face, but my body still didn’t work, which was
mainly what I was looking for. It just laid there on the hydraulic lift,
leaking oil.
I told Sid I
didn’t want my body to just look good, which it did, I wanted it to be able to
earn a living, with me inside it. He said if I wanted that I would have to pop
for a new head. I said I wouldn’t, that I thought the current head was good
enough, that it still had some wear left in it, and reminded him that the
customer was always right. He said that usually wasn’t the case in his
experience. He couldn’t remember the last time a customer was right. I said I was
thinking seriously of taking my valuable business somewhere else, and he said
he was glad to hear that. So that’s where we left it.
We argued about
the bill for awhile, an argument which I finally won by just disappearing. Sid
put my body in a storage area with a bunch of other crap that hadn’t been paid
for, but I just dragged it away that night. Score one for me.
Feeling I needed
help of a more supernatural nature than Sid, I took my body to Odd Town. I had
seen a number of occult-type characters hanging around there the last time I
was in the area - exorcists, sorcerers, you name it - all anxious to make a
quick Earthly buck. You’d think people with magical powers wouldn’t have to
work for a living in the crappiest part of town, but you would be wrong. I’ve
seen them there.
I went to the
first sorcerer I could find, and told him what I wanted. He looked at my body
doubtfully.
“I don’t…” he
began.
“I want to keep
the head,” I snapped.
He shrugged, said
the customer was always right (ha!), and went to work.
After fiddling
with my body for awhile, and chanting gibberish over it, including what sounded
like garbled lyrics to several popular songs such as Pennsylvania 6-5000, and
sprinkling what looked like, and turned out to be, barbeque sauce over it, he
announced grandly that my body had been successfully brought back to life. Then
he kicked it a little to make it move briefly. He didn’t get paid either. As I
dragged my body back out onto the street again, he shouted at me that he’d turn
me into a newt if I didn’t pay. I said I bet he wouldn’t.
I tried several
other sorcerers on the same block, but it turned out the first guy I had gone
to was the best one. They were surprised I had gotten in to see him.
As I said
earlier, I don’t give up easily. But I do give up eventually. And the time had
come to admit to myself that the doctors and the fix-it shop men were probably
right. I was dead. And I wasn’t coming back. I would have to continue to walk
the Earth as a ghost until a place opened up for me in Heaven.
That was one good
thing I had gotten out of all of this. At least I knew how the afterlife worked
now. I even knew how long I had to wait. One of the ghosts in The Very Haunted
House had tipped me off that I was due to check in to Heaven in 2018. He said
we were going to be sharing the same cloud – 46B Upper Level, Next To The Fire
Door – when it became available.
I don’t know
where he got all his information, but he said my death was supposed to occur in
Germany in the summer of 2018, when I was destined to blunder into the middle
of a nuclear standoff between the superpowers and fart. So until that year
rolled around, it looked like there was nothing else for me to do but wait.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There’s something
about being a ghost that makes you want to laugh. A big graveyard laugh. You’re
dead, and that’s funny. The sun’s out but you’re not getting any warmth from
it. And there’s something funny about that too. Everything’s funny. Ha ha hoo
hoo hrrrrr! But deep down you know it’s not really a laughing matter. It’s
serious. So serious, you can’t help but laugh. Ha ha hooey hrrrr!
Since I didn’t
have any immediate use for my body, and I still didn’t feel comfortable with
the idea of burying it, I put it in storage. No point in
mainly what I was looking for. It just laid there on the hydraulic lift,
leaking oil.
I told Sid I
didn’t want my body to just look good, which it did, I wanted it to be able to
earn a living, with me inside it. He said if I wanted that I would have to pop
for a new head. I said I wouldn’t, that I thought the current head was good
enough, that it still had some wear left in it, and reminded him that the
customer was always right. He said that usually wasn’t the case in his
experience. He couldn’t remember the last time a customer was right. I said I was
thinking seriously of taking my valuable business somewhere else, and he said
he was glad to hear that. So that’s where we left it.
We argued about
the bill for awhile, an argument which I finally won by just disappearing. Sid
put my body in a storage area with a bunch of other crap that hadn’t been paid
for, but I just dragged it away that night. Score one for me.
Feeling I needed
help of a more supernatural nature than Sid, I took my body to Odd Town. I had
seen a number of occult-type characters hanging around there the last time I
was in the area - exorcists, sorcerers, you name it - all anxious to make a
quick Earthly buck. You’d think people with magical powers wouldn’t have to
work for a living in the crappiest part of town, but you would be wrong. I’ve
seen them there.
I went to the
first sorcerer I could find, and told him what I wanted. He looked at my body
doubtfully.
“I don’t…” he
began.
“I want to keep
the head,” I snapped.
He shrugged, said
the customer was always right (ha!), and went to work.
After fiddling
with my body for awhile, and chanting gibberish over it, including what sounded
like garbled lyrics to several popular songs such as Pennsylvania 6-5000, and
sprinkling what looked like, and turned out to be, barbeque sauce over it, he
announced grandly that my body had been successfully brought back to life. Then
he kicked it a little to make it move briefly. He didn’t get paid either. As I
dragged my body back out onto the street again, he shouted at me that he’d turn
me into a newt if I didn’t pay. I said I bet he wouldn’t.
I tried several
other sorcerers on the same block, but it turned out the first guy I had gone
to was the best one. They were surprised I had gotten in to see him.
As I said
earlier, I don’t give up easily. But I do give up eventually. And the time had
come to admit to myself that the doctors and the fix-it shop men were probably
right. I was dead. And I wasn’t coming back. I would have to continue to walk
the Earth as a ghost until a place opened up for me in Heaven.
That was one good
thing I had gotten out of all of this. At least I knew how the afterlife worked
now. I even knew how long I had to wait. One of the ghosts in The Very Haunted
House had tipped me off that I was due to check in to Heaven in 2018. He said
we were going to be sharing the same cloud – 46B Upper Level, Next To The Fire
Door – when it became available.
I don’t know
where he got all his information, but he said my death was supposed to occur in
Germany in the summer of 2018, when I was destined to blunder into the middle
of a nuclear standoff between the superpowers and fart. So until that year
rolled around, it looked like there was nothing else for me to do but wait.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There’s something
about being a ghost that makes you want to laugh. A big graveyard laugh. You’re
dead, and that’s funny. The sun’s out but you’re not getting any warmth from
it. And there’s something funny about that too. Everything’s funny. Ha ha hoo
hoo hrrrrr! But deep down you know it’s not really a laughing matter. It’s
serious. So serious, you can’t help but laugh. Ha ha hooey hrrrr!
Since I didn’t
have any immediate use for my body, and I still didn’t feel comfortable with
the idea of burying it, I put it in storage. No point in
Similar Books
