I can’t believe I’ve been killed by a soccer parent.
I always imagined I would be surrounded by my family in a futuristic hospital bed, or maybe my peanut allergy would finally catch up to me. If you told me that I’d be mowed down by a distracted parent driving an ugly SUV, I would have laughed in your face. Fuck. That is so embarrassing.
I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks as I thought of my family telling my childhood crush, Stacy from next door, that I had been bested by an SUV. Wait, what? The darkness receded and my sight returned, to which I saw my two hands pressed against my chubby cheeks. In front of me, I saw a single door and a woman dressed in business attire. Curious, I thought. I turned around to find there was nothing else. Just the seemingly endless void.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
‘No name, just a purpose. To guide you towards the door.’ She held out her hand, pointing to the door, as if it wasn’t already blatantly obvious.
‘Wait...does that lead to Heaven?!’ The woman shrugged her shoulders, and the smile from my face seamlessly disappeared and reappeared on hers.
‘So, if not Heaven, then Hell?’
‘Not telling!’ the woman laughed.
I knew it, she was teasing me. She was probably some demented soul that got off on the anxieties of the freshly dead. I started to panic, not just because I didn’t know if I was going to Heaven or Hell, but also because I was an Atheist. I had a flashback to my year 11 English exam, when I realised I’d read the wrong book list. Like then, I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t want to approach the door. I was scared to death. Or I guess, I was just scared?
As my luck would have it, the door came to me instead. I blinked and my hand was resting on the handle. It felt familiar. It also felt fucking hot. My stomach filled with dread as I assumed that there were fires licking the other side of the door, and that I was going to spend an eternity in Hell. My thoughts darted back to every lie I had told Nanna, to the times I’d committed fraud on my timesheet, and the many years of perverted daydreams about Stacy. I was suddenly very aware that I was crying. My fears of the unknown beyond and the regrets of the past had formed as tears, falling off my face and into the nothingness below. I already missed Mum and Dad.
I pushed down on the handle, but it didn’t move. The door was locked. I gasped. She laughed.
‘Looks like someone’s being resuscitated!’ she giggled. The door and the woman began to fade, but her voice was still crystal clear. ‘See you next time!’
