The can bounded off to the left.

CLANK.

The can bounded off to the right.

CLANKBAMHEY!!

The can bounded off to the left, then bounced off someone’s retina.

“Fuck, this sucks.”

Johnny jogged back up to the rusty soda can where it lay under some poor dead persons chair. He kicked at it again, the can bounded off to the right, the chair upturned, and the poor soul landed on their ass on the cluttered ground. Nny took no notice of the swearing soul on the ground and went off to his can again.

“This is what I get for being so fucking stupid, isn’t it?” He looked around the dismal area that was Heaven and sighed. Chairs were everywhere, almost all of them were occupied, and most of these souls seemed calm and content. But even in the eyes of a homicidal maniac who killed for fun and other unknown reasons, this place was. . .sad looking. Sure, they looked like comfy chairs, soft and squishy, and they looked like they had really good back support, but sitting in a chair for the rest of eternity was certainly not Nny’s idea of Heaven, but then again, he probably wasn’t the only one who was disappointed when they got there. Johnny didn’t think that this was anybody’s idea of the wonderful afterlife.

“All I wanted was a Brain Freezy, I should have known only pain, misery, and death came from going outside with those pig-headed, pig-smelly people who occupy the world.”

Johnny continued walking, hands thrust down in his pockets, staring at the filthy ground below his feet. The day had so normal up to this point. He had gotten up off his couch after a few hours of nonsensical reality shows, grabbed his bag, and went outside for a walk. He had been verbally assaulted by some fat man with a fanny pack who didn’t like the fact that he had blue hair. Said fat man with fanny pack was quickly taken care of with a magenta Sharpie Nny had found in his pocket. Kept walking, came upon a rather rabid-looking squirrel. Picked up said rabid squirrel and put it in his bag for later use, after all, the possibilities of a rabid squirrel were practically endless. Kept walking, came upon a golf cart. . .

“Nny?”

Nny came out of reverie and turned his head.

“Edgar?” He jogged over to one of the many chairs in the crowd, and sure enough, Edgar was seated there, fidgeting with his glasses. He had the same nervous demeanor that Johnny remembered, the same scared look on his face, only there was something different. . .

“Hey. . .” Nny paused as if thinking deeply. “. . .you’re not in pieces anymore.”

“Uh. . .no. No I’m not. Thanks for noticing.” Edgar looked around, still nervous. He seemed to be regretting ever saying his name. “So, uh. . .what are you doing here?”

Johnny swiftly turned around and grabbed an empty chair, putting the back towards Edgar and sitting with his arms crossed along the top of the chair back.

*Oh God, he’s making himself comfortable. I don’t think he’s leaving anytime soon.* Edgar thought, sweat forming on his brow. *Why, oh God, why did I call him over