Disclaimer: This short story is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. No reference to any person is intended or should be inferred.
Movin' on
Bobby couldn’t remember feeling like this ever before – light and airy, no small aches and pains, in fact, nothing at all. It felt good, actually, until he saw his body sprawled on the floor of the gym. Then, he noticed the blood, and realized that this was not good at all. He must be injured; the blood was still running from his head. He had to call for help, but there was no one around and he didn’t seem to be able to move very far from his body. He felt sure that this must mean that he was still alive. Weren’t you supposed to move into the light, or something, when you died?
Someone was coming. That was good; they could call an ambulance, and then he’d be okay. It was one of the cleaners, the female one. She started work after everyone else had left for the evening. She approached his body, and began to scream. Bobby was annoyed. Screaming wasn’t going to help him. He obviously needed an ambulance. Meanwhile, the cleaner had put her hands to her face, turned, and had run (still screaming) from the room. Suddenly, Bobby found that he could run after her. Did that mean that he had died while she wasted time? He went back to check on his body. He was dead all right. He felt no connection with what now seemed like a piece of meat wearing a fitness outfit, and lying on the floor. Stupid cleaner, but she hadn’t killed him really. His favourite award, a small statue that he always carried in his gym bag for luck, was lying next to his corpse (nasty word, he thought). Someone must have hit him on the back of the head with it, but who, and why? He couldn’t remember anything.
He settled gracefully on the floor. As a live dancer, even when he was competing, he had never been so supple, so graceful. This part was great; the rest of being dead might not be. For example, why was he still here? Why hadn’t he gone to Heaven, or Hell, or wherever else you were supposed to go? Where was Saint Peter when you really needed him? Another problem was that no one could see him; the cleaner hadn’t anyway. He sat and waited to see what would happen next.
Someone somewhere had called 911. The police arrived just ahead of the paramedics. After checking for vital signs, and finding none, the paramedics left everything to the police. Bobby became bored with the proceedings. He’d seen enough police shows on TV to know what came next, and he didn’t really want to watch them manhandling his beautiful former body, and discussing it with what seemed to him to be very macabre humour. He decided to explore the rest of the building, and see if he could actually leave it.
He’d once read that murder victims were sometimes permanently tied to the site of their actual deaths. He hoped not; he’d didn’t want to haunt a fitness centre, especially a community fitness centre – how tasteless. Even more especially, he didn’t want to haunt a fitness center run by the unholy trio, Averil, Phoebe, and Belinda. To him, that would be a form of Hell. He had had to suck up to them when he was alive because they had controlled the contract that he was under to teach dancercise classes. What if he was tied here with them until they each died, or retired? This was a truly horrible thought. Although each of the three women weighed at least 80 pounds more than she should, they didn’t seem in any danger of expiring, and since they were all still in middle age, none of them was likely to retire any time soon either. Why hadn’t someone killed one of them? Everyone was nice enough to their faces, but he doubted if they were actually well liked. They were bullies. And what about Mouth Almighty, Zena, another fat, pushy woman with more power than she could handle? He’d have to see (and worse) hear her every day until the interfering old biddy died. Maybe this was Hell, after all. Maybe his little peccadilloes had finally caught up with him.
As he made his way to the front door, Bobby began to feel as if he were being stretched. There was no pain, it just felt odd, well, even odder than being dead did, although he guessed that, given time, he’d get used to being dead. When he tried to move beyond the front door, everything stopped. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t move forward; he didn’t even know where forward was. He stepped back a few paces (this he could do), and began to feel better. He now knew where he was. He also knew that what they said about ghosts (he might as well admit that he was a ghost) was true. They were stuck where they died until… until what? This was definitely not his idea of an acceptable eternity. Perhaps once the police solved his murder, he would be free to leave. As he was pondering this, they wheeled his body straight through him and out the front door causing yet another weird sensation. There seemed to be a lot to learn about being dead..........
If you'd like to read the rest of this story you can now download it for free, in several different formats, even if you don't have a Kindle. You'll find it here: http://smashwords.com/b/237463
It's free on iTunes too.
