Clerical

Chapter Two

Barry is back in the main office with the once chirpy, now frantic, man in white. Barry sits calmly on his chair as the man in white paces backwards and forwards muttering to himself. Barry really has no idea what is going on, and the idea that all this could be some sort of morphine-driven coma-dream is still rattling through his mind. He thinks that’s most likely some sort of defense mechanism to stop him truly grasping the nature of the insanity unfolding in front of him.

The man in white continues to pace, deep in thought, occasionally running his hand through his hair or rubbing his chin. Barry’s eyes are trained on him like a hawk watching its prey.

"Excuse me?" Barry asks.

The man ignores him like he's not even there and continues with his pacing and muttering. Barry leans his head forward and raises his voice.

"Excuse me?!"

This time the man in white reacts, snapping his fingers and rushing to sit down by his computer. He starts frantically typing and clicking with a madman's smile on his face.

"Jesus Christ, Oi! Will you tell me what's going on? I feel a little bit out of the loop here and I'm getting a tiny bit f*****g aggrieved.“Barry says through gritted teeth.

The man doesn't stop typing, nor does he look away from his computer.

“Look. I'm not going to give you any more spiel, ok. I'll be quite honest with you and tell you that I’ve never actually seen this happen before. It's usually an all there, done and dusted, spiffy clean, jobs a good un', walk away kind of affair once I've given the keys over. Not this sort of rubbish.“

“Right, so you can't just get me some new furniture then?"

“That's not how-“ The man stops himself losing his temper and swallows his anger. "I'm afraid that's not how it works."

The man turns to Barry and leans in. He wants to make himself as clear as possible.

“When you die, Barry, your soul leaves your body and makes its way to either here or, you know, there. It’s very hard to explain what happens next, so I’ll try and phrase it a little simpler. You, Barry, as you stand now, are not you. You are a shell. What you see around you isn’t like earth, it’s more of an illusion crafted on what we read from your soul. The soul itself is gone, poof, it never belonged to you. We took your soul and used it to define what your experience here would be, all by what data it carried inside of it. Do you see?“

“So, kind of like a credit card? Or a traveler's check?"

“Exactly right, old bean. The problem I'm seeing is that your soul hasn't synced up with your accommodation, and therefore, it hasn't actually arrived here in heaven. Which simply must be a mistake.”

The man turns his attention to his computer again. After a moment of epic typing he stops dead in his tracks. Something on his screen has clearly taken him by surprise, and caused him to have a serious epiphany. He slowly turns his head back to Barry. His eyes squint in thought as he leans in towards him. Barry motions backwards to get away from the creepy man all up in his face.

“Well I'll be…” The man says under his breath.

Barry turns his head away from the man,“Steady on, buddy.”

The man leans back into his chair and picks up his desk phone. He dials a number in and waits for a moment.

“Good morning, Harry. Yes, I'm wondering if you could come down to my office briefly, I appear to have a little–” the man turns and smiles his familiar smile at Barry, “Situation with a client. I think it's a code 14. That's right. Thank you so much. Goodbye.”

The man lays the phone down. Barry is a little perplexed as to why this man appears completely content again; his smile is back once more as he twiddles his thumbs while the pair wait.

Barry really doesn't know what to think. Fully aware that something is going on which is not the norm here, but with little experience in being dead, has no frame of reference to which he can use. Has there been a terrible mistake that means he should be in hell? He’s surely not been that bad of a person; sure he’s made mistakes in his life but none that would merit an eternity in hell. Then again, the whole religion thing can be pretty bias against certain lifestyles.

Barry jumps in shock as the door behind him bursts open and a nearly identical man in white walks through the door. The only thing that sets these two apart is that the new one, Harry, wears glasses.

Harry slams the door shut, his eyes are wide as he pushes his glasses onto his nose. Barry is acutely aware that all attention is on himself, and the feeling that he is some sort of medical marvel or sideshow freak is front and center in his mind.

The man in white stands up as Harry steadies himself next to Barry.

“Is this the mysterious old chap-o?”Harry asks cheerily.

The man in white smiles as he retorts“Certainly is, old man. This is Barry.”

Barry rubs his face with his hands.“Oh, sweet Jesus in heaven. What now?”

“Lovely to meet you, Barry. My good friend here tells me there’s a tiny bit of trouble with your application. How are you feeling this morning?”

Barry stares at Harry for a good five seconds. He can hardly believe what he's being asked. Nobody has explained a damn thing to Barry since he arrived. He's been shepherded around like a proverbial lamb to a slaughter through this entire time-share pitch and is at his wits end.

“How do I feel? I haven't got a f*****g clue. I didn't fill in an application. All I know, Harry, is that I'm dead and something has gone wrong with my soul credit file or whatever, and now I'm in a room with Colonel Sanders and his f*****g identical twin! So, I don't know, mate. Why don't you tell me how I should be feeling?” Barry stands up off his chair and throws his hands around, dancing a little dance. “Should I feel like a million bucks?! Should I be dancing for joy?”

Barry realises the stupidity of what he's doing and immediately stops. Harry and the man in white share a little smile.

“Barry, why don't you take a seat?”The man in white suggests.

