"Hi! My name is Todd Tulcod and I'm coming live to you from the otherworldly desert!" I screamed the last few words loudly. My increasing volume reflected my ever mounting annoyance, frustration and anger at the situation.

My hand had dropped from miming a mic near my face to righteous fists, pointed upward and clenched tighter than the one pickle jar you could never get opened, ready to deck whatever god thought this was a funny joke. My face had devolved from the standard good guy - reliable news anchor smiling face to the angry face a mother puts on when she finds her child scribbling on the "once in a lifetime, lucky garage sale find" type, mostly white painting, with a few dots haphazardly dropped and scattered against the white canvas... I don't sound bitter do I? Well if I do, I am definitely not bitter about the painting. If I am bitter, it's because I opened my eyes in a scorching hot desert! With nothing but lava like sand for as far as the eye can see!

To the North? Sand. To The South? Sand. To the East? Sand. To the West? Sand, in the shape of a cactus in the distance. It's sand everywhere.... Wait, why is the sand in the shape of a cactus? I formed binoculars with my hand and looked to the West. ( I don't know if it's actually West). Through my hand-binoculars I could definitely confirm that there was some shape that from this distance looked like a light brown cactus.

"It looks really far away though." I muttered to myself, trying to do mental math to figure out how big something would have to be for me to see it at this distance and assume it was plant life.

I looked around where I was standing. I had only been awake for a few moments, before I filmed my episode of the Morning Todd show. Thinking back, I'd jumped into my live broadcast very quickly. I didn't really take a proper look at my surroundings. The optimal move when I got up would have been to look around and start finding my way out of this mess, but instead I decided to chew the scenery. That caliber of performance probably wouldn't land me my own survival show.

With my left hand on my chin, I pondered my situation as I walked towards what I thought was a cactus. I started to think back on my circumstances; I got a job half way across the world, I said goodbye to friends and family and everything I knew, I got on a plane, I watched a few superhero movies that were on the inflight selection, I saw that the plane was traveling over a desert region on the inflight flight tracker, we hit sudden turbulence, the plane was engulfed in an aurora, we started going down, oxygen masks dropped out of the compartments then- nothing.

I stopped in my tracks and once more I looked around where I was standing. A 360 degrees spin, with an extra 720 degree rotation for good measure. I looked up to the sky. Yup. The sky was not a normal color. In fact it kind of looked like a kaleidoscope made up of various tints of blue. I'm pretty sure I spotted a color I've never seen before for a split second, but that one may have been the heat getting to me. I look ahead of me once again and stand in silence.

"I'm dead."

I fell to the ground like the words falling out of my mouth.

"I'M DEAD!!!" I yelled the proclamation of my current lack of life so loudly I'm surprised I didn't startle myself back to life.

Rivers of tears and snot poured from the appropriate orifices, accompanied by my cries and panting gasps for hot air; it was not the prettiest sight I think. I was on the ground on all fours, watching my tears soak the sand beneath for a second or two at most before disappearing.

"Much like my fleeting life."

I said that while trying to compare my disappearing tears to my life but I don't think the comparison was apt after thinking about it for a tad longer. I stood up on my knees, I was now kneeling on scorching hot sand looking at the kaleidoscope sky.

"I don't want to be dead, but it makes so much sense that I am," I started talking to my grief stricken self, "The plane was going down then all of a sudden I wake up? No wreckage in sight, under a weird sky?" I looked back at the spot I started trekking from a few seconds ago and continued, " Filming an episode of my imaginary show? Why would I even do that, there's no one watching." At the moment I stopped my current grief train in its tracks. "No one's watching me right?" I looked around as I questioned my surroundings then looked up at the weird sky.

"If this is the afterlife there must be some kind of thing that facilitates it." That bit I said in a low voice. "This isn't funny, whatever God rules this hell hole!" That bit I said loudly towards the sky and continued, "What kind of absolute sadistic jerk monster torturer kills a guy by driving his plane into a desert and then plops him into a deserted afterlife? Did I really screw life that hard that I have to spend the rest of my after years in the place that I died by hitting it at thousands of miles per hour?!" I was really screaming at the sky now, so much so I was panting trying to catch my breath. But the breath was hot and it forced a few more tears out as it scorched my lungs.

" This is pretty brutal, guy. Making me feel pain as if I was alive." I shouted again as I wiped the sweat off my brow. It was really hot and this was a miserable revelation that was now inviting a headache.

