“Well, the long and short of it is that you’re dead.” She said to me, adjusting her glasses.

“Huh.” I replied, scratching my beard.

“You know, most of the people that come through here are a bit more shocked, or angry, or disappointed or whatever. For a dead person, you’re surprisingly calm.” She observed, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs.

When were we sitting down? Where did the chair come from?

Suddenly we were in some sort of corner office. How did that happen? Was this her doing?

“Well, I gave- eh, hmm.” I stopped as I tried to sort out my thoughts. It was important to think before you spoke, and when you spoke, you needed to say things clearly, without room for misinterpretation.

“My life was filled with fifty years of disappointment and frustration.” I finally replied. “It’s like the joke of realizing you’re in the ‘dystopian timeline’.”

She gave me a small smile. “You actually were in the dystopian timeline. You were in the timeline where ‘let’s always make the worst choice’ was the label.”

I let out a despirited sigh. “I thought so.” I rolled my eyes.

She leaned forward in her chair a little and set down a few sheets of paper she hadn’t been holding before.

“In another timeline, you’re a lot happier.” She continued, “And much less cynical.”

I gave her an eyeroll. “Sorry to disappoint, then.”

She laughed. “You’re not a disappointment. You are exactly who you are, nothing more or less. That’s how these things work.”

“So... I’m dead.” I prompted.

She nodded.

“What happens next?” I asked.

“Well, normally you’d be recycled back into your world, your reality, your timeline.” She remarked, waving into being an indescribable mass of lights and webs of threads that seemed to seethe and shimmer in ways that immediately made me feel like throwing up.

“It seems you’re still stuck in perceiving things in three perceivable dimensions.” She observed.

I shrugged and held my hands up in surrender. “Length, breadth, depth, time.” I offered. “I can sort of understand parallel worlds, time travel, and things like that because I saw a lot of sci-fi growing up, but... Sorry, I guess I’m too mundane to grasp... whatever that was.”

She laughed gently. “I expected as much. Do you know about probability and causality?” She asked, propping her elbows on her desk and resting her chin on one of her hands.

There was a certain eager smugness to her expression, as if she couldn’t wait to put one over on me.

However, as she pointed out, I am a cynical asshole.

“Why don’t you tell me, since we’ve apparently got time for it?” I asked.

“Well, the deterministic event was when you changed lanes, here.” She waved a screen with an overhead view of my car cutting someone off.

“Ugh. Not my favorite moment. But, to be fair, she was being kind of a cunt. You’re not supposed to be fucking around on your phone while driving.” I complained as the woman in the car had to brake suddenly.

I knew what was going to happen next. My car would be swiped by a tanker truck a little further up ahead, and then I’d be dead.

The woman smiled enigmatically. “If you hadn’t cut that woman off, you’d be alive.” She pointed out, and then the screen zoomed out; a few car lengths back there was a school bus filled with kids.

“See? You live, but the bus of children collides with the tanker truck instead, and all of them die in a happy fireball.” She exclaimed as they did just that. “But you cut that lady off, forcing her to slow down, which in turn forced the bus to slow down-” She explained, but I shook my head and flapped my hand. “I get it, I get it, I get it.”

“It was the best choice for you.” she encouraged. “You sacrificed yourself. Thirty two children lived.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “Let’s be real here- really real, without the candy coating.” I stated flatly.

She smiled predatorily at me. “Yes, let’s.”

“I didn’t do it for them. It wasn’t a noble sacrifice. I didn’t even know that the bus was back there.” I explained. “I did a dickhole thing, I got squished, and here I am, explaining things...” I stopped. “To myself? Is this a hallucination? Am I in a coma? Some sort of last-minute brain-fart while I bleed out?”

She laughed, then.

“Oh, I’m afraid you’re quite dead.” she explained, and the picture changed and showed the ass-end of the tanker truck swing into the right side of my car, mashing the left side of my car into the divider. The front of my car shredded and crumpled, the driver’s side door popped open from the pressure, and my body was dragged out and pressed into the median, leaving a long, long garish streak of blood.

“That’s you.” She pointed out.

“Yep, that’s me.” I replied sourly. “Human crayon.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I looked up at her. “Am I on trial here?”

She laughed. “You’re not on trial. You could be, you know. There are gods that like to do that. Judged for the crimes you committed, for the crimes you thought of committing, judged for the crimes you might have committed, judged for the good things you’ve done, weighing your heart with a feather,” she waved her hand, “such and so forth.”

“So...” I trailed off expectantly.

“Would you like to try a different world, with a different timeline?” She asked curiously.

“Are you a god? Can you do things like that?” I asked dubiously.

“I’m not a god, I’m an administrator. And yes I can.” She replied.

“Why me?” I asked. “The bus? The thing with the kids?” I asked.

She waved her hand in denial. “Not really, no. I just wanted you to know what did happen, and what would have happened if you didn’t.”

“You’re still not telling me why.” I prodded. Her ambiguity was starting to irritate me.

“Okay, so if we’re being really real here, I want to see what happens when I put someone from a different world, reality, timeline into a completely different one.” She explained.

“...that’s it?” I replied numbly.

