Anno Domini

There had been one other part of the dream, and it had come at the very end, such that I wasn’t sure where memories ended and mere dreaming began.

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, which 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 that best fit 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 sign here before you can exit.” A clipboard with a single paper on it appeared before me.

“Sign for what? You said I’m dead.”

“Ugh… To confirm that you’re in the right place,” he groaned, and slowly droned on one word at a time between long, intermittent pauses. “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’ll become a whole new person, reborn to two new 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. 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.”

“So, is there anything else I should know?” I asked.

He grumbled to himself, “You'd best hope you’re reborn as a mermaid. But you don’t really get to pick. If you’re a mermaid, you won’t land some mind-numbing desk job since you won’t have any legs.”

“I don’t have a pen.” One appeared in my hand a moment later ,and I reached toward the paper, “So, when people get reborn, they usually get some kind of special power, right?”

“Everyone here has been reborn,” the loudspeaker man droned on, “how would it be fair for one person to get a special power they didn’t earn and not anyone else? Yeah-yeah, life’s unfair, but this is an afterlife for everyone. Guns are banned, cars, spaceships, teleporters, what have you.”

“Banned, why?”

“Hedonism.” He answered, “The Administrator, my boss, the CEO, whatever you wanna call him. He banned that stuff. If you try and make it, it’ll blow up in your face, and probably take you with it.”

I didn’t say anything, staring blankly at the paper. “Additionally…” His voice grew louder, slightly irritated, “You will not remember your past life, nor any of this, until you turn seven years old. This is to allow you to create new, meaningful connections within this world so that you can more properly adapt to your new life. Now, please, sign the paperwork, or I’ll have to speak with my manager about transferring you to the Hell Department.”

I quickly signed. The paper, and in a blink, my eyes were filled with white light. I heard the loudspeaker man’s voice laugh quietly to itself, “Hell Department… That one always works. No such thing, Kid.” As I woke up fully from the dream, I heard his voice say, half-dejected, “Quitting time.”