Greetings, fellows! I come to you now officially a college graduate, and that is very strange. Change is always scary, but I’m hanging in there. Got my first hit on a job application, so hopefully things will work themselves out very soon. In the meantime, I have a new little thing for you!
I wrote this at Write Away! yesterday, where the theme somehow ended up being “death.” Probably because I read a bit from God Bless You, Dr. Kavorkian by Kurt Vonnegut, and that’s kind of how the book goes. We also did several beautiful corpse poems, so y’all should hop on over there and check out the ridiculousness of them.
To all of my fellow graduates: Happy Graduation! To the rest of you…happy summer!
Maturely yours,
M.M. Jordahl
Afterlife
I met Rodolpho Bean in a subway car between the Elysian fields and Valhalla. He was wearing green and blue argyle socks and black patent leather shoes scuffed at the toes, peering at me over the top of a brand new copy of Vonnegut’s Galapagos, metallic blue cover glinting in the watery grey light of the in-between. When he caught me looking, he arched an eyebrow as though he wanted it off his face.
At first, I tried to ignore him, pressing my nose to the double-paned glass, feeling the car’s frantic rattle-and-shiver as it skittered down the tracks. But it was no use–his eyes felt like a mosquito on the back of my neck, and I couldn’t resist the urge to slap him away.
“Do you need something?” I snapped. I expected him to be startled, but his gaze didn’t flicker. He lowered the book to his lap, tucking it neatly between his thighs.
“Yes,” he said, smiling with a practiced ease. “I was just wondering if you’ve heard the good news?”
Words I had heard before, but not for a very, very long time.
“What?” I answered, stupidly.
“The good news,” he replied, his voice steady and light like a snowfall, “about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
I glanced out the window, to make sure I was still where I thought I was. The river Styx glittered through the smudged window at me, cold and dark and very much real. I turned back to him, glaring.
“You do know that we’re already dead, right?” I demanded.
“Yes,” he replied evenly. “And I’m here to save your soul.”
M.M. Jordahl 