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Fiction
Dispatches From the Next Place
The afterlife is like life, only the pizza is never any good
Here’s the thing about the afterlife. It’s a lot like life, only a little worse. There exists no heaven or hell, no cashmere clouds and raging infernos — it’s a place like any other place except the pizza is never any good.
There’s no cable or Wi-Fi or the Trader Joe’s cheese enchiladas I like so much. On the jukebox, there’s one song I want to listen to, but everyone keeps playing Carole fucking King. I used to believe in the white robes and bright lights, but the only gatekeeper is Mickey, perched in front of the bar that serves tequila and Coors on tap, and some of the kids snicker and say, “Maybe this is hell because we still get carded.”
One night, I ask the kids in the bar how they got here, and they pantomime car accident, a bottle of dad’s pills, an unfortunate situation with a blender, a gang rape broadcast on YouTube. “The fuckers even crowdfunded to buy promo ads,” a girl says. I ask where they are now, the fuckers, and she shrugs and says, “Harvard, full ride.”
By the pool table, there’s a crew filled with regret. They’re like the cheap people you knew in life — they bring their own booze and snacks. They tip a quarter and flood the toilet. They call themselves the Life Again Group (Born Again Living™) and everyone hates them.
The Lifers talk about how they shouldn’t have pulled the trigger, stepped out into oncoming traffic, rejected the chemo, and inhaled the gas. They don’t like how their story ended and they want a do-over. Every week, they host meetings in a building you would call a church, but there’s no religion here. We’re done with believing because we’ve arrived, and we’d like a return to sender. We’ve put in a transfer request. We’ve asked to speak with several representatives.
The Lifers spend much of the meeting wailing and talking about the things they miss: the smell of baby feet, matcha lattes, fried chicken and waffles, The Real Housewives. We have TV here, but there’s always static, and we get the shows seven seasons too late. Episodes air out of order. The Lifers talk about the movie star assigned to our section, the pretty young thing who liked needles, and how she served up…
