The last thing they remember was crying themselves to sleep, carrying all the weight of the world and perhaps some of Saturn’s moons.
A periodical high-pitched, sing-song, tinkling of a bell permeated into their dreams and eventually woke them up to a fumbling, rumbling start.
First: they realize they don’t remember their own name. Second: they scan the surroundings and find themselves in what appears to be a gray waiting room.
Third: they soon discover they’re not the only ones in the waiting room. Fourth: they tried to speak, but not a single sound would come out. Not even a muffled cry or a pathetic squeak or an angry grunt. Fifth: they tried to stand but it felt as if an invisible, immovable force kept them grounded and stuck to the chair. They could, at the very least, move their head to look around.
They were sitting on a monoblock chair among perhaps two dozen people. They were sitting in the rightmost column in the last row. Like most waiting rooms, there was not much to see. In the corner of the room was a decorative plant and a drinking fountain. In front of them was a black, nondescript door and a white bell mounted to the wall beside it.
The overwhelming silence was punctuated by the tinkling of the bell which now felt like a siren against the backdrop of dead silence.
For convenience’s sake, let us call this young person “Q”. Why Q? Because I said so.
Q was among a group of people and they couldn’t really figure out what they all had in common, aside from the confused and bewildered expressions they had. It was safe to assume they probably couldn’t speak a single word, either.
Next to Q was a teenage girl in a knitted sweater who looked very much afraid, and in front was a balding middle-aged man wearing a muddy brown suit.
There were some middle-aged women and men, definitely a lot of teenagers, and a lone young girl who appeared to be in grade school.
The bell rang once again, but it produced a much louder and deeper sound. Finally, they heard an immensely cold voice:
“H. H as in Hill, please proceed to the receptionist.”
Q couldn’t tell whether the voice was from a girl or a boy, or even if it was from a young person or an old person. Maybe it was all of those, at the same time? Or somehow blended together? Either way, the lack of humanness in it sent shivers down Q’s spine.
Immediately, without a moment of hesitation, a teenage girl stood up (as if freed from the invisible shackles), made absolutely no sound, walked stiffly towards the door and disappeared behind it.
Q still had no idea what was going on. They thought to themselves: are they in some kind of simulation? Purgatory? Is this the gates of heaven!?
Needless to say, Q felt rather ill. They didn’t know anyone in the crowd and they couldn’t even remember who their parents were. Or their friends… Their mind was completely blank. No matter how hard they tried to recall details of their life, nothing would come up. Only the letter “Q”.
Q wasn’t even sure what time it was or if time even worked the usual way in this place. Q couldn’t even tell if it had been an hour or six. But it certainly felt like a long time.
The white bell was the only thing keeping them from complete sensory deprivation.
Once again, the bell rang and the unharmonious voice called for a letter:
“E as in Eel, please proceed to the receptionist.”
Another teenager, this time a boy, went towards the door in much the same manner as the girl.
The monotony of it all began to get on Q’s nerves. A person would be called, then they would wait until the next person is called.
Eventually, Q was called towards the receptionist.
They felt as if their body was being moved towards the door not by themselves but by a massive, astronomical force. Q tried to break free but it was like trying to scream without a mouth.
They turned the handle of the door and saw a giant shadow with white eyes sitting behind a reception desk.
The door slammed shut and Q felt the colossal force lift and leave their body.
In less than a second, it all came cascading back to Q. Q’s earliest memory: a cloudy night sky. Laughing with children at the playground. Falling and scraping their knees on asphalt. Going to school. Then, the overlapping voices of the bullies chanting “pig, pig, pig, pig, pig!”. Then, their parents screaming at each other, and sometimes, at Q. The scars. Body dysmorphia. Looking up surgery online. Isolation. Anxiety medication. Betrayal. And finally, the pills…
A shadowy figure signaled its presence to Q by waving its tendrils in front of their eyes.
“Who are you?” Q asked, their voice somewhat hoarse.
The shadow felt neither human nor corporeal, yet its shockingly white eyes felt to Q as if they were peering into their very being.
“I am the receptionist,” the shadow declared. “Your soul is being held here for safekeeping.”
“My soul? That means I’m dead, right? And the pills…they worked,” said Q.
*
“Oh, no, no. You are not dead. Your body currently rests on a hospital bed. Only your soul is here. Now, sit.”
Q sat on the gray, nondescript chair. They looked around cautiously. The receptionist wasn’t one for decoration. The only things in the room were the desk, the chair, and a small window high up the wall. Q tried to look into the window, but all they saw was pitch black.
“Umm… Excuse me, here? What is here?”