"Okay, gonna keep yelling, I just need to find shade. Gonna do that very quickly!" True to my word, I scampered off in the direction of the weird cactus like structure in more of a hurry than before, all the while, coming up with new insults that I could lob at the powers that be. A few dozen minutes later I reached the strange structure. As it turns out, sand cactus was a really good descriptor, it was quite literally sand bricks arranged in the shape of a cactus. Well, mostly. I'd say it was caked sand? It was like if someone tried to build an ice castle but instead they arranged blocks into a seven feet tall, roughly two feet radius at the base cactus.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Well I'm not gonna pick a fight with a cactus."I said as started trying to dig into the base.

My idea was, I was going to hollow it out and sit inside to hide from the sun, which now that I thought about, I could not see in the sky. I looked up once again just to make sure I hadn't missed it behind some shifting blue.

"Nope, no sun up there. You run a real strange afterlife up there, Lord of the Afterlife! Hope you know that." I continued trying to claw my way into the cactus after leaving my review. I was impressed that it could be so bright without a sun, but I wasn't going to let the boss know that. A few moments later I broke through. It seems that the cactus was already hollow on the inside! This small victory motivated me and I quickly continued tearing down the wall that kept me from glorious shade. As it turned out, the wall was maybe only a foot thick. The sand was held together firmly enough that the whole structure didn't collapse but it was still only sand clumps. Enough effort and anyone could dig through.

Once I made a big enough hole, I scampered inside and let out a huge sigh. I noted that I had to be careful however. I didn't want to rest my back on a wall only for it to give out under my weight. It was sand after all. So I did what anyone else would and lied in the fetal position. I was so quick to comfort myself and make myself feel safe that I forgot the purpose of why I came looking for shade. While still in fetal position, I squirmed to try to orient myself to get my head closest to the entrance; I was essentially trying to rotate my body so that my head would land where my feet currently were. It was not the most dignified maneuver, some could even call it lazy, but why should I care. I'm dead. Dignity isn't something that concerns me anymore and laziness is just another word for efficient.

I had now reached my desired spot and had a clear view of the sky which I was quickly growing fond of - there was just always some spectacle going on up there. I'm not sure if it was the sky, the victorious feeling from getting shade or because of my own self loathing of how quickly I threw away my dignity, but I felt like my tone was about to change.

"So, big guy," I scratched my chin as I pondered my current status, secured safely in fetal position, "I think I learned my lesson. I mean, I don't really know what it was. And I'm just saying that in the spirit of honesty, but I'd be pretty happy if we can just move past this. Maybe you can reincarnate me into my next life or something or you know, at the very least you could change the scenery. Maybe go to one of the more popular heavens?"

I stared at the sky for a bit, looking for some change; which was hard in all honesty. It's hard to pick out the meaningful change when the colors are swirling together all the time.

" ..... I promise I'll be good. I won't yell at you. I'm sorry for before. It's just you know, I died and then woke up on the wrong side of the sand. Can you really blame me?"

Again I waited. And nothing came.

"Okay you know what, you can really blame me, my fault. I'm the idiot that did a live broadcast before trying to find shelter, but I really think that's because my brain was cooked a bit in the heat. Not an excuse, I know, but I feel we should be fair here and just understand why things are occurring the way they are."

And again I waited and nothing came. Not even a breeze. Finally I asked the question that I held back out of fear of confirmation.

"God, are you there?"

Again I waited, and nothing came. That question broke the dam again and tears started rolling out, dampening the shadowed sand.

"Of course he's not there. It's just me. Me and my lonesome." I could really feel my heart now or rather the pit that was widening in it.

"My life was supposed to be good now, it was supposed to stabilize a bit. I finally got a start on my career, it was gonna pay well, I had to leave everyone I knew but I was gonna come back in a few years with all the money and was going to be a family hero," my crying didn't distort my words too much but it did make it a bit harder to breathe, "That's not why I'm going through this now right? I thought I was making the right choices. Did I really screw up? Did I choose wrong?"

I asked the sky again and again nothing came, but in that ever changing yet never changing sky I found solace. It didn't care about me, it just continued. Doing whatever you could call whatever it was doing. I found some comfort in that. I sniffed up my tears and snot and resolved myself.

"Yeah, I'm dead. So what? Nothing I can do about it now. What I can do though is try to make my time in this hell easier. And you know what, at least now I know the afterlife is real. That's worth something maybe." I said, with a smug smile on face while clutching my legs as is customary in the fetal position.

"Well I'm tired, all that dying and walking really wiped me out. Might as well go to sleep for awhile. It's not like I have anything else to do. Maybe there's even a nighttime in the afterlife."I looked back outside to the sky and nodded.

"Good night sky! See you in a bit." And with that final utterance I very quickly drifted to sleep.