Barry sighs and sits back down with a degree of dissonance, slapping his thighs as he sets himself down. Harry sets down a large, old fashioned, brown doctors bag next to him. Barry notices the 1950s set piece and scowls. Thoughts and fears of a madman using some sort of medical equipment to rip out his eyes briefly flash through his head. This could be hell, he thinks to himself; all of the previous pleasantries could have been nothing but a rouse to tie him into this very moment.

His strange fetishes are put to the side as Harry opens his bag and pulls out his Otoscope, a tool used to examine the inside of ears. Harry uses his hands to move Barry’s head to the side and he has a good gander into his ear. The man in white watches and listens intently as Harry examines Barry while making surprised noises at what he's seeing. Eventually Harry moves away from Barry and stands up in front of him. He scratches his chin again.

“Well?”Barry asks.

Harry takes a deep breath, he walks over to the man in white and gets right to his ear. The pair start whispering a conversation that Barry can't make out. Barry's fairly certain that whatever it is they are discussing is most likely not the best news he’s likely to hear today. But, in retrospect, all of today's events has been a little out there compared to his usual morning; dishing out fried heart attacks on plates to pensioners has its moments, but it's quite distinct from being examined by some heavenly clone-doctor.

Barry leans in as close as he can to the pairs secretive conversation, stretching out his neck like a thirsty llama, but to no avail. His spying is quickly spotted by Harry, and the pair quickly turn their voices down even more. They talk over Barry's file which lays open in front of them, pointing and prodding it while talking. For a moment the pair stop talking, and the man in white covers his face with his hand. This sends Barry's heart into overdrive. What on earth have they discovered about him that he doesn't know himself?

The man in white breaks away from the conversation to use his computer. After a few moments of typing he and Harry take a hard look at the screen before their necks turn like a meercat towards Barry. The pair look at each other one more time. Harry gestures to the man in white with a nod, as if to say  'It's your turn'.

“Ok, Barry. Here's the thing.” The man in white staggers over his words. “There may have been a slight error with your application.”

Barry takes a big deep gulp. "Right."

“You see, when born, everybody is given a window of time when they are to die, and we used to have it all in this big dramatic book to work through when people hit the gates. However, when we switched to a more technological answer to processing people, we had to manually enter everybody’s death window into the computer system. And, well, errm...”

The man in white looks at Harry briefly before swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Well, it appears your death window was entered…. incorrectly. So, technically speaking, you should't actually be dead. Funny isn't it, really.”

Barry nods, frightened, confused, and angry. He scratches his head.

“Oh, yes, it's hilarious, if the gravity of the situation wasn’t so clear, I'd be worried about literally wetting myself from the comedy of it all.” Barry stands up. “So, what does all this mean? I’m dead but not dead?”

Harry walks around to the front of the desk and leans on it. He takes his glasses off.

“What it means is your soul is still in your body, back on earth. If the computer doesn’t match what it knows to be your death window then it must assume you're still alive. You are dead, Barry, but with your soul still in your body, we can’t put you in heaven. Do you understand?” Harry says calmly.

“Not in the f*****g slightest.”

Barry is visibly agitated, he puts his hands on his hips and cannot keep still.

“We're going to have to send you back.” Harry snaps.

“Excuse me? Send me back? Hasn't my body been pulverized by a double decker bus? I thought it was impossible to send me back.”

The man in white holds his hand up to interject.  "Single decker, actually.”

“Thanks, yeah. Whatever. So what, I just suddenly wake up, that mysterious incident of the man who recovered from his horrific pancake head?”

Harry gets in Barry's face, his kind demeanor gone in exchange for one of seriousness and threat.

“Look, mate. This is a very serious issue. We haven't had anything like this happen in thousands of years, and I’ll be damned if I'm having my reputation ruined over some scrotum who thinks life's a bit unfair. Your window will begin tomorrow, and within the next 5 days, we will collect you. Play ball, and we can insure you a nice safe passage when the inevitable comes, ok? f**k this up and do anything stupid and I’ll make sure it's 'noted in the files' understand?”

Barry is shocked, his face betrays his fear, and this nice kind man snapping at him reminds him of his mother yelling at him over Lego when he was five.

“Sure. Okay, no bother. Keep your knickers on. But what do I tell people?”

Harry laughs. “Don't worry about the how, just keep it shut and die when the time comes like a good little boy.”

Harry puts his hand on Barry's shoulder and his vision is immediately filled with that big bright white light again.

This time it isn’t as pleasant. That initial feeling, he had of pure bliss and ecstasy is replaced by dread, and the impression of falling a great distance makes his stomach turn to the point where he could vomit.

Thankfully, for Barry, this sensation is short lived, and suddenly all he can see is black. Nothing but black.

The silence that had become so common for the past few minutes slowly drifts away to the slow mechanical beep of a heart monitor. Slowly, more and more sounds come to Barry: feet screeching on a polished floor, unhealthy guttural coughing, talking.

As his vision begins to return, the blurry sight of a hospital begins to come into focus. He feels weak and dazed, but he knows where he is. Did they really send him back? Is this some other afterlife?

Or is morphine just one hell of dream-maker?