Sloan opened his eyes to find himself alone in a dark place. He looked around, squeezed his eyes to focus but couldn't see anything.
He had just been arranging his cupboard when a cookie jar came crashing down, hitting his head and the last thing he remembered was being pulled into an ambulance.
What happened after that? "Oh you did wake up, sleeping beauty! Took you forever. I've been waiting for what seems like a hundred of years." A voice called out making Sloan jump back in surprize. "Who are you? What are we talking about? And wait, how do you know me?" "Well I don't have a name but I have been named hundreds of times. Every one knows me and I know everyone. Don't be surprised fellow, you know me too. How should I put in your words?" Sloan heard some silence.
"I'm what you people call Death!"
With this, the voice got a face and Sloan found himself standing against a man wearing all black and though it was so dark that Sloan couldn't even see his own feet, he could see the man. He carried some kind of aura and looked like...wait, was that a halo behind his head?!"You are kidding right? You must be fooling around with me, this is probably Harry's idea! I know when he's playing a prank with me." "Look here kid, I don't just joke around okay? I don't have time for that. And about Harry, well he just puffed his eyes, crying his eyes out in your funeral. So did the others who were able to attend. Turn back and you shall find the place you've been buried. See there, a turf resides over your chest and your head carries the weight of a stone."
Looking behind Sloan found himself staring at his own tombstone.
David Sloan( 1992-2017)
"Let me get this straight then, I'm dead?"The man looked at him for a second and then burst out laughing."Oh I'm sorry, it's just so funny that this one never gets old. That's the first thing everyone ask after they die. Of course you are dead!" "So I'm dead? Like I don't breath anymore. And you are here!""To escort you to where you belong now."
"Wait, are you God?" Sloan hesitantly asked only find the man laughing again. "It's a shame how you people always conclude I am. But no I'm not God. And you really think, God would come all the way down here only to escort you? I mean that's God, man! He doesn't have time for these silly jobs. He's got to handle big things. Things you tiny people can't even imagine about." "You're not God? Then who are you?""His servant who deals with silly people like you and stupid questions like yours, every single day." "Where are you taking me then? Heaven?" Sloan suggested before adding quickly in a worried tone, "Or am I going to hell?" "There it comes again! The misconception you people have grown in your head. The hell and heaven thing. Let me tell you, this whole hell-and-heaven concept was developed by a man in order to make a world a better place. Scare people of not doing bad things. Otherwise we never have anything as such in our books. There is no heaven where beautiful chicks will feed you grapes and neither there is hell where you will be fried. Do you really think, God would discriminate among his children? Like good ones come stay with me, bad ones go and die! Just think, does a mother discriminate between her children? It's the same. " "There is no Heaven or Hell then? Wow, I spent my childhood and adulthood believing in a lie. I can't take this much information at once."
Sloan rubbed his head before throwing another question, which had been in his mind for a long time,"I'm dead, so am I a ghost now?" The man shook his head in disapproval, "No no. You don't fall in that category." "What does that mean? How do you decide all that?" "It's simple. Ghosts as you say, are those souls who have lost their lives having an incomplete desire, unfulfilled promise or are yet tied by earthy responsibilities. I can't go to them as they have not yet attained peace like you have. You had a great life, you didn't die out of misery and neither you have some incomplete work to do. Thus you are free and can enter the outer world. Whereas those souls who aren't in peace are left struggling between the Earth and the world beyond." "They are bad souls then, right? They haunt people around and cause trouble.""No soul is bad. Once the person dies, so does his good and bad qualities.The souls who are left behind are just trying to be free and in the process, they may sometime trouble the living but, they don't have an intention to. Once they attain peace, I take them where I'll take you now." "I'm confused." Sloan complained. "No surprize there young man. Look you have been wasting a lot of my time and I'm really getting bored of your questions. Like I said before, I'm very busy, shoot all your questions fast so that I can answer them and do my work. I have a lot of places to be, this old man somewhere in the north is breathing his last breath and I have to get there before he dies."
"Okay then. But what am I supposed to do after I get to the place you are taking me?" "Nothing much similar to what you did here. It doesn't matter thou since you are not going to remember anything of this life." "I'm going to lose my memory?" "You are stupider than I guessed. Of course you are gonna lose your memory. Like I said before, once a person dies everything he has, dies with him and when you leave the Earth, you leave everything behind. Now let's go." Sloan nodded his head before shooting his last question, "What's this world again?" "It's the world beyond everything. The world where Death is the just the Beginning."
Health and Fitness
Tum Se Tum Tak
Anupamaa
16