now. I suspect the changes made to my appearance was to avoid her seeing an old man in her dreams.
Not that I minded this new vision of myself.
Our subject was a teen-age boy's wet dream... except that she was reading a Playboy magazine.
Well, she wasn't putting too much attention on the pictures but she was obviously reading the articles.
I knew there were articles in that magazine but they're not technical in nature so I'd not seen much point to it. Years ago my wife had gotten me a subscription to both Playboy and to Byte... and the Byte magazine won more of my interest and attention.
You learn a lot when you're dead. Computers were nothing: It was all heart and soul, now.
If I'd been a living teen-age boy right now... Kim was my nightmare. Attractive, apparently very intelligent and also completely out of my league.
But... in her dreams, and not mine...
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Author: Jack C Lipton Title: Getting It Wrong Part: Universe: Departures Summary: I really shouldn't write when I'm this depressed. Keywords: mf angst afterlife Revision: $Revision: 1.8 $ Archive: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/CupaSoup/www/ Mailing List: FAQ: RCS: $Id: gettingitwrong.x,v 1.8 2004/04/01 02:58:27 jcl Exp $