 Do you want to hear a story? This is Brand new so I don't know if it's any good or not, but it's called it has a very Stephen King title. It's called afterlife William Andrews an investment banker with Goldman Sachs dies on the afternoon of September 23rd 2012 it is an expected death his wife and adult children are at his bedside That evening when she finally allows herself some time alone away from the steady stream of family and condolence visitors Lynn Andrews calls her oldest friend who still lives in Milwaukee It was Sally Freeman who introduced her to bill and if anyone deserves to know about the last 60 seconds of their marriage. It's Sally He was out of it for most of the last week the drugs but conscious at the end His eyes were open and he saw me he smiled I took his hand and he squeezed it a little I bent over and kissed his cheek when I straightened up again He was gone She has been waiting for hours to say this and with it said she bursts into tears Her assumption that the smile was for her is natural enough, but mistaken as he is looking up at his wife and three Grown children they seem impossibly tall creatures of angelic good health in happening a world. He is now departing Bill feels the pain he has lived with for the past 18 months leave his body It pours out like slop from a bucket. So we smiles With the pain gone as little left his body feels as light as a fluff of milkweed His wife takes his hand reaching down from her tall and healthy world He has reserved a little bit of strength, which he now expands by squeezing her fingers. She bends down She is going to kiss him Before her lips can touch his skin a hole appears in the center of his vision It's not a black hole, but a white one. It spreads Obliterating the only world. He's known since 1956 when he was born in the small Hemingford County Hospital in Nebraska During the last year Bill has read a great deal about the passage from life to death on His computer always careful to obliterate the history so as not to upset Lynn who is constantly and Unrealistically upbeat and while most of it struck him as bullshit the so-called white light Phenomenon seemed quite plausible For one thing it has been reported in all cultures for another it has a smidgen of scientific credibility One theory he's read suggests the white light comes as a result of the sudden cessation of blood flow to the brain Another more elegant posits that the brain is performing a final global scan in an effort to find an experience comparable to dying or It may just be a final firework Whatever the cause Bill Andrews is now experiencing it the white light obliterates his family and the airy room From which the mortuary assistance will soon remove his sheeted breathless body In his researches, he became familiar with the acronym NDE standing for near-death experience in many of these experiences The white light becomes a tunnel at the end of which stand beckoning family members who have already died or friends or angels or Jesus or some other beneficent deity Bill expects no welcoming committee what he expects is for the final firework to fade to the blackness of oblivion But that doesn't happen when the brilliance dims. He's not in heaven or hell He's in a hallway He supposes it could be purgatory a hallway painted industrial green and floored and scuffed and dirty tile Could very well serve as purgatory But only if it went on forever this one ends 20 feet down at a door with a sign on it reading Isaac Harris manager Bill stands Bill stands where he is for a few moments inventorying himself He's wearing the pajamas he died in least he assumes he died and he's barefooted But there's no sign of the cancer that first tasted his body then gobbled it But that down to nothing but skin and skeleton He looks to be back at about 190 which was his fighting weight slightly soft belly granted before the cancer struck He feels his buttocks in the small of his back. The bed sores are gone Nice He takes a deep breath and exhales without coughing even nicer He walks a little way down the hall on his left is a fire extinguisher with a peculiar Graffito above it better late than never On his right is a bulletin board on this a number of photographs have been pinned the old-fashioned kind with Decal edges above them is a hand-printed banner reading company picnic 1956 what fun we had Bill examines the photographs which show executives secretaries office personnel and a gaggle of romping kids There's a there are guys tending a barbecue one wearing the obligatory joke toke Guys and gals tossing horseshoes guys and gals playing bally ball Guys and gals swimming in a lake the guys are wearing bathing suits that look almost obscenely short and tight To his 21st century eye, but very few are carrying big guts They have 50s physiques bill thinks the gals are wearing those old-fashioned Esther Williams tank suits the kind that make women look as if not as if they have buttocks But only a kind of cleftness bulge above the backs of their thighs Hot dogs are being consumed Beer is being drunk. Everyone appears to be having a wail of a good time In one of the pictures he sees Richie Blankmore's father handing Ann-Marie Winkler a toasted marshmallow This is ridiculous because Richie's dad was a truck driver and never went to a company picnic in his life Ann-Marie was a girl. He dated in college in another photo He sees Bobby Tisdale a college classmate from the early 70s Bobby who referred to himself as Tis the whiz died of a heart attack while still in his 30s He was probably on earth in 1956 But would have been in kindergarten or the first grade not drinking beer on the shore of Lake whatever In this picture the whiz looks about 20, which would have been his age when Bill knew him In a third picture Eddie Scarpone's mom is baffing a volleyball Eddie was Bill's best friend when the family moved from Nebraska to