She nodded. “That’s it.” and then touched a corner of her mouth. “If that doesn’t appeal to you, I can always throw you back into the one you came from. Disappointing, frustrating, dismal. Watching the same idiots making the same stupid choices, over and over again, always opting for the worst result, always-”

I cut her off.

“I fucking get it, alright?” I complained. Her face brightened. “Great! Would you like to talk about a starting package?”

I gave her a dubious look. “Starting package?”

She nodded. “It’s a completely different world with a completely different timeline.” She explained, and then made a seesaw gesture with her hand. “...sort of. You’ll be human, of course.”

Hmmm.

“So... what sort of ... options will I have?” I asked.

“Oh, right!” She exclaimed. “Do you want to be a hero? You could save the world!”

I grimaced a little. “Euuugh. No... I don’t think so.”

She eyed me askance. “If you ask me, I think you have what it takes to be a hero.” She complained.

I shrugged. “I’m fifty years old, I don’t think I have much room for heroics left in me.”

She laughed. “You’ll be starting over from birth. Can’t just plop you down there. The multiverse would shit itself to death if I did that.” She explained.

“Hmmm. I’m making choices about my life there, right?” I prodded.

She nodded helpfully.

“I’d like to be healthy.” I offered. “No cancers, no kidney problems, no arthritis, no-” I started listing off the things I’d been through, but she cut me off.

“Deal.” She agreed. A tiny pink triangle appeared on the desk- a four-sided polyhedron. “Next?” She urged.

“Sky’s the limit?” I asked.

She nodded.

“I really, really like playing guitar.” I admitted. “I’d like to know- I’d like to know every song that can be played. Like, past, present, future- and I’d like a guitar to play them on.”

She smiled. “I like that.” She agreed. “Music is the mathematics of the universe, did you know that?” She offered. “In the reality I’m sending you to, I am considered the Goddess of Order. You can offer your praises to me by playing your music.”

A red cube appeared in front of her. “Next?” she prompted.

“Hmmm. I don’t know anything about the world I’m getting into.” I replied. “Tell me a little about it?” I prompted.

She laughed. “I suppose in your terms it would be considered a fantasy world, because it’s got magic and the like.” She paused. “I know: I’ll make it so you can use magic to summon your guitar. That’ll cover the whole messy bit of having to deal with fixing it, tuning it, getting new strings...” She flipped her hand to indicate the numerous problems that I’d encounter if I wasn’t able to summon it.

“Is it dangerous?” I asked.

She nodded. “Just as dangerous as any other world.” She replied. “Moreso, given its current technological level, and the various races in it.”

“How about-” I paused. “Well, actually, there’s some games I’ve played, you know, fantasy and the like, where-”

She laughed. “You don’t have to say any more. I can read your mind, after all. When you play your music you can help your friends or hinder your foes.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Healing too?” I asked. She shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

An orange eight-sided polygon appeared on her desk.

“Anything else?” She asked.

“I’m not terribly good with combat, but it might be necessary.” I mused.

She nodded. “Combat happens quite often, there. Your guitar won’t be able to get you out of everything, I’m afraid.”

“Shop smart. Shop S-mart.” I muttered, and she laughed.

“You want a gun?” She prompted.

“Sure, why not?” I asked.

“Sure, why not.” She agreed. “It’ll also be magical, otherwise you’ll run out of ammunition really quick.”

A glowing yellow ten-sided polyhedron appeared on the desk.

“Would you like a friend?” She asked curiously.

“Isn’t that something that I can do for myself?” I asked, confused.

“Well, of course!” She exclaimed. “I’m just suggesting that with a little tweaking of causality, you’ll start out with one.”

“I... guess?” I agreed dubiously. A glowing green twelve-sided polyhedron appeared on her desk.

“Don’t worry, I think you’ll love them.” She encouraged.

I let out a breath. “Will- will I be me?” I asked. “Will I remember all of...” I gestured around to the office.

She caught her breath. “That’s... that’s actually a pretty tall order. When you die and get recycled, everything is completely stripped from you.” She paused. “You stop being yourself.”

I sighed.

“There’s also the biological restriction.” She explained. “I can’t put fifty years of memories into an infant’s brain, and then expect you to be able to take on an additional lifetime’s worth of experiences.” She shook her head. “Wouldn’t work. Your brain would cook in your skull.”

“I really... I really want to be me.” I whispered. “Call it pride or arrogance, but... really, I think it’s fear.” I explained.

She took a breath. “You’ll definitely be ‘you’.” She offered by way of comfort.

After a long pause, she finally sighed, and a violet twenty-sided polyhedron appeared on her desk. “I tell you what: If you pray to me at my temple when you turn... say, fifteen or so, I’ll return your knowledge.”

Knowledge?

“Not my memories?” I asked. She looked at me askance. “Do you really want to remember-” She gestured, and a screen popped up, a frozen image, a memory I didn’t want to remember. A horrid, hurtful thing that had happened a long time ago. “Is this something you really need in a new world, in a new life?” She asked quietly.

I shook my head. “Then yeah: all of the knowledge I’ve gained through my life here. Math, science, blah blah blah.”

She nodded.

Things were starting to get dark.

“One last thing:” She added as everything went black. Her voice seemed to come from a very long tunnel.

“Try not to forget me.”