Sort of Dead

  Sort of Dead

  By Rob Rosen

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2020 Rob Rosen

  ISBN 9781646565153

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  For Kenny because angels aren’t only found in heaven!

  * * * *

  Sort of Dead

  By Rob Rosen

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 1

  I woke with a start and stared up at the ceiling. “That’s weird,” I said. “Where’s my ceiling fan?” I blinked. I blinked again. I thought to make it a trio, but then realized I hadn’t blinked the first two times—which is to say, I blinked but there wasn’t that whole ceiling, no ceiling, ceiling, no ceiling thing, which is what happens when I blink and I’m staring up at my ceiling. Not that what I was staring at was a ceiling to begin with, but still.

  I continued staring up. I supposed what I was staring at was white, given that it looked white, and I supposed that what I was staring up at was a ceiling because, give or take, most ceilings are white, mine included, but the white I was staring at sort of shifted around a bit. FYI, my ceiling didn’t do that, except perhaps when I was drunk.

  “Did I get drunk last night?” I asked myself. Only, I couldn’t remember last night. I couldn’t remember going to sleep, even. I remembered waking, but that was it. And I didn’t feel drunk. In fact, I felt great. Better than great, actually. Blissful would’ve been a good word for it. Light, too. As if I’d been weighed down and now I wasn’t. “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty—”

  “You can try, but He doesn’t seem to listen,” I heard, then jumped in place.

  My head whipped right. Nothing. My head whipped left. “Um, how did you get in my…” My what? This wasn’t my room. This wasn’t my ceiling. Was what was above me a ceiling anyway? “Wait, who doesn’t seem to listen?”

  The man to my left grinned. He looked about my age, early thirties, give or take, nice looking guy, too. Very Bradley Cooper like, stunning blue eyes and all. He was prone. He was lying next to me. He was naked. I stared down at my body. I, too, was naked. I continued staring down. There was no bed. There was my body, there was his body, there was that shifting white. “Don’t freak out,” he said.

  My heart wasn’t madly pumping in my chest and I wasn’t sweating, but I felt like I was freaking out, nonetheless. Especially because my heart should’ve been madly pumping and I generally start to sweat when I’m freaking the fuck out. All that is to say, I was FREAKING THE FUCK OUT!

  “I’m freaking the fuck out!” I shouted his way. “Who are you? Where are we? Why is the wall and ceiling and floor shifting?” I blinked. It felt like I blinked, but I didn’t get the right effect again. “And where are my fucking eyelids?”

  “You get used to that,” he replied.

  I sat up. That is to say, I tried to sit up. Only, I didn’t think I was actually lying down, and you can’t sit up if you’re not lying down to begin with. “Stop the ride,” I squeaked out, “I want to get off.”

  I was still staring at him. He was still grinning. “Give it a minute,” he said. “Takes about five minutes for all of it to right itself.”

  “All? What all?” I continued staring. It seemed like a minute went by. I was no longer lying there. I was standing. He was standing next to me. The not-a-ceiling was now not-a-wall, and it was still shifting, and I was, duh, still freaking out, fuck and all.

  “You were lying down before you got here, so it seemed like you were lying down when you arrived. Get it?” He said it very comfortingly. I felt less than comforted. Very.

  “Dude—”

  “Max.” He held out his hand. I shook it. I felt his hand in mine. There was indeed comfort in that.

  “Nordstrom,” I said.

  He laughed. He had a nice laugh. He had a nice grin. Max seemed nice. “Did your mom have a penchant for upscale shopping?”

  I shook my head. “I was born in one. And my mom had a penchant for making sure I was teased well into adulthood.” I let go of his hand. “Nord. My friends call me Nord. Otherwise, they don’t get a Christmas present.”

  “Well, nice to meet you, Nord. And I’m Jewish, so no Christmas presents needed.” He turned my way. He was standing in front of me now, not by my side. “Are you doing better?”

  I thought about it. I wasn’t doing worse, but better was another matter entirely. “Why are we naked, Max?”

  “Everyone here is naked, Nord. The soul is stained. Or at least that’s what we suspect. So it appears as if we are all here, and thus naked.”

  “We?” I pointed at the shifting wall. “We who?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, that usually takes another ten minutes. All in all, it takes about twenty minutes until equilibrium is reached.”

  “Lost.”

  He was still nodding. “Yeah, there’s no way around that.” He held my hand again. I held his. The freaking-out thing slid down the scale to a seven. I breathed in. I breathed out. But like the blinking before that, nothing really happened. In my head, I breathed in. In my head, I breathed out. My chest, however, had other ideas entirely.

  I stared at his chest. His was defined, quite hairy—also very Bradley-Cooper-like. I liked Bradley Cooper’s chest, so, ergo, I liked Max’s. Max had a flat, etched belly, also hairy. Max had a hooded dick, the head two-thirds covered by crinkled flesh. My glance downward continued, going from his dick to mine. “Um, I’m circumcised, Max.” I stared back his way. “And you’re Jewish, so why are you not? And why am I not?” I grabbed my dick. I rolled back the skin. It was a disquieting feeling. Suffice it to say, I felt disquieted.

