hannahsue--             ... Contest #35 - Rest In Peace ... From hannahsue--'s book entitled "Writing Contests" ... Prompt: Write a story from the perspective of someone who is dead.

NOTE: There is some mild language at the end of the story.

I never expected to die in my 30s. Consequently, I had never given 'life after death' too much thought. So, here I was dead as dead could be and didn't have the foggiest idea what I should expect the instant I opened my eyes.

My eyes were shut tight, of course, because I was scared out of my wits at this point. I didn't know if I was going to be facing a tunnel of light and choirs of angels, a pit of burning brimstone and demons ready to torture me with pitchforks, a waiting room where I got a number and waited for my soul to get a new chance at life, or nothing at all.

Suddenly, I heard a haughty voice whisper, "What's wrong with her?"

For a split second my heart swelled with hope. What if I was alive and just lying in a hospital bed? Yanking my eyes open I eagerly looked around me. To my great horror, I found myself teetering on the precipice of a huge gorge. It was hundred times deeper and wider than the Grand Canyon in the United States. I let out a frightened scream as I flailed my arms and tried to step back from the edge.

A warm hand grasped my shoulder gently and the owner of that hand calmly replied to the earlier question, "Nothing, she just hasn't acclimatized yet."

I felt instantly soothed the moment I heard him speak despite the fact that I was still standing on the rim of the most expansive gulf I had ever laid my eyes on. Where on earth was I, I wondered.

"You aren't on earth anymore," he answered my unspoken question. "You are in the Third Heaven."

I was confused and turned to question him. But all thought left my mind when I beheld him. He was not human, which shocked me even more than the terrible gaping chasm.  I didn't have a clue whether I was looking at an angel, an alien or a spirit.

His body, which was not clothed, was not made of flesh and bone but of the most spectacular blue light. He looked fairly solid - not apparition like at all - and the outer surface of his skin, if you could call it that, shimmered and sparkled like he'd bathed in the finest glitter.

However, his chest didn't appear solid at all. It looked like an endless cavity of living moving and swirling lights. It was as if he'd swallowed a galaxy and it was rolling about - endlessly expanding in his chest. I was mesmerized.

Even more striking than this was his face. Though it had the distinct shape of a human, he had neither eyes or a mouth and yet I knew I had heard him speak to me. In the middle of his forehead there was a burning white star with a thick band of sparkling star dust racing around it in a bright stream. And then his forehead gave way to flaming streams of blue hair that burned upwards and away from his astounding face. He was anything but human and I was entirely spellbound.

"I snatched you from the Reams of the Dead," he explained to me. "You will serve me here in the Third Heaven."

He sounded very pleased with himself.

"Snatched me from the Reams?" I repeated feeling perplexed.

He turned me around so that I was looking back out over the canyon and he leaned over my right shoulder, pointing off into the distance. "Can you see those beams of light coming from the earth and reaching into the 4th heaven?"

I squinted my eyes and spotted some rays of light in the distance. They looked very much like the streams one sees when the sun sucks up moisture through the clouds. I nodded.

"Those are the Reams of the the Dead. I plucked you from one of them. I need a new flyer. My old one has disappeared," he added sounding annoyed.

"What do you need a flyer for?" I asked feeling more and more baffled.

He sighed deeply. "We cannot cross the abyss. It is forbidden. However, you are an earth-bound spirit and you are not forbidden to travel between the folds. You will be my messenger."

I heard him clearly but my mind could not grasp what he was talking about. Frowning, I looked over my shoulder at him. "How will I get across it?"

He laughed good-naturedly before simply saying, "You'll fly of course. That's why you are called a flyer."

I wanted to point out to him the humans couldn't fly but hesitated. He had called me an earth-bound spirit just a moment ago. Perhaps, as a spirit I could fly. Still, as I gazed back over the gorge, I couldn't help but feel petrified at the mere thought of stepping off the ledge. Only someone with a death wish would be so stupid, I thought with conviction.

The other voice, the one from earlier, spoke up suddenly. "Don't be stupid. You are already dead."

I'd almost forgotten about him.

He walked straight over to me and shoved a crystal slate into my hands. I grabbed it and pressed it to my chest worried I'd drop it. It looked delicate. Before I could ask him what it was, he gave me a malicious grin and whispered, "Hold on to it tightly." Then he shoved me, quite unexpectedly, right off the edge of the cliff.

I shouted "BASTARD!" on my way down.

My fall was short lived. The crystal slate in my hand flashed to life and the next thing I knew I was sailing across the gorge at a death-defying speed. It seemed the slate knew what to do and where to go even if I didn't.

However, after that experience I had a sinking suspicion that the bastard had something to do with the previous flyer's disappearance.

Just what had I got myself into by dying?

(997)