Okay, this is weird.
I don't remember how I got here. Where is 'here' anyway? Let me see, think, damn it, think. Must be foggy out today, I can't seem to see a thing for all this mist.
Wait, it's coming back to me. I was sitting in a restaurant with Penny across the table. There are tears welling up in her eyes. I learned a long time ago that it is better to break up with someone in a public place, less of a chance of a big scene.
So, here I was telling her that we had no future together. As if there ever had been! I wasn't thinking of a future together, just another conquest ... another notch on the old belt, so to speak. Well, maybe that wasn't entirely true. The truth be known, I had become increasingly fond of Penny and I felt it best to end it before one of us got really hurt. After all, I was a confirmed bachelor, a rake, a love 'em and leave 'em kinda guy.
I got up, threw some money on the table to cover the bill, said to Penny, "I know you don't believe me right now, but this is for the best." . She had hardly said a word, she just sat there. Those eyes, though, they would haunt me for a little while. I gathered my coat and walked out into the night. I stopped to put on my coat because it had started raining, ducked my head and started to run to my car, pleased with myself that breaking up with Penny had been so easy.
I had just dashed into the street when I heard a horn blaring and I looked up. A bus was coming right at me. That's the last thing I remembered.
Suddenly there was an opening in the fog and I knelt down to look through it. There were people milling about in front of the bus, the driver was talking to a cop gesturing wildly with his hands. And, what is that? It looked like a body lying face down on the wet street. The cop's partner was trying to keep people at a distance when a man said, "I'm a doctor, maybe I can help," and the cop let him through.
He knelt by the body and rolled it over ... Holy Shit! It was me! The man said, "No, I can't help, I'm afraid he's gone." A quick realization hit me that I was dead. I quickly patted my hands over myself feeling for form and substance ... I felt the same. I watched with an eerie detachment as the ambulance arrived. The attendants threw a cover over me. One of the attendants stood back and lit a cigarette, deeply inhaled and said, "Poor bastard, I guess he never saw it coming."
The fog began to swirl higher and higher until it engulfed me. I thought "This can't be happening to me. I've got plans for the rest of my life." But the fog seemed to just get thicker and suddenly I felt like I was being carried off. But to where?
When the mist began to thin I noticed a man sitting a table drinking a glass of wine. I looked around and there was nothing else in sight, just rolling mist and the man at the table.
He motioned me over with a wave of his hand and indicated I should sit down. As I sat down I took him in, he was a little on the thin side and I thought he'd be tall if he stood up. His hair was silver and his eyes the bluest I've ever seen, almost ethereal. He was dressed completely in white, a white polo shirt, white pants, white shoes and socks. His arms were muscular like he played tennis regularly and the hand that held the wine glass had long, elegant fingers.
As took the offered chair another glass of wine appeared from nowhere on the table in front of me. I quickly looked around for a waiter, but in this whole cloudy place there was just him and me.
"Go ahead," he said, "You might as well relax, Chris. This is some of the best ambrosia in a millennium. Taste it, I think you'll agree. What am I saying, it's your first glass of ambrosia, isn't it? You don't have anything to compare it to. Well, take my word for it, it is far superior to the last batch."
I took the glass and raised it to my lips. As I took a sip, I looked over the rim of the glass at him with a question in my eyes. He laughed, "Yes, you're dead. But that doesn't mean the end of everything. You'll find out that we've got a pretty good thing going here, that is if you are finally accepted."
He offered me a cigarette and took one for himself, "For one thing, you can smoke here, after all you're already dead so the consequences of smoking don't really mean anything."
I took the offered cigarette and leaned over as he lit it, I inhaled deeply, it was like being reunited with a old lover! I had quite smoking about 3 years ago and had never really gotten over the cravings. I settled back in my chair thinking this being dead wasn't so bad after all ... the ambrosia was better than any wine I had tasted when I was alive and I could smoke! Then it dawned on me what he had said about being accepted.
It was like he could read my mind, "Yes. You've got to be accepted first. It seems you died a little bit before your time, you didn't have a chance to make amends for the hearts you broke. Just look at poor Penny." With that the fog opened up again and I could see Penny leaving the restaurant oblivious to what was going on down the block. She had forgotten her rain coat and was getting soaking wet but she trudged on.
People didn't notice the tears falling down as the rain trickled down her face. When she finally walked to her building she stopped and leaned her head up against the brick for a minute. Then, she wiped her eyes and went in, once in her apartment she took stock in herself. Realizing she was cold and soaked down to the skin she began running a hot bath and went into the kitchen and got a glass of wine.
She walked back in the bathroom and started to undress. Her hands were trembling as she unbuttoned her dress, whether it was from the cold it couldn't tell.
"It's not just the cold you know," the stranger said reading my mind again, "the trembling hands are a direct result of a broken heart. You broke her heart tonight. She loved you even though she had never said so. And maybe that's why you died so suddenly. You didn't deserve a woman like Penny. She's everything a man could want ,... beautiful, talented, sensual ... and you just walked away from one of the most generous hearts among the living."
As I watched her undress I remembered how beautiful she was. Her dark hair, now plastered to her head by the rain, usually was a riot of curls around a small heart shaped face. Her eyes were always sparkling their peculiar shade of jade and her mouth was just a touch too wide. Her lips were soft and warming, how that mouth could warm a man's blood!
As she peeled off her dress and it fell to a sodden heap on the floor, I noticed my companion has averted his eyes. I couldn't though, I couldn't resist that body. Her slim shoulders were white and delicate, her breasts were nothing spectacular, an average size crowned with dusky nipples. Out of the blue I remembered how responsive those nipples were and I was saddened by the thought that I'd never feel them harden under my hands again. As she pulled her panties off her thatch was revealed. That mass of curls at the triangle between her legs. I recalled how many times I had lost myself in her wet tightness never wanting to be anywhere else.
"You look sad. Maybe you loved her, too. Perhaps you were scared because of the feelings Penny conjured up in you ... maybe that was why you broke up with her so suddenly."
I was startled and looked up at him, "Yes, I guess I was falling in love with her," I replied.
He kept his eyes solidly on the table in front of us while I watched as Penny stepped into the bath, sinking down in it, she closed her eyes as the warm water enveloped her. She reached for the glass of wine and took a sip just as the tears started to flow again. I couldn't bear to watch any more. Surprisingly, there were tears in my eyes too.
I snuffed out my cigarette and asked my companion, "Okay who are you? And accepted in to what?"
He chuckled, "Well, to answer your first question, my name is Bob. I know you were expecting a name like 'Gabriel' or "Enoch" some such ... but it's just plain old Bob. And I'm going to be your adviser. In case you haven't gotten it yet, you're in limbo ... neither in the great beyond or the ghastly below. It's going to be up to you whether you move on" he gestured with his finger, "to a greater reward or to the greatest penalty. And the only thing you have to do is mend Penny's heart."