  “The stain begins at birth and continues onward, best we can figure.” He pointed down to my dick. “That’s the way you were born.”

  “We—” I started to ask about that we thing again, but then noticed the wall had receded. There were other people there now, naked people, men and women of all ages, all races, dozens and dozens in all directions. They were grinning the same way Max was grinning. “Max,” I said, “are we…”

  His nod returned, then promptly stopped, um, dead. “Sort of,” he said.

  I thought to sigh, then thought the better of it. Or worse. Mainly because my glass was no longer half full. Mainly because there were no glasses. Lots of uncircumcised dick,
but no glasses. Lots of boobies and bushes, too, so there was that disquieting thing again, but no glasses. FYI, I wore glasses. FYI, I could now see fine without them. Sadly, I was seeing hooded pee-pees and boobies and bushes, and not much else.

  “You died, Nord,” he said, the grin faltering before all-together vanishing. “Sorry.” His hand was still in mine. I was freaking out at a six now. “But this place, this isn’t where you end up. I think.” He pointed around, finger swinging in a circle. “We think.”

  “And why, Max,” I said, “do you all think that?”

  “Because everyone here arrives like you, then eventually leaves. Poof.” He made the universal fingers moving outward poof motion. “Meaning, this wasn’t their destination. Probably just a layover of sorts.”

  I nodded. It made no sense, but I nodded. I was dead, but I nodded. I was too young to be dead, but, then again, so was he. I wondered how I died. I had no memory of it. Maybe I was hit by a bus. Maybe I was struck by lightning. Maybe I had an aneurism. Then I suppose I wouldn’t have a memory of it. It being a better word than the real word. As in far, far better.

  “How long have you been here, Max?”

  He shrugged. “Hard to tell. There’s no sun. No clocks. No Internet.”

  I groaned. “So maybe we’re in…” I mean, no Internet? We had to be in…

  He shook his head. “How do you feel, Nord? I mean, apart from the whole freaking out thing, how do you feel?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “I miss my old dick, but otherwise I feel fine.” I grinned. I grinned like all the others. “In fact, I feel great.” I lifted my finger in the air, suddenly remembering something. “Are you an…an angel, Max?”

  His head again moved left to right and back again. “No, Nord. I was passing by and you suddenly appeared. I stopped to make sure you were alright, just like someone stopped for me.” He held up his free hand, sensing I was about to ask another of my questions—or seventy-two of them. “You died, Nord. I died, Nord. Everyone here died. Some of these people knew they were dying, so that’s why we figure we died. You have a body, or at least the body you recall, because, as best anyone can explain, your soul was stained by the body you had in life. And as to why we all seem to be here and not where the poof-people go to, again, best anyone can explain, when we compare notes, is that we all had unfinished business back in the real world, and so our souls are unwilling to make the poof-leap.”

  “So I’m sort of dead?”

  His grin amped up. “Now you’re getting it.”

  I shook my head, though the grin remained. I really did feel great. Divine, even. “Getting it? Not even close. I mean, if people here have unfinished business, why do they eventually go poof?” I, too, made the universal poof sign, old habits, uh, dying hard. “I mean, how do they finish the unfinished? From here, I mean?”

  “Just a guess,” he replied, “but there are two ways, at least as far as we assume. One, maybe if you’re here long enough, all the people back in the real world, all your earthly ties, die, and the unfinished becomes finished by the sheer fact that time really does heal all wounds. In other words, whatever problems you had resolved themselves on their own. Then, poof!”

  “And two?”

  His smile rose ever northward. “Take my hand, Nord.” I took his hand, the one I wasn’t still holding. I stared at my hands in his. Holding Max’s hands was comforting, a sort of cherry on that divine sundae of mine. I felt it, too. Like our souls were touching. I stared back into his eyes, eyes so blue they’d put the sky to shame—had there been any sky wherever it was we were. He was staring back at me. Then again, we couldn’t blink, so staring is all we had. “Ready?” he added.

  “For?”

  I blinked again—or at least made the valiant attempt—and we were no longer in poof-central. In fact, we, the sort of dead, were in a living room. Irony, it seemed, transcended life. My hands were no longer in his, mainly because his hands and my hands were now see-through. They were tangible before—or seemed to feel as such—and now, suddenly, we were all Casper-like.

  “Looks like ghosts do exist, Nord,” he said.

  I could still see the blue of his eyes, but I could also see the wall beyond that. “Where are we, Max?”

  “My home,” he said. The smile had faltered. The smile, in fact, was as dead as we were. “Or, um, was. Was my home.”

  I looked around. That is to say, I floated around and around, passing through walls and doors. It was a nice apartment. Two bedrooms, two baths, a sunken living room, photos on the wall, along the fireplace. “None of you,” I made note.

