The Love of My Afterlife(3)
“Where…where are we going?” I ask, my entire body now trembling so much that the words come out with a vibrato so rapid I sound like Jessie J.
“My office, of course. I can’t conduct the enrolment here in the lobby, can I? What if another Dead arrives while you’re in the middle of answering an intimate question? Awkward. If there’s one thing people always said about me back on Earth, it was that I was a very professional person. Privacy first. Don’t fret. I’ve got you, babe.” She sings the last bit in a Cher voice.
Merritt opens up the door, and I’m somewhat comforted to discover that it leads to a very nice, relatively normal-looking office. There are candles everywhere, the flames a warm shimmering pink colour. In the middle of the room stands a glass desk, covered with knickknacks, including three totally thriving plants, a waving Japanese lucky cat, and a desk tidy which is empty because the pens it’s supposed to be holding are scattered haphazardly across the desk. On the far wall, there’s a floor-to-ceiling bookcase absolutely stuffed with books, their spines all the colours of the rainbow. Every single one seems to be a romance novel. Titles like The Proposal, A Match Made in Devon, and The Bride Test. Merritt sees me looking and selects one of them—a pretty cloth-covered hardback of Persuasion by Jane Austen. She presses it to her chest and closes her eyes blissfully, like she’s cuddling a puppy. “You can totally borrow anything you like,” she says, sliding the book back onto the shelf and dancing her fingers lovingly across the surrounding spines.
“Um, thanks.”
Merritt sniffs the air, exhaling audibly. “Roses and black currants. My signature scent.” She points to a flickering white candle on a little wooden table. “Gorgeous, right? We have a Diptyque store at Evermore. C’est magnifique. Ooh, we must find you a signature scent too. I bet you’re a honeysuckle girl, am I right? Prone to introspection, sensitive heart but with a rich inner world. Plenty of passion bubbling beneath the surface.”
I blink. What the fuck is happening right now? What is this place?
Merritt throws me a benevolent smile. “Okay. I can see you’re perturbed, which…absolutely. This situation is batshit, I know. When I first arrived here, I literally spewed. Why don’t you take a seat, rest your bones a moment.”
She indicates a white leather spinny chair in front of her desk and then, before I can rest, bones or otherwise, she claps her hands decisively.
“Right! Excellent. Okay.” She plucks a clipboard from her desk and scans the paper atop it. “First question is…Would you like to see your life flash before your eyes?”
“Ex-excuse me?” My teeth have started to chatter.
“I said, would you like to see your life flash before your eyes? We never used to offer the service, but of course Hollywood gave humans the impression that they got to see their lives pass before their eyes when they expire. And while I love me a well-trodden trope, that one is simply not based in reality. We had a few complaints from disgruntled Deads on arrival, so now we offer it, if you want it. Totally up to you, no presh.”
I feel cold. Why is it so cold? I spot a furry blanket draped on one of the other chairs. I grab it and wrap it tightly around my shoulders, bunching it beneath my chin.
“So…do you want it or not?” Merritt repeats, fingernail tapping on the back of the clipboard.
“Uh…um…” I bleat, fingering the corner of the blanket. “Can I go home now?”
Merritt sighs lightly. “Shall we just say yes about the life-flashing-before-your-eyes bit? This is the only chance you’ll get to see it. If I don’t show you now and you change your mind later, then you’ll probably be in a mood with me, and that’s no way for us to start an everlasting friendship.”
I watch open-mouthed as Merritt disappears into a closet before wheeling out a white metal trolley, on which there is a big grey nineties TV and a DVD player. “It doesn’t last for too long,” she says. “We show what we feel are the most relevant clips, otherwise it would be a massive snoozefest, and while technically we have eternity at our disposal, nobody’s got time for that kind of navel-gazing. Like, what’s done is done, you know?”
I can only stare as Merritt presses play. Is the DVD already in? Is the player just for show? I’m so confused.
“Here we go!” Merritt says. “Delphie Denise Bookham. This…was…YOUR LIFE!”
2
To a soundtrack of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely,” Merritt’s video fades in on an adorable montage of moments from my idyllic childhood. Way before Dad got bored of us and left. Before Mum got a new boyfriend and ran away to join an artists’ commune in Texas. This was back when life was as close to perfect as it could be.
I drink in the clips, suddenly terrified to miss a single detail. Look how the three of us cartwheel and roly-poly through long, daisy-dotted grass, snuggle together on a Sunday morning, draw pictures of made-up sea creatures, and dance on the bed to Aretha Franklin. There’s Mum letting me try out her shiny cherry-flavoured lip gloss and laughing as I immediately lick it off and ask for more. There I am hanging out at various birthday parties, surrounded by other children, laughing, bright-eyed, cheeky-faced, and chattering nonstop. In a few of the clips, I see Gen, my childhood best friend, our arms flung around each other, the pair of us giggling naughtily at some now forgotten mischief. I look away from the screen, a flicker of shame and sadness sparking in my chest.