Bobby couldn’t remember feeling like this ever before – light and airy, no small aches and pains, in fact, nothing at all. It felt good, actually, until he saw his body sprawled on the floor of the gym. Then, he noticed the blood, and realized that this was not good at all. He must be injured; the blood was still running from his head. He had to call for help, but there was no one around and he didn’t seem to be able to move very far from his body. He felt sure that this must mean that he was still alive. Weren’t you supposed to move into the light, or something, when you died?
Someone was coming. That was good; they could call an ambulance, and then he’d be okay. It was one of the cleaners, the female one. She started work after everyone else had left for the evening. She approached his body, and began to scream. Bobby was annoyed. Screaming wasn’t going to help him. He obviously needed an ambulance. Meanwhile, the cleaner had put her hands to her face, turned, and had run (still screaming) from the room. Suddenly, Bobby found that he could run after her. Did that mean that he had died while she wasted time? He went back to check on his body. He was dead all right. He felt no connection with what now seemed like a piece of meat wearing a fitness outfit, and lying on the floor. Stupid cleaner, but she hadn’t killed him really. His favourite award, a small statue that he always carried in his gym bag for luck, was lying next to his corpse (nasty word, he thought). Someone must have hit him on the back of the head with it, but who, and why? He couldn’t remember anything.
He settled gracefully on the floor. As a live dancer, even when he was competing, he had never been so supple, so graceful. This part was great; the rest of being dead might not be. For example, why was he still here? Why hadn’t he gone to Heaven, or Hell, or wherever else you were supposed to go? Where was Saint Peter when you really needed him? Another problem was that no one could see him; the cleaner hadn’t anyway. He sat and waited to see what would happen next.
Someone somewhere had called 911. The police arrived just ahead of the paramedics. After checking for vital signs, and finding none, the paramedics left everything to the police. Bobby became bored with the proceedings. He’d seen enough police shows on TV to know what came next, and he didn’t really want to watch them manhandling his beautiful former body, and discussing it with what seemed to him to be very macabre humour. He decided to explore the rest of the building, and see if he could actually leave it.
He’d once read that murder victims were sometimes permanently tied to the site of their actual deaths. He hoped not; he’d didn’t want to haunt a fitness centre, especially a community fitness centre – how tasteless. Even more especially, he didn’t want to haunt a fitness center run by the unholy trio, Averil, Phoebe, and Belinda. To him, that would be a form of Hell. He had had to suck up to them when he was alive because they had controlled the contract that he was under to teach dancercise classes. What if he was tied here with them until they each died, or retired? This was a truly horrible thought. Although each of the three women weighed at least 80 pounds more than she should, they didn’t seem in any danger of expiring, and since they were all still in middle age, none of them was likely to retire any time soon either. Why hadn’t someone killed one of them? Everyone was nice enough to their faces, but he doubted if they were actually well liked. They were bullies. And what about Mouth Almighty, Zena, another fat, pushy woman with more power than she could handle? He’d have to see (and worse) hear her every day until the interfering old biddy died. Maybe this was Hell, after all. Maybe his little peccadilloes had finally caught up with him.
As he made his way to the front door, Bobby began to feel as if he were being stretched. There was no pain, it just felt odd, well, even odder than being dead did, although he guessed that, given time, he’d get used to being dead. When he tried to move beyond the front door, everything stopped. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t move forward; he didn’t even know where forward was. He stepped back a few paces (this he could do), and began to feel better. He now knew where he was. He also knew that what they said about ghosts (he might as well admit that he was a ghost) was true. They were stuck where they died until… until what? This was definitely not his idea of an acceptable eternity. Perhaps once the police solved his murder, he would be free to leave. As he was pondering this, they wheeled his body straight through him and out the front door causing yet another weird sensation. There seemed to be a lot to learn about being dead..........
If you'd like to read the rest of this story you can now download it for free, in several different formats, even if you don't have a Kindle. You'll find it here: http://smashwords.com/b/237463
It's free on iTunes too.