  He shook his head. He was floating by my side, looking at the same photos. “Not my apartment anymore. My family got rid of it. All my belongings, divided up or tossed. Years to amass it, days to get rid of it all.” He frowned. “Guess you really can’t take any of it with you when you go.” He pointed to his hooded wee-wee. “Any of it.”

  “And why are we here now?”

  He shrugged. “I can only take you to places I had a strong connection to. I have to think about it, and then I’m there. You were holding my hand, so you came along for the ride. I can take you to my office, to my sister’s house, to one or two other places, but that seems to be it. Here is the most comforting for me, even though it’s not my home anymore, not my apartment, not my living room, not even me living.”

  A man suddenly appeared from the bedroom. I jumped. Or at least it felt like I jumped. In fact, I simply floated. I could see the man; the man, clearly, could not see us. The man was handsome in a nerdy sort of way: tall and gangly, skinny, naked, sporting enough wood to build a cabin with. He was absentmindedly stroking said wood as he walked to the kitchen to retrieve a bottle of kombucha. He then returned to where he’d come from—to come, that is. I know this because I soon watched him come, all voyeur-like. Max watched me watch the mammoth dick explode, spooge shooting up before dripping down a hairy, thin thigh.

  “He can do that twice a day,” Max informed, sounding rather glum about it. “Sometimes more. Always alone. Guy never goes out. Works from here, plays from here.” He again locked eyes with me. “The show at my office is far less enjoyable.”

  My smile finally returned. “You’re gay, Max.”

  He nodded. “Was. Though I suppose that, too, comes along for the whole death-ride. I was born gay. I’m dead gay. Seems to stain the soul as well. Thank…” He pointed toward the ceiling. “Judging by your interest in the spectacle…” He was now pointing at the flagging flagpole of a prick. “Souls of a feather…”

  I looked back his way and joined his nod with one of my own. “I still don’t get how this…” It was my turn to point at the rather fetching flagged flagpole. “Can make you go poof.” I snapped my fingers, little good it did me. I mean, my fingers snapped, but there was no crackle, no pop, and definitely no snap.

  “Doesn’t make you go poof,” he said. “Clearly.” To which he added, “But what if my family still lived here, a spouse, a sibling, a father or mother. What if they said something, did something to bring some sort of closure? Or what if I went to work, saw a project I’d been working on come to fruition? I’m guessing, we’re guessing, the multitudes of others, that it’s the closure, finishing some sort of unfinished business, that brings about the poof.”

  “Guessing,” I echoed.

  He shrugged. “Everything is conjecture. All of it. There’s no handbook. Still, it does seem that everyone eventually goes poof. Some just quicker than others.”

  The fully-flagged dick disappeared. We were back in the other place. “And how long do you think you’ve been here, Max?”

  He shrugged. His grin had returned. Whatever this place we were in was, it brought some sort of happiness, peace. “As I said before, hard to tell. A good many years now, anyway. Long enough for my lease to end, for Mister Horny back there to move in, for my sister to get married, to have a kid, for the company I worked for to go public. I saw most of it happen.”

  “But
still no poof.”

  His shrug had remained in place. “Those things weren’t my unfinished business, I suppose.”

  I paused. I held his hand. His smile grew. So did mine. “And how did you…” My pause returned. I was in uncharted waters here—had there, of course, been any water. Or sky. Or anything really. How do you chart nothingness? Plus, I was dead for less than an hour. You can’t get any more uncharted than that. “I mean, how did you die, Max?”

  “Leukemia,” he replied. “I was thirty-two.” The smile miraculously remained. “I knew I was going to die, Nord, mainly because I’d been doing so for five years. I’d made peace with it. Maybe something inside of me knew of this place. Or maybe I was simply ready to release all the pain, the fear. To die slowly for that long, it makes you not want to live. Makes you want to believe in…” He pointed into the void. “Well, this.”

  I was still gripping his hand in mine. “But there is no this in this.”

  “Yet.” We walked. Or what felt like walking. We passed other naked people. “There’s no pain here, no fear. You feel it, too. That much I do know. We all feel the same way. And there is a this in this, Nord. I talk to people, endless people. I hear their stories, see their lives through their words. It’s like going to the movies, reading books, like living, as it were, through others.” He looked my way. We stopped. “What is it? What’s wrong? You’re not smiling anymore.”

  I wasn’t and knew exactly why. “I wasn’t dying, Max. I was also thirty-two. I had a great life. I’d just received a promotion. I’d paid off my student loans. I was alive, and then I was…here.”

  He nodded. He’d obviously heard this story before. They all had. People died every second for all sorts of reasons. Had I been killed, hit by a car, a random bolt of lightning, or something like an aneurism, a heart attack, an electric shock? “We could find out, Nord. It’s not been that long. We could go see.” His smile flew south. “But no matter how you died, whatever we see isn’t going to be pretty.”

  I stared at him. He was indeed pretty. He was, in fact, far nicer to look at than anything back in the real world, that much was certain. Still, I had to know. Maybe knowing would get me that poof. “Will you come with me?” I asked him.