My Death

I was 27 at the time. Single. I had a few dates here and there, but really didn't come to mean much of anything. A fling and nothing more. I worked in a school as a substitute teacher because I couldn't find a job in my career I went to college for. I decided to go back for my masters so I could teach college kids courses in creative writing. Having a few books published helped pay the bills too.

My friends were all off somewhere else. My best friend in high school wound up married to a guy I never thought she'd wind up married to. They had a two year old son at the time when it happened. He called me his uncle. I hope I had an impact in his life.

My other best friends? They were all doing well. One had just landed a job as a professor of history at a nice local college. The same one he and I graduated from. Another was teaching high school. He had married and had a son- despite his saying he'd never have kids. It changed him. I don't really know if it's for better or worse. His son is 3 and just starting to play video games with his dad. It's pretty adorable.

Others aren't so lucky. One wanted to go back to school and be an accomplished professor. He's struggling now to deal with it all. No one will hire him, and he sees no escaping living at home. Another made sure to get out, but is no better off- going from job to job and girl to girl. Flings here and there. Nothing substantial.

So many of my friend's have kids now. Are married. I don't regret the life path I took, really. It was the one I was meant to. Both of us were meant to die.

My cousin had just moved here from New Jersey after graduating from college. Him and me got an apartment together. He had a lot of girls over. I helped him at the local bars, and he sometimes got a friend for me. It was better than nothing.

I didn't drink. Never believed in it. Never believed in much, though. God was a figurehead created by humans to ensure they would live on forever. I was half-right. Maybe a third right.

But my cousin knew I was let down by another job offer gone bad. He took me to the bar, and made me drink one beer. I'll admit, I was depressed- another reason why I didn't drink. Hell, he didn't drink really either but he insisted we did. He had just lost his job he had gotten two months prior. So we drank our sorrows away.

Maybe I should've said no to another beer, but I liked the buzz. So did he. So we drank. We were light weights. Three beers later, we were toasted. They kicked us out. I knew it was a bad idea, but we got into my cousin's car and he began driving. I passed out. I wasn't dead yet.

An hour later we were still driving. We hadn't crashed. I woke up and asked him where we were. He didn't answer me.

"You know how much pain I'm always in?" he said to me. I told him I didn't know. How was I to know how much pain he was in?

"You never knew. You never understood how much shit I'm always going through. You're a fuckin' author. What the fuck am I?" I could tell he was crying. We had both sobered up a little. I didn't know how long we hadn't drank, really, but I was sober enough to understand the situation.

I told him he was an up and coming computer guy. I didn't remember what he did. He looked up to me, and I knew it. I shouldn't have drank, I thought. We shouldn't have gotten in this car. I didn't know how we had yet to have crashed. I asked him where we were again.

"I don't know. There's a river. We're following a river."

I asked him to pull over. He wouldn't. My head began hurting. My heart began racing. My stomach began to twirl and I vomited in the car. He freaked out.

"What the hell man? This is my car!"

I told him I knew that. I'd pay to clean it up, if he just pulled over. The tears kept coming. He didn't know what to do. He had no control. I yelled at him to pull the fucking car over. He laid his head down on the steering wheel not watching the road.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry..." he sobbed to me.

The car veered off to the side. I saw it. I knew it was going to happen, but I couldn't stop him. It broke through the railing, went over the side and tumbled down into the river. I hit my head on the dashboard, my cousin hit his on the steering wheel. The car filled up with water.

We drowned.

We had a 20 second news story the next day. Our families and friends were devastated. But we wouldn't see our funerals. We'd be gone. We'd be born again already, this time as brothers. We wouldn't recall this life just as we hadn't recalled the ones before this one. Just as we didn't recall what Heaven was like.

You see, we're angels. Waiting for our return to Heaven once more. Going from life to life hoping it'll be the one that ends well. I wish I could see the next life, but I can only see the ending to this one. That's how I'm telling you it now.

My death is yet to happen.

Phoenix

Flashing light.

The sirens were all I knew. I pulled up to my house- more so just to the side of my house due to it being blocked off, and watched as hoses sprayed it down with water. I knew what had happened, but I was in denial.