Paramus, New Jersey and Gina Scarpone once glimpsed sunning herself on the patio and filming white panties and nothing else Was one of Bill's favorite fantasies when he was still on his masturbation learners permit The guy in the joke toke is Ronald Reagan Bill looks closely his nose almost pressing against the black-and-white photo and there can be no doubt The 40th president of the United States is flipping burgers at a company picnic. What company though? Where exactly is he? His euphoria at being whole again and pain-free is fading what replaces it as a growing sense of dislocation and unease Seeing these familiar people in photographs doesn't make sense and the fact that he doesn't know the majority of them offers Marginal comfort at best He looks behind him and see stairs leading up to another door printed on this one in large block red letters is locked That leaves only mr. Harris's office Bill walks down there hesitates knocks. It's open Bill walks in Beside a cluttered desk stands a fellow in baggy high-waisted suit pants held up by Suspenders his brown hair is plastered to his skull and parted in the middle He wears rimless glasses the walls are covered with invoices and corning leg art cheesecake picks That make Bill think of the trucking company Richie Blankmore's dad worked for he went there a few times with Richie And the dispatch office looked like this According to the calendar on one wall. It's March of 1911, which makes no more sense than 1956 To Bill's right as he enters there's a door to his left is another There are no windows, but a glass tube comes out of the ceiling and dangles over a Dan Ducks laundry basket The basket is filled with a heap of yellow sheets that look like more like invoices or maybe their memos Files are piled two feet high on the chair in front of the desk Bill Anderson isn't it the man goes behind the desk and sits down. There's no offer to shake hands Andrews right and I'm Harris Here you are again Andrews Given all Bill's research on dying this comment actually makes sense And it's a relief as long as he doesn't have to come back as a dung beetle or something So it's reincarnation. Is that the deal? Isaac Harris sighs you always ask the same thing and I always give the same answer Not really I'm dead aren't I do you feel dead? No, but I saw the white light. Ah, yes The famous white light there you were and here you are Wait a minute. Just hold the phone Harris breezes through the papers on his desk doesn't find what he wants and starts opening drawers From one of them he takes a few more folders and selects one. He opens it flips a page or two and nods Just refreshing myself a bit investment banker, aren't you? Yes wife three kids two sons one daughter correct Apologies, I have hundreds of pilgrims and it's hard to keep them straight I keep meaning to put these folders in some sort of order, but that's really a secretarial job Since they've never provided me with one Who is they? No idea all communications come via the tube He taps it the tube sways then stills runs on compressed air latest thing Bill picks up the folders on the client's chair and looks at the man behind the desk eyebrows raised Just put him on the floor Harris says that'll do for now one of these days. I really am going to get organized If there are days Probably are nights too, but who can say for sure no windows in here as you will have noticed also no clocks Bill sits down. Why call me a pilgrim if it's not reincarnation Harris leans back and laces his hands behind his neck He looks up at the pneumatic tube, which probably was the latest thing at some time or other say around 1911 Although bill supposes such things might still have been in use around 1956 Harris shakes his head and chuckles although not in an amused way If you only knew how weary some you guys become According to the files, this is our 15th visit I've never been here in my life bill says he considers this except it's Not my life. Is it it's my afterlife actually It's mine You're the pilgrim not me you and the other bozos who parade in and out of here You'll use one of the doors and go I stay There's no bathroom here because I no longer have to perform toilet functions There's no bedroom because I no longer have to sleep All I do is sit around and visit with you traveling bozos You come in you ask the same questions and I give the same answers. That's my afterlife Sound exciting Bill who has encountered all the theological ins and outs during his final research project decides he had the right idea While he was still in the hall You're talking about purgatory Oh, no doubt the only question I have is how long I'll be staying I'd like to tell you I'll eventually go mad if I can't move on But I don't think I can do that anymore than I can take a shitter at app I know my name means nothing to you But we've discussed this before not every time you show up but on several occasions He waves an arm with enough force to cause some of the invoices tacked on the wall to flutter this is Or was I'm not sure which is actually correct my earthly office In 1911 just so I'd ask you if you know what a shirt waste is bill But since I know you don't I'll tell you a woman's blouse At the turn of the century I and my partner max blank owned a business called the triangle shirt waste company Profitable business, but the women who worked there were a large pain in the hindering All was sneaking out to smoke and this was worse Stealing stuff which they would put in their purses or tuck up under their skirts So We locked the doors to keep them in during their shifts and searched them on their way out Long story short the damn place caught on fire one day Max and I escaped by going up to the roof and down the fire escape Many of the women were not so lucky Although let's be honest and admit It was a lot of blame to go around Smoking was strictly verboten, but plenty of them