Anno Domini

A scratchy, rusty noise, “These trucks have a very bad reputation in some parts of the multiverse. Heralds, harbingers, servants of the half-holy Grim himself. In my experience, they’re really nothing more than vehicles, but many folks have had a single, inordinately terrible outing with one. Speak to most here, and this all-encompassing outcome is actually more of an outlier. Was I struck by one such thing? Well, that’s none of your goddamn business!” A dejected voice shook through an old, disrepaired loudspeaker.

I was sitting on a plastic bench in a train station. There were a couple of brown concrete pillars halfway between the platform, and the wall beside the tracks was orange and white tiles, so faded and dirty that they appeared the same color at first glance. Long rusty bands snaked down iron beams holding up an arched ceiling lined with dimly buzzing lightbulbs. Dangling from two long, frayed strings was a white cardboard sign best fitting in a middle school science fair. In glittery letters, it read Congratulations! You are dead!

Well, no, certainly I wasn’t dead because I was sitting right there reading that very sign. Mostright, I was dreaming… Or something. No, not dreaming, the first thing I did when I got here was pinch myself, and common sense dictated that always proved something wasn’t a dream. Dead? I was in a terrible accident where I tripped in front of a large, white delivery truck, but stuff like that didn’t kill people! It did, but not me! It definitely didn’t because I was sitting here, and I was most surely alive because people who were dead didn’t sit on benches in strange subway stations.

The loudspeaker creaked on again, “Valued customer, please exit the station. There is literally nothing in the station to be admired.” It paused for a moment while I looked around, trying to get more of a sense of where I was, then the voice crackled through again. It was whimpery, begging, “Please! Leave! I don’t get to clock out until you depart.”

I stood up sharply, finally walking toward the long staircase at the edge of the platform. The world itself seemed to be covered in a thick and boldening fog until I could only see the color white. I tried stepping back out of the fog, but there was only a numbness where my legs were meant to be.

The loudspeaker man cleared his throat, “No. You have to make your character before you can exit.”

“Make my what?”

“Ugh…” he groaned, and slowly droned on one word at a time between long, intermittent pauses. “You died. When people die, some people, not all people, they go here. Your grandma is probably in a different universe, and I bet she died in some really embarrassing way on the toilet. This Second World accepts candidates from many different universes, but everyone here has already lived and died one time. No, your old dog isn’t here. That would be stupid. No, there isn’t a Third World, so take this place seriously. No, this isn’t Heaven. I would have a job I didn’t hate if it were. This is a full second life, so you get to create everything about how you want to look, using elements from many different universes, before you are reborn to two parents in this world. Yes, they know you lived once before, and yes, that might be incredibly awkward for everybody involved. But, it wouldn’t be a real second life unless you were reborn as a baby for the sake of growing up again, and babies need parents, and the government is paying them some worthy stipend to deal with you. No, I don’t know how the first person in this world survived as an infant; it really doesn’t make sense if you think about it. They must have been raised by wolves or something. Actually, I’d have to ask my manager how they were even born.”

“I can make myself however I want?” I asked.

“I really recommend being a mermaid. There are a lot of jobs they won’t waste your time with if you don’t have legs. Being a goblin isn’t a good idea; a good deal of folks have unfair biases about them. You can be a fairy if you want to fly, but you’re also like… really small. Catgirls are very popular, obviously, and there’s bunny people and deer people and snake people and blah blah blah. Sure, you could be a human, too, but everyone will judge you for being boring. Spiders have been popular for some reason lately, slimes too. People are weird, I guess. Doesn’t matter. You’ll have no memories of your past life until your seventh birthday, then it’ll all come flooding back. You won’t even remember this conversation until then, that way you have time to get used to the new world.”

A smell of garlic filled my nose, and I blinked. Now, I was sitting at a table in an old restaurant, the walls were decorated with portraits of Italian musicians.. An uncreased, white silk tablecloth covered the table in front of me. Flickering in the middle of the table was a warm, red candlestick on a glass plate. A thickly mustached waiter in an orange tuxedo with a pink rose pinned to his chest shoved a thick black menu into my hands. The loudspeaker voice came out of his mouth, “Here. I was supposed to give this to you.”

I flipped it open, seeing Species at the top of the first page, my eyes scanning down hundreds of options written in tiny print. “What’s the difference between catfolk and catgirl?” I asked.

“Catfolk make better stealth archers. Catgirls make better swordfighters. Otherwise, they’re completely identical; they hate each other.”

“Archers? Swordfighters?” I blinked, “We have train stations and Italian restaurants, why would I want…”

“Hedonism, Madam,” answered the waiter, "everyone here has already died once. The Administrator has determined that certain technologies, such as guns, must be made unusable in this world to preserve the experience of his guests.”

“Guests?”

“You. A billion other people in this Second World. The dead. For the sake of everybody’s enjoyment, if you try making a gun, or a car, or a spaceship, it will explode. Instantly and completely detonate, and obliterate you without an apparent cause. That’s my boss. The CEO. The Administrator.”

“Who is the Administrator?” I fingered over the list. Fairy, elf, dark elf, dawn elf, snow elf, tree elf, wood elf, river elf…

“Hell if I know. Even my manager doesn’t know his real name, if he even has one.” Snorted the waiter, “We’re going to be here all night unless you pick something, you know.”

“Fairy…” I sputtered, it was near the top of the list, and it did say that they were able to fly in some of the small print. Flying sounded nice.

“Uh-huh. Well, you can change your mind at any point during the creation process. After that, you’re stuck with it your whole life!” The waiter flipped over the next page on the menu, “There are nine-hundred and twenty-seven thousand three-hundred and forty-two available hair styles. Please, choose wisely.”

“Something like what I had when I was alive?” I mumbled.

“What shape would you like your nose to be? Eye color? Height, we all know you want to be short, since you chose fairy already. Weight, not much. Blood type? What would you like your blood type to be?” He flipped open to another page on the menu, “This is a very important choice.”

“What’s the difference?”

“It affects what kinds of blood you can receive from donors. What did you think?”

“That one,” I flipped the next page over. Detached earlobes. Wing colors. Finger length. Specific sorts of back problems after age 40. I cleared my throat, “Are there special powers anywhere? Cheat powers, whatever it’s called?”

“Hah!” The waiter shook his head quickly, “Absolutely not, Madam. Powers are earned, not gifted. Besides, there are a billion people here from other worlds. Why should just one person be allowed to have a Cheat Power? How would that be fair to anybody else?”

I slowly made my way through six thousand more choices, deciding every single detail of what my adult appearance would eventually look like, then finally reached a final page at the back of the menu.

The waiter proudly handed me a slick black fountain pen streaked with gold, “Now, write your first name on the top line, and sign below. Not your name in life, well, it could be if you choose. This is your name here, magically transmitted into the brains of your new parents to give to you. Your surname will be decided by the family you wind up with.”

I took a moment to think. It’s a fantasy world. I had the chance to change myself completely. And, I wrote on the top line. Hana the ink swirled in deep, cursive letters. I reached below, forming a signature on the bottom line. As soon as I blinked, my eyes stayed closed. A haze dribbled into my ears and filled up my brain.