THE LAST REQUEST by Judy Colella (summer reads TXT) 📖

Like a lot of people, Varian’s beliefs about life after death were a mixture of credulity and scorn. Was there an afterlife? Who knew? The experiences of those who claimed to have died (or who actually had) and come back could easily be explained by many in the scientific community as a form of hallucination resulting from oxygen deprivation of the brain. On the other hand, knowledge of otherwise unknowable details supposedly given by an occasional visiting ghost had at times baffled the greatest skeptics. Yet no solid, unshakable evidence had ever been produced regarding an afterlife, or the absence of one. So Varian simply didn’t know. Wanting there to be life after death and knowing for sure it was available were nowhere near the same thing; his beliefs wallowed somewhere between the two.

Other than traveling to and from his job, Varian didn’t get out much. Telemarketing was his means for paying bills, not a career, but since he had no real aspirations, it may as well have been. As an on-line gamer and avid “Jeopardy” fan, his world was contained in the narrow hall and three small rooms of his apartment. He drove an ancient Pinto left to him by his father. Both parents had died seven years earlier in a freak lightning strike as they’d been making a dash from that same Pinto toward their house during a sudden thunder storm. At the time, Varian had been nineteen, already living on his own in the same apartment he currently occupied. He had no siblings, and tended to talk to himself a lot.

His real name was Steven, but as previously mentioned, he was an on-line gamer, and it seemed to him that as a player who was supposed to be a tricked-out warrior, “Steve” didn’t have the same impact as “Varian.” So there it was. He’d changed his name (albeit not legally) soon after discovering a certain game involving warcraft, and for the past six years had introduced himself with it. No one had ever questioned him, except family members who had long since concluded that he was a bit odd anyway, and had thus acted when in his presence as if using a name that wasn’t his was an okay thing to do.

The chance that anything would ever change in Varian’s life may have been one of those foregone conclusion things, except for what some call chaos theory. A driver turns left instead of right by mistake; a jogger takes a right-hand path instead of the usual left-hand one on a whim; a male gnat gets distracted by the pheromone of a female gnat and instead of fathering a new generation of insects,  ends up a teeny decoration on a windshield. Small, unremarkable things that can domino into something much bigger.

Like the girl who tried to send a text to a friend while driving, and nearly had a fatal crash, but managed to swerve at the last second, thus avoiding the oncoming traffic by a whisker. But during that wild moment, her phone flew out of her hand, landed on the floor in an unexpected position, and because the gods in charge of cell phone functions were off at a cocktail party or something, the text went to Varian instead.

He had gotten home from work a short while before this incident, and was in the process of fixing himself a number of snacks to have on hand for the game he’d be playing that evening. A ping-pop sound alerted him to the incoming text, and he put down the chip bag, frowning.

“Huh. Must be Sammy.” He looked at the phone. Blinked. Unknown…huh. Sammy was one of three people who ever texted him – a fellow gamer and acquaintance from his parents’ neighborhood.

Sliding his finger across the screen, he wandered into the livingroom and sat on the sofa. The text, when it came up, made no sense to him. Someone liked his new dress? What?

“Great. How do you send a text to the wrong number?” He shook his head, and resisting the impulse to respond as if he owned this admired frock, tapped in a response. “Lol! Don’t own a dress – I’m a guy. Sorry.” He hit “Send” and sat back.

Ping-pop! “LMAO!! So sorry! Don’t know how I did that!”

“No worries.” Send.

Ping-pop! “What’s ur name?”

“Varian.” Send.

Ping-pop! “Cool!”

“Yes, it is,” he said aloud, grinning. Then typed, “Thx. Yours?” Send.

Ping-pop! “Glynis.”

“So you are a girl! Ha!” He sat forward, snack preparation forgotten. “Nice. Sorry u got the wrong number, tho.” Send. He hated text abbreviations, but since he was already firmly ensconced on the Uncool List, he figured conformity might give him an edge. Not much of one, true, but an edge nonetheless.

Ping-pop! “Maybe. U live anywhere near Jersey City?”

Gulp. Now what? The fact was, he lived only a few miles away. This could be a problem. On the one hand, he could admit his proximity and risk her wanting to meet him. Not so bad, except for the name thing and his deficit in the looks department – he would never in a million years be taken for a “Varian,” so she’d know he was lying about that the moment their eyes met. On the other hand, he could say he lived on the other side of the country, but then she’d want photographs. He could send her one of his cousin Jack, who was six-foot-two, athletic and handsome. And who did, in fact, live on the other side of the country, so the possibility of her running into him was almost nil. But what then?

Ping-pop! “Hello? U busy?”

Crap. “Sorry. Making supper. I live sorta near.” He hesitated, finger poised over the phone…Send. He hated lying. He’d learned a long time ago that it never ended well.

