Mulled Vine

Aaron sat awkwardly at the back of the chapel, his bulky, inappropriately clad frame bathed in a rainbow of dusty colours. He did not want to be here but he had promised her he would say good-bye. A ghostly minister droned on about life’s passing and hereafter glories, things that neither he nor Aaron really believed in. She was dead and that was that – dust to dust. Form dictated that they should be here, but it was empty, a vestigial residue of more superstitious times. Aaron walked to the front where the coffin lay enshrouded in candlelit mahogony, silk and flowers, and leaned over to kiss her cold lips, one last time.

The blizzard swirled around me, sending icy fingers probing into my clothing. I huddled, shivering, against the old oak tree, seeking some cover against the elements, but I knew it was just a matter of time. Blissful sleep beckoned, promising escape from the dreadful cold, so I closed my eyes and slowly felt a delicious warmth waft over me, until finally, there was darkness; total, utter, darkness.

Then a light appeared, faintly at first, but slowly growing brighter and I could make out an old man holding a candle, walking towards me until he stopped and handed me what looked like a penny.

“For the ferryman,” he rasped and pointed towards a dim jetty where a hooded figure waited.

I am dead. I must be, because life as I know it is missing; nothing remains. Yet, surprisingly, it is not black as you might expect ‘nothing’ to be, but a murky grey misty colour, more like a very low grade ’something’. It is cold, so dreadfully cold, and I long for the warmth of a companion.

Then the grey splits momentarily and a luminous sign flashes by and screams at me, “Drink Coca-Cola!”, before disappearing again into the swirling mist.

The unbearable loneliness returns and soon I long for the next ad break.

A bucket list is a list of 10 things you want to do before you die (”kick the bucket”). What is amazing is that I have had to think about this, thus reflecting the total lack of planning in my life to date.

My list in no particular order:

1. Get published, perhaps even enough to make a living from

2. Play bass guitar at a professional gig

3. Retire happily married to my beautiful wife and see my children start their own lives

4. Go on a sailing cruise

5. Tour the United States

6. Go on a cycling/barge holiday in Europe

7. Start a business with Wendy and give up writing software

8. Sort out the God issue in my life for once and for all

9. Learn to ride a motorbike

10. Love more.

Feel free to create your own bucket list and add a comment linking to it below. Linking back to my blog is optional but you might kick the bucket sooner if you don’t.

Life…

Serious side effects that would require immediate medical attention include:

+ Loss of sense of humour
+ Tendency to lovelessness
+ Excessive self interest
+ Death

Just got back from the doctor’s.
“Bad news, dear. I have terminal cancer; nothing they can do, not long to go, 2 months at best.”
She looked at me sadly, but then suddenly perked up, “It’s not all bad, you know.”
I looked at her quizzically, “It isn’t?”
She beamed, “Well, look at it this way. At least you have decent life insurance!”

Sausages, stuffed with sage and apple, heaps of caramelised onions, gravy made with Bordeaux and fresh parsley. And the mash? To die for: soft and buttered, laced with just a touch of nutmeg.

I polished the lot off, downed the remainder of my pint of fine Old Speckled Hen, and then looked up at my captors.

“Right, let’s do it!”

The last thing I did before the noose snapped my neck was let out a very satisfied fart.

Most of my my friends are dead. It’s not surprising really, because so am I. My friends and I dwell with countless others in a place that is neither life nor oblivion. I don’t know why we didn’t pass through, but there it is.

It is frightfully dull, dead dull you might say, nothing to do all day but hang around, observing the life below, talking. Mostly we talk of regrets, regrets at things we did not do, the way we were in life, the fact that we did not make better use of our time. Perhaps this our hell, who knows? Personally I don’t give a damn. There is no God.

Mostly I spend time with my old friend Joe. He and I grew up together, as best friends I suppose, because we did everything together – even fall in love with the same woman but that’s a long story. Joe died a few years before me and I missed the old fella terribly. I never married, and by then had already lost most of the people I knew to disease and general old age, so I just waited, waited, waited… The old age home staff tried to include me in organised activities, but I declined. What is the point? I said. It is just killing time while we wait to die. I remember the look of sadness on the young nurse’s face I said this to, so young and full of promise, hope and purpose, and here was I: grumpy, cynical, spent.

Then the day came, and I still remember the tremendous sense of relief I felt that finally it would all be over, that oblivion awaited. The irony is not lost on me, and almost makes me believe that there just might be a God, an Almighty Joker who enjoys having a laugh at my expense. But no, I don’t – even in this place, this afterlife, I do not see God.

