Tag Archives: death

Still a Lot of Walking to Do

The afterlife’s not quite how you learned in church. There’s no final judgement, no splitting off into Heaven or Hell. Oh, there’s a Heaven of course, but not many people go there right away. There’s still too much work to be done. Only the most perfect can be allowed in, of course, or else it wouldn’t be Heaven. But there’s still hope. After you die, you pick right up on where you left off. Only all the distractions are cut out and the journey is all that’s left. No need to eat or sleep, just pure self-improvement, discovery and enlightenment.

The journey’s different for everyone, based on whatever someone’s strengths or weaknesses are. The greedy have to learn to share, the selfish have to learn to put others before them, the paranoid have to learn to trust. And of course the hardest of all — everyone has to learn to love themselves. Truly love themselves, not what passes for it in most peoples’ lives. After all, how can someone who doesn’t think they deserve Paradise possibly deserve Paradise?

Don’t think it’s easy though. There’s no map and there’s no guarantee you’re even going the right way. Most people are still wandering. If it’s taken you 70 years and you’re not ready yet, what makes you think you’ll get there in the next 70?

Three Sixteen

The LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore. – Psalm 121:8

That was written in chalk on the sidewalk as I left my apartment. I didn’t think too much about it at the time. It’s really not that uncommon around here for some church group to write Bible verses on the sidewalk for passers-by to see, though they usually pick more well-known ones.

On the way to lunch I passed a few more. I noticed “Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, for I delight in it. – Psalms 119:35″ on a small wall along the sidewalk and smiled at the irony of “Hast thou found honey? Eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it. – Proverbs 25:16″ scrawled outside the McDonald’s I ate at. I was a little puzzled as to how they managed to write “But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. – Exodus 14:16″ in the crosswalk of a busy intersection, but I had to admire their dedication. All these verses spread so wide, perhaps it was some sort of city-wide event all the churches had decided to do.

My amusement ended when I saw “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. – Matthew 6:19″ spraypainted on the front of my office building.

“Hey, you guys see what those Jesus Freaks did?” I asked Jen and Paul as I came back to work. They looked at each other and shrugged.

“They spray painted a Bible verse on the front of the building. Strange that you didn’t see it, they must have just done it right before I got back.” We all shook our heads. The neighborhood sure was going to shit these days.

Seeing “And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. – 2 Kings 2:11″ painted on the hood of my car didn’t improve my mood any, especially given the heavy traffic I had to sit in on the way home and the strange looks I got.

But when I saw “And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. – Genesis 28:17″ painted on my door, it was the last straw. Furious, I called the police. The bored attendant took my statement and said they’d send someone in the morning. Clicking on my E-mail, a message popped up — “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. – Psalms 37:8.” Unknown sender. I hit delete and went to bed, fuming.

The next morning I woke up to find that they had broken into my house overnight. Every possible surface was covered with Bible verses.

I began to go through all the rooms, marking down and noting all the verses I could find. Whoever did this was meticulous. All of the verses were there. Except one. The one that you’d most expect to find.

All the verses written except one. All the surfaces in the house written on…except one. My body.

It was clear now what had to be done. I went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife (“Jesus wept” carved in beautiful ornate script on one side, “- John 11:35″ on the other).

Walking into the bathroom, I stood in front of the mirror, shirtless, and began to write.

“For God so loved the world…”

Dead and Dirty in Dubai Part 9: Oscar Moments

(Just joining us? Go back to the beginning of the story.)

“Hey lady!” shouted Alex, “Over here!”

They had jumped dramatically through the window of the hotel to rescue Jenny. She caught sight of them and ran over.

“Come on y’all, back in the hotel!” shouted Billy.

The three of them ran back to the hotel and dove through the window not a moment too soon. Jenny’s pursuers howled in heat and anger that their quarry had escaped. The three of them sat on the floor panting, when Billy looked up.

“Oh hey there sweet pea, I wondered where your pretty little self got off to there,” he said, smiling at the woman he met in the bar.

The woman smiled back, but her smile was filled with razor sharp teeth that dripped with blood. She lunged at Alex, biting him on the arm.

“Shit!” he screamed, shaking her off, “Back out the window!”

“Wait!” Billy said, taking a bottle of booze out of his pocket. “Gonna drive off those sons of guns first.” He fashioned himself a molotov cocktail, lit it on fire, then through it out the window. The three followed.

Unfortunately, they found themselves in a writhing mass of horny zombies. To make matters worse, several of the zombies were now on fire. Jenny was the first to go down. By playing hard-to-get, she’d annoyed and upset the zombies even more. Alex was futilely trying to beat of a paramour of his own. Billy, on the other hand, had caught on fire when one of the flamboyantly flaming zombies started to dryhump him.

As Billy went down in flames, he caught Alex’s eyes one last time. Alex looked at him sadly from beneath a pile of writhing bodies.

“Young man,” Billy said, haltingly, “I ain’t known you that long but I got somethin I gotta tell ya.”

“What’s that?” asked Alex, choking back a sob that was partially caused by this heartfelt moment, and partially from the intense sense of violation he felt.

“I gotta tell ya…”

Moaning and groaning.

“…that even though…”

Disgusting slurping noises.

“…you’re just some no-good punk kid…”

“What? What?” Alex shouted, straining to reach Billy, knowing deep in his heart that Billy was going to say what both of them knew, to reveal the powerful forbidden feelings that they’d felt for each other since the moment they’d met. That he would tell him how different things would have been under different circumstances, how this whole horrible apocalypse had ruined everything but still, they’d found a brief moment of happiness in the few minutes they’d spent together.

“…the Baby Jesus loves you.”

God’s Judgement is a Rolled-Up Newspaper

Sometimes when I’m driving I make up stories about the bugs who hit my windshield.

“Man, this is great! I can’t wait to get home and tell Bernice I got a promotion! We’ll be able to send little Timmy to that great private school now. And I’ll finally be able to treat Bernice how she deserves. Take her out to nice dinners, buy her jewelry and fancy dresses, maybe a private romantic vacation once a ye…” *SPLAT*

It’s a shame they always have to end in tragedy.

A Boring Day at the Hospital

“Excuse me,” the man said, “I’m here to see Mr. Henderson.”

Rebecca looked up, startled. She hadn’t heard anyone come in. In front of her stood a tall, thin, elderly gentleman wearing a black suit that had been out of fashion since before the 20th century had even begun.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “Mr. Henderson has passed on.”

“What?” exclaimed the man, taking out a gold pocketwatch and examining it closely. “That’s impossible!”

“I’m sorry sir,” Rebecca said sympathetically, “He passed on just a few minutes ago, in fact.”

The man sighed and put his watch away. “They just get more and more unreliable, don’t they?”

“The doctors do the best they can, sir,” she said, shortly, a little offended.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure they do,” the man said distractedly, looking at something above and behind Rebecca’s head. “Ah, so you decided to show up anyway?”

Rebecca spun around in shock, but saw nobody. She turned back towards the man. “Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” the man said, grabbing at something in the air and depositing it in a small jar. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got another appointment. Sorry to bother you.”

He tipped his hat and walked out the door. Rebecca shrugged and went back to her paperwork.

Let’s give a warm welcome to my friend Taylor, who decided to join me in creating an unstoppable writing empire.
-nfreader