Ping-pop! “Maybe we could meet. Coffee?”

Varian’s eyes bugged out for a second, the result of a number of startling thoughts occurring all at once. “Maybe. U might not like me, tho.” Send. There was always his gaming…

Ping-pop! “U a criminal?”

“No. Worse. A geek.” Send. He put the phone in his pocket and went back to the kitchen.

Ping-pop!

“Uh-oh. Don’t want to look.” Wincing, he took out the phone again. Gaped.

“Me, too.”

“Really?!” Send.

Ping-pop! “Yup. Bona fide gamer/geek/nerd/dweeb…sending a pic.”

Varian waited, wondering if this might not simply be a mean joke. When the text signal went off a few seconds later, he swiped the screen – and gaped for the second time.

Under the photograph of a slightly overweight but very pretty twenty-something with long, wavy blonde hair, and wearing glasses and a baggy sweatshirt, was the caption, “I hate selfies, lol. Can’t show off my beautiful legs.” Smiley-face.

He promptly took one of himself and sent it, knowing it would either end the conversation very quickly, or be the beginning of something he’d never expected to find – a relationship with a girl that had significance.

Ping-pop! “OMG! You’re really cute!”

What? Is something wrong with her phone? “I am?” Send.

Ping-pop! “Wow, yes! But you don’t look like a Varian. Is that really your name?”

He gave the phone a narrow-eyed stare. Was it possible she did know him? He peered more closely at her picture, trying to see something familiar…nope. Huh. “Yeah, no. I’m really Steven, but I use Varian as my gamer id.” Send.

Ping-pop! “World of Warcraft?! Clever!”

Okay, now I’m in love. What the heck? “You nailed it, lol.” Send.

Ping-pop! “We have GOT to meet!”

Varian was about to respond when it struck him that she’d stopped using text abbreviations. Now he wanted to meet her so he could ask if she felt as he did about that – if she used text-speak so she wouldn’t make her geekiness even more apparent.

“I agree. Coffee, you said? Sure. Where?” Send.

They settled on a well-known coffee shop, choosing one that was halfway between Jersey City and where Varian lived. After a good-bye that left him grinning, he put the snack food back in the closets and refrigerator, changed into a comfy pair of jeans and threw an over-sized tan sweater over his dark red shirt, checked his wallet for cash, grabbed his keys, and zoomed out the door.

A small incident had blossomed into something unexpected, and something that would, in a bizarre way, resolve those conflicting beliefs Varian had about life after death.

Something wasn’t right. He’d been wearing his seatbelt, and the collision hadn’t been extreme. In fact, it had barely been a bump. Furthermore, the point of impact had hardly made a mark on the left front bumper. And how did Varian know that? Ah, because for some reason, he was no longer in the car, but hovering a considerable distance above it. He also had a disturbing simultaneous view of both the Pinto’s roof and its interior. And there, his head leaning against the steering wheel, was him. Varian. Steven. Whatever. Frowning, he tried to see more details.

“Your seatbelt snapped.”

"What?” He whirled, startled at the sound of the deep, soft voice that had spoken a few inches from his right ear.

“That’s an old car, my friend, and the seatbelt was almost rotted through as it was. All it took was a little bump and, well, you had turned your head to the left, so when the belt snapped, you smacked into the steering wheel with your right temple. It killed you, I’m afraid. One of those freak accidents.” The shadowy being seemed to sigh.

Varian goggled. From the looks of the thing talking to him, it could only be Death. No scythe or anything, but the whole creepy factor was billowing around it in waves. It also had no face. The goggling was soon replaced with anger. “Are you kidding me? Now? I have to have a freak accident now? Right when I finally meet a girl I could possibly go out with? No!” He felt like punching Death, but in any state – alive or dead – he’d have recognized how stupid that would be. So he glowered, crossing his arms and thrusting out his jaw.

“Everyone goes through this. No one wants to…well, almost no one wants to die.”

Glancing down, Varian noticed that several police cars and an ambulance had arrived, and someone had opened the driver-side door.

“I don’t care about anyone – wait. There’s really an after-life?”

“Er, yes.”

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“Oh, I’m sure, but two things – it isn’t what you might be expecting, and I can offer you a final request that could, let’s say, delay it a bit.” The creature did something with its face area that made Varian imagine a raised eyebrow.

“And what would that – you’re really weird-looking. I …sorry. What would that request consist of?”

If the creature was offended, it did nothing to indicate it. “That, dear mortal, is entirely up to you. Most people, though, want to see a replay of their lives. You remain on this side of the Planes until the replay is done. For some, it takes long enough that it’s worth sending them back for a while.”

Varian gave the being a crazy look. “Uh, okaaay…”

“So what will it be?”

This thing isn’t joking. Fine. What can I ask for – aha!