Joe however is completely different, at least he was. Back amongst the living we used to debate the existence of God quite regularly, and not without some passion, for he believed, in a devout kind of way that make me jealous. So I took special delight in making him squirm with my so very rational arguments. I don’t envy the religious mob in their dry, dusty places of self worship, but when the faith is life changing, that’s something else.

Now however, he is a bit subdued. I suppose he was expecting the after life to be a bit more spectacular than this. He’s no fool, and I’m sure had no illusions about streets of gold and such like, but this grey nothingness? It must be hard for him, and he is my friend, so I don’t taunt him. I did however ask him once if he thought his life had been wasted. He was quiet for a bit then looked at me earnestly. No, he said, not for one minute, that living a life with purpose and meaning, misguided or not, was always better than having nothing. I find it hard to disagree with that.

I’ve not seen him for a while – it’s curious really – I don’t think anyone has. It’s like he just up and left. Maybe he’s finally gone on to a better place, whatever that is. I hope so, but I miss him terribly.

Andy discovered the other day that he could interact with the living world! It caused quite a commotion, I tell you, because this just does not happen. Perhaps the woman he spoke to was psychic or something, but the fact is she turned and looked in his direction when he spoke. I don’t even know what made him do it. So we began to watch her instead of our usual random wandering. I suppose we hoped that through her we might have a more tangible connection with the full, vibrant, sense-filled life we all missed.

Her name it turned out was Anne-Marie, a nice old fashioned name. She was living with a toe rag called Arny, who really should have been called ‘Orny, because he was an almighty philanderer. She didn’t seem to know he was cheating on her and it bothered us something chronic. So we decided to tell her. We didn’t want to freak her out so we got Andy to whisper it to her while she slept. At first nothing happened, but then slowly we noticed a change in her. She began to look through his clothes and even followed him, until one day, she saw him with another woman, snogging in the pub. We expected her to make a scene but she didn’t – she just went home and sat in the kitchen crying. He eventually came home, pissed out his mind, staggered straight past her, upstairs and into bed fully clothed. She waited a while, but then stood up suddenly, opened a drawer, and pulled out a meat cleaver! Oh, how we tried to stop her, but were powerless as she walked quietly upstairs, into the room were he snored loudly, and with one mighty blow, split open his head while we watched on in horror.

I don’t know what happened to him after that – we get millions of new arrivals every day – but she was arrested and locked up. It was all very, very sad. Andy in particular felt wretched and never spoke to anyone again, alive or otherwise.

Amanda disappeared today, right in front of our noses, so we reckon we are in some sort of holding area. But as to what determines if or when we move on, who knows? I don’t care. Since the Anne-Marie incident I’ve not been the same, I don’t know what’s got into me. I just feel that life, pointless or otherwise, is surely better than no life, and I should have made more of it: spent more time on important things like family, and less on myself. Perhaps Joe was right.

God? If you are there, I am sorry.

As usual, deafening silence.

No, wait, something’s happening to m….

She wore black every day, did Rosie Malloy, just in case someone died, she said; for it seemed that an inordinate number of her friends and relatives had already passed away. It was the first thing I noticed about her, before even her refined beauty which was without compare and only slightly marred by the little lines that accompany a certain age.

I liked Rosie, because despite all the sorrow and loss she had a impish twinkle in her eye, as if she and she alone was in on some cosmic joke that was lost on the rest of us. But, life being what it is, our paths separated, through no fault or delibaration of our own, and we lost the touch that once felt so inseparable.

So it was with sadness and not a little regret that I attended her funeral, where as always she was well prepared in suitable attire for death. I paid my respects but it was not the same without her twinkle, at least until they announced the final hymn and the organist started to play Abba’s Dancing Queen.

She danced naked in the rain, whirling round and round with joyous abandon, her long ebony hair releasing a graceful shower of spray as she moved, her pale body a slender lithe lily in the wind. The sniper watched the magical scene through his sights, wondering why she had been chosen, but all he had was a face, time and place, and a brutal order. Yet here she was, beautiful, childlike in her ignorance, and he couldn’t do it. The rain stopped, and out came the sun, transforming the grey scene into a world of a million bedazzling diamonds wrapped in a bow of infinite colours. The sniper surveyed the scene then lowered his rifle – he knew what he had to do. He dialled the prearranged number and made a note of the place where his next and last victim would be.