did it anyway, and it was a cigarette that started the blaze Fire marshal said so max and I were tried for manslaughter and acquitted Bill recalls the fire extinguisher in the hall with better late than never printed above it He thinks you were found guilty in the retrial mr. Harris, or you wouldn't be here How many women died? 146 harris says and I regret everyone mr. Anderson Bill doesn't bother correcting him on the name 20 minutes ago. He was dying in his bed Now he is fascinated by this old story, which he has never heard before that he remembers anyway Not long after max and I got down the fire escape the women crammed onto it the damn thing couldn't take the weight It collapsed and spilled two dozen of them a hundred feet to the cobblestones. They all died 40 more jumped from the ninth and tenth floor windows. Some were on fire. They all died too The fire brigade got there with life nets, but the women tore right through them and exploded on the pavement like bags filled with blood A terrible sight mr. Anderson terrible others jumped down the elevator shafts, but most just burned Like 9-11 with fewer casualties So you always say And you're here Yes, indeedy I sometimes wonder how many men are sitting in offices just like this women too I'm sure there are women. I've always been forward looking and see no reason why women can't fill low level executive positions and admirably All of us answering the same questions and sending on the same pilgrims You'd think that the load would lighten a little each time one of you decides to use the right hand door Instead of that one. He points to the left, but no no A fresh canister comes down the tube Zoop and I get two new bozos to replace the one old one sometimes three He leans forward and speaks with great emphasis this Is a shitty job mr. Anderson It's andrews bill says and look I'm sorry you feel that way, but jesus take a little responsibility for your actions, man 146 women and you did lock the doors Harris hammers his desk. They were stealing us blind He picks up the folder and shakes it at bill. You should talk Pot calling the kettle black Goldman Sachs security fraud Profits in the billions taxes in the millions the low millions does the phrase housing bubble ring a bell How many clients trust did you abuse? How many people lost their life savings? Thanks to your greed and short-sightedness Uh bill knows what harris is talking about, but all that chicanery Well, most of it went on far above his pay grade He was as surprised as anyone when the excrement hit the cooling device The proof of his essential innocence it seems to him is that he is the pilgrim and harris is stuck in this office He's tempted to say there's a big difference between being beggared and burned alive, but why rub salt into the wound Let's drop it. He says if you have information. I need why not give it to me fill me in on the deal And I'll get out of your hair I wasn't the one smoking harris says at a low and brooding tone. I wasn't the one dropped the match Mr. Harris bill can feel the walls closing in if I had to be here forever I'd shoot myself. He thinks Only if what mr. Harris is saying is true, he wouldn't want to anymore than he would want to go to the toilet Okay, all right harris makes a lip-flapping sound not quite a raspberry So the deal is this Leave through the left door and you get to live your life over again A to z start to finish take the right one and you wink out poof candle in the wind type of thing At first bill says nothing to this He's incapable of speech and not sure he can trust his ears It's too good to be true His mind turns to his brother mike and the accident that happened when mike was eight Next to the stupid shoplifting thing when bill was 17 Just a lark, but it could have put a hole in his college plans if his father hadn't stepped in and talked to the right person The thing with ann marie and the fraternity house that still haunts him at odd moments even after all these years and of course the big one Harris is smiling and the smile isn't a bit pleasant Okay So his ears did deceive him Or maybe harris was just getting back at him for suggesting that harris deserved to be here in this limbo of bureaucracy I know what you're thinking because i've heard it all from you before About how you and your brother were playing flashlight tag Where you were when you were kids and you slammed the bedroom door to keep them out and accidentally cut off the tip of his pinky finger The impulse shoplifting thing the watch and how your dad pulls strings to get you out of it That's right. No record except with him. He never let me forget it and then There's the girl in the frat house Harris lifts the file her names in here somewhere I imagine I do my best to keep the files current when I can find them But why don't you refresh me? Ann marie winkler bill can feel his cheeks heating up. It wasn't date rape So don't get that idea. She put her legs around me when I got on top of her and if that doesn't say consent I don't know what does Did she also put her legs around the two fellows who came next? No bill was tempted to say but at least we didn't light her on fire smartass But still He'd be teeing off on the seventh or working in his wood shop or talking to his daughter Now a college student herself about her senior thesis and he would wonder where ann marie is now What she's doing what she remembers about that night Harris's job widens to a locker room smirk. It may be a shitty job, but it's clear. There are parts of it He enjoys I can see that's a question you don't want to answer. So why don't we move along? You're thinking of all the things you'll change during your next ride on the cosmic carousel This time you won't slam the door on your kid brother's finger or try to shoplift or watch at the paramus mall It was the mall of new jersey. I'm sure it's in your file somewhere Harris gives bill of bill's folder a getaway fly flap and continues Next time you'll decline to fuck your semi-comatose date as she lies on the sofa in the basement of your fraternity house and Big one You'll actually make that appointment for the colonoscopy Instead of putting it off having now decided correct me if you're wrong that the indignity of having a camera Shoved up your ass is better than dying of colon cancer bill says Several times I've come close to telling lin about that frat house thing. I've never had the courage But given the chance you'd fix it Of course given the chance wouldn't you unlock those factory doors? Indeed I would but there are no second chances. Sorry to disappoint you. He doesn't look sorry Harris looks tired. Harris looks bored. Harris also looks meanly triumphant He points to the door on bill's left Use that one as you have on every other occasion And you begin all over again as a five pound baby boy sliding from your mother's womb into the doctor's hands You'll be taken home wrapped in bunting to a farm in central nebraska When your father sells the farm in 1964, you'll move to new jersey There you will cut off the tip of your brother's little finger while playing tag You'll go to the same high school. You'll take the same courses. You'll make exactly the same grades You'll go to boston college and you'll commit the same act of semi-rape in the same fraternity house basement You'll watch as the same two fraternity brothers then have sex with anmarie winkler And although you'll think you should call the halt to what's going on You'll never quite muster up the mortal the moral fortitude to do so Three years later, you'll meet linda salvo and two years after that you'll be married You'll follow the same career path. You'll have the same friends You'll have the same deep disquiet about some of your firm's business practices And you'll keep the same silence The same doctor will urge you to get a colonoscopy when you turn 50 and you will promise as you always do That you will take care of that little matter You won't and as a result you'll die of the same cancer Harris's smile as he drops the folder back on his cluttered desk is now so wide It almost creases the lobes of his ears Then you'll come here and we'll have the same Discussion my advice would be to use the other door and have done with it. But of course that is your decision Bill has listened to this sermon at with increasing dismay I'll remember nothing Nothing Not quite nothing Harris says You may have noticed some photos in the hall The company picnic Yes Every client who visits me sees pictures from the year of his or her birth And recognizes a few familiar faces among all the strange ones When you live your life over again, mr. Anders presuming you decide to You will have a sense of deja vu when you first see these people A sense that you have lived it all before which of course you have You will have a fleeting sense almost assurating that there is more Shall we say more depth to your life and to existence in general than you previously believed But then it will pass If it's all the same with no possibility of improvement Why are we even here? Harris makes the fists and knocks with the end on the end of the pneumatic tube Hanging above the laundry basket making it swing client wants to know why we're here wants to know what it's all about Alfie He waits nothing happens. He folds his hand on his desk When jove wanted to know that mr. Anders god asked if jove was there when he god made the universe I guess you don't even rate that much of a reply. So let's consider the matter close. What do you want to do? pick a door Bill is thinking about the cancer the pain of the cancer To go through all that again Except he wouldn't remember he'd gone through it already. There's that Assuming Isaac Harris is telling the truth No memories at all No changes at all Are you sure? How can you be? Because it's always the same conversation mr. Anderson each time and with all of you It's andrews. He bellows it surprising both of them in a lower voice. He says if I try If I really really try I'm sure I can hold on to something even if it's only what happened to mike's little finger and one change might be enough to I don't know To take Anne-Marie to a movie instead of to that fucking kegger. How about that? Harris says There's a folk tale that before birth every human soul knows all the secrets of life and death in the universe But then just before birth an angel leans down And puts his fingers to the new baby's lips and whispers Harris touches his filth room According to the story. This is the mark left by the angel's finger Every human being has one Have you ever seen an angel mr. Harris? No But I once saw a camel it was in the bronx zoo Choose a door As he considers As he considers bill remembers a story they had read in junior high the lady or the tiger This decision is nowhere near as difficult I must hold on to just one thing he tells himself as he opens the door that leads back into life Just one thing Then the white light envelops him The doctor who will bolt the republican party and vote for anlai stevensson in the fall something his wife must never know bends forward from the waist like a waiter presenting a tray and comes up holding a naked baby by the heels He gives it a sharp smack and the squaling begins You have a healthy baby boy mrs. Andrews. He says congratulations She takes the baby She kisses his damp cheeks and brow They will name him william after her paternal grandfather When the 21st century comes he'll still be in his 40s The idea is dizzying in her arms. She holds not just a new life, but a universe of possibilities Nothing she thinks could be more wonderful Thanks Thank you. Thank you. Oh god, that's great. Thank you. Okay, I will read it again Great, man Thanks, we're gonna take some questions. Yeah. Yes. You got some time. Thank you