“Every time the white bell rings, a soul that made the decision to erase itself is delivered here,” the receptionist said, its white eyes now shaped like featureless half-moons.
“That didn’t answer my question.”
“Human,” the receptionist boomed. “I cannot explain to a human what is beyond human comprehension.”
“O-kay.”
The receptionist recovered a sizable stack of papers from the desk and began reading through it.
“For the sake of convenience, you will be referred to as Q. You probably are already aware of this. You are estranged from your family, and struggling to cope with, well, just about everything. Just like so many of your kind, you use alcohol to cope with your pain. Two days ago, in humans’ time, you deliberately overdosed on benzodiazepines. Your landlord, bless their heart, discovered your body four hours after you passed out. And now you are… Here.”
“I remember it all now, sure… But why? Why am I here?”
“You are here to decide. And I am here to assist you in making the decision.” The receptionist gestured, with his shadowy appendage, towards the small window. “Beyond the window is the bridge to the afterlife. Outside the door you came through is the road that leads back to the world of the living.”
“I think it’s pretty clear. I don’t want to be alive anymore. Why couldn’t you just send me through the window?”
“Because,” the receptionist started, “You were given a second chance, Q.”
“That is unbelievably cliché.”
The receptionist grunted.
“The only ones who are sent straight to the window are the ones with mountains of sins on their back. Right up their greasy little spines. Heinous crimes. Humans who think that denying they did anything wrong will free them of consequences,” the receptionist rambled on. “You have not killed. You have not stolen, aside from that one piece of candy when you were a child. But you returned it the next day. You lie, but only because you are cowardly. You are cowardly, but you could never hurt anyone deliberately. Aside from yourself, Q.”
“I don’t care! I just want to, you know, sleep forever. Please. I am so tired.”
“Give me five good reasons.”
“One. Nobody loves me. Two. I hate myself. I hate my body. Three. I haven’t achieved anything. Four. I’m tired of being in pain. Five. The world isn’t going to change one bit when I leave.”
“I said five good reasons. None of those are valid, Q.”
“What about this,” Q said. “I. Just. Want. To. Die. So why can’t I?”
“You are given only one life.”
“I was given a terrible life.”
“It is unfortunate,” the receptionist said. “I will not tell you it all happened for a reason. Because it didn’t. The way the universe works is in no way obligated to make sense to you humans.”
A short silence filled the room.
“But,” the receptionist said brightly, “Most of the damage that humans acquire comes from humans themselves. Your kind has built social structures that favor the ones with the most privilege upon their birth. Your kind is so susceptible to clouded judgment, yet it is so easy for humans to gain power. So easy for your kind to kill, to hurt one another…”
“That’s not encouraging at all.”
“The truth is not encouraging. The truth is simply that. The truth.”
“I still want to die, you know.”
“You say that because the pain you feel has surpassed the capacity for pain.”
“Is it so bad to end someone’s pain? To let them rest?”
“There is nothing in the afterlife. You cannot truly feel at rest in that way.”
“I have nothing else to live for.”
“That you know of,” the receptionist added.
“Please. Just let me go through.”
“You are sure?”
“Yes.”
And before the receptionist could say anything, Q stood up.
*
Q began walking slowly towards the small window. They felt its immense gravitational pull sending waves throughout their soul. They stared into the pitch black nothingness beyond the window.
“Q. Listen to me.”
Q said nothing, still looking into the void.
“The night you took those pills, your little dog kept barking. With all its might. It barked and barked and barked. It barked so well, your landlord began angrily knocking at your door telling your unconscious body to keep it down. The little dog barked even louder, nonstop. So the landlord began sifting through her keyring and unlocked your door, discovering you in your overdosed state.”
Q said nothing still. They were transfixed with the window.
“Your dog hasn’t eaten at all. The landlord filled its food bowl but she ruled it was too upset to eat.”
“My dog… Skippy…”
“It is not just Skippy, Q. Your mother has been crying in your hospital room. Your father is overcome with grief.”
“But…”
“It is not just Skippy and your parents.”
The receptionist let Q see the faces of the people who did not want Q to go. Some familiar, some not at all.
“But what about all those other people? The ones who took my dignity? The ones who hurt me for no good reason?” Q cried.
“They do not matter.”
“They occupy my mind! Their voices! They have caused me so much pain.”
“In time the voices will fade, along with the pain.”
“But…”
“You will be fine, Q.”
The receptionist enveloped its shadowy blobs around Q. “You will be just fine.”
*
Somewhere, someplace, someone woke up in a hospital bed, feeling the weight of the world and perhaps all of Saturn’s moons slip away from their shoulders.
arthouse memoirs_ 