"Excuse me, sir- this is my house. What's going on here?"

"Are you Peter Mullenhall?"

"Yes, that's me. What happened to my house?"

"It appears it caught on fire, son."

"How'd it do that?"

"We don't know yet. Fire marshal is inside. He'll tell you when he knows."

"Thank you. Was the fire bad?"

"Son, you have no roof. You barely have a second story, and I would've told the fire marshal to not even bother going in there if it had been me. That place ain't stable."

"So I should get a hotel room, and move on then- eh?"

"Yeah, you have homeowner insurance?"

"Yes sir."

"Once you make a claim you should start looking for a new place to live. Nothing you have was saved. Everything is gone."

Good. I wanted everything to be gone.

"I hate this place. Good thing it's gone. I would've burnt it down myself if I had the chance."

"Would've done what?"

"Thanks officer. I think I'll be going now."

My life was in shambles. The love of my life, Patricia- who I had been with since high school prom in the '80s had left me. We never had kids, I was never able. She always hated me for it, and decided to leave me when she found a man that could knock her up.

"At least his sperm know how to swim!" She yelled that at me when she left the house.

We had bought the house right before our wedding. Moved into it afterwards. What a mistake.

My cousin came to visit, nice kid, a few years ago. Well, it wasn't exactly my cousin- it was my cousin's kid. My actual cousin is a lot closer to my age, and this kid was like, 15 or so. My cousin's wife thought it'd be a good idea to show him what it was like "out in the suburbs" for a month. A month. And Patricia always wanted to try to work with a troubled teen.

I didn't know what "emo" was at the time, but I do now. This house, my bathroom- the one now burnt down on the second floor- is where my cousin slit his wrists. He didn't do it good enough to kill himself, but this is where he started. A cry for attention. We gave him attention, but it wasn't cool enough for him. My bathroom always seemed to have blood on it- his blood- since then.

A week later he'd try to hang himself from a tree in my backyard. I cut down that tree.

Then he overdosed on some pills he found in our cabinet and had to get his stomach pumped. Kid just wouldn't stop trying to die.

He knocked up some poor girl with similar emo tendencies. The kid seemed to make him grow up real fast. Cute kid, just sad he has to live so poor.

And this is where I wrote my novel. When I lost my job and had nothing to do, I wrote a novel. It sucked. No one could get passed this point where two of the characters have gay tendencies toward one another. Bunch of homophobes. But this is where literary agents and the like told me time and time again- this novel was shit. Not "the" shit as some say, but they literally meant shit. As if someone sat down and pooped it out. My dream- my moment of glory- shattered. Right here in this house.

I can't forget the Thanksgiving we had here. The first and last for the family. We haven't had one since then, and a year after my wife and I separated. My family decided to get into a huge argument over my grandma's will. About who was getting what. My grandma sat at the table, telling them to stop fighting- but no one listened.

Then she died that night in her sleep in our guest room. It was horrible, finding your grandma dead and not breathing. My family blamed me, tried to cut me out of her will. It didn't work, but no one has had a Thanksgiving dinner since then.

And this is where my best friend and I ended our relationship too. You see, one issue my ex-wife had was my best friend- Betty. She thought we were getting too close and I'd wind up cheating on her. I had to actually invite her over and tell her I couldn't talk to her anymore because of my wife. I haven't since.

Neither have I spoken with any of my other friends.

And now this place is gone. I can do whatever I want.

I can go live in England for a year now with the money I'll be getting. I can start anew. I like the sound of that.

"Officer, here's my phone number for when you are all done- I'm going to go stay in a hotel tonight. The one on Main Street next to the coffee shop. Just give me a call if anything happens, will you?"

"Will do."

I drive away. Main Street is nice, the hotel is nice. The room I get is nice. It's all just so nice. They'd tell me what happened later.

"Sir this is Officer Dale with the police department calling to tell you the cause of the fire. It appears that your bird hit some electrical wires in the house killing himself and setting himself on fire."

"I don't have a bird."

"Well, some bird caught on fire and burnt to ashes. And if it wasn't yours, I don't know what else to tell you."