Chapter 79

“Where am I and how did I get here?” I asked the man in the black suit. I figured he must me my mental conception of the modern grim reaper.

“Come on Ed you are smart enough to know the answer to that. “You have been reaped man,” he said with a great laugh.

“So how did it end?” I asked.

“It’s going to end with someone pulling the plug on you. About 2% of the time it happens that way,” he explained.

“What happens after that?” I asked.

“I honestly don’t know. He has a plan,” the man in black explained.

“Do you mean God?” I asked.

“God, the devil they are both the same. The Entity has good days and not so good days, just like anyone else,” according to the man in black.

“So I move on to somewhere else. Do I get a choice?” I asked.

“What does it matter, you want know either way. You start with a clean slate. As a matter of fact you have already started. Like I said I don’t really know, but I don’t think you start over in some stranger’s womb. Then again how the hell would I know. I’m just a reaper.”

“Let me ask you a question Ed, if you had a choice what would you want to be next,” he asked.

“You mean, if I could give who ever is in charge a laundry list?” I asked.

“Yes, if you could do that,” he agreed.

“I guess I’d want to be me again,” I suggested.

“I figured you might say that. Most people envy people who are rich or powerful while the are still, you know, alive. You never were like that. So wherever he sends you, it will be the same for you. You’ll just make the best of it. Just for the hell of it, what if your next stop is an animal?”

“Does he do that,” I asked.

“Sure some people need to be taught a lesson,” the man in black said. “I think they are ready to pull your plug. Do you want to see the end?”

“Sure why not. When they pull it will I go somewhere immediately?” I asked.

“Yes and you won’t even remember any of this. It’s a brand new beginning for you.” He said that as he turned the monitor to me.

On the monitor, I was in a hospital bed hooked to all kinds of shit. I heard the doctor tell them that there was no hope. I had a massive stroke after my trike had been hit by a teenager one her way to school. I had been on my way home from a morning work out ride. Yes Mikah was also killed by the collision. I was grateful for that, even though I shouldn’t have been. I don’t know how I knew that, I just did.

“Doctor are you saying it’s time?” Thia asked with tears in her eyes.

“Yes, I’m afraid so. There is nothing more we can do,” the doctor said.

“I want to be the one to do it,” she said.

The doctor told her which switches to flip and buttons to push. I second later it was over. I didn’t even get to see the flatline.

The aftermath.

Two days later Thia got a message on her computer. It explained about her father’s off shore accounts and how to access them. It also contain the information concerning his small stash of easy to access cash and gold. The message was signed simple Nerd.

A lawyer, one Thia had never dated, read the will. Ed left his car wash and all his worthless rolling stock as well as the contents of his open bank account to Jon. Then it was over except the disposing of his ashes. Which they put off for a later date.

Tonya and Janet finished the TV show and paid Thia Ed’s share of the contract. Ed’s life didn’t end in a hail of bullets or bombs, it ended with a text message from a teenage girl. Thia felt like it was appropriate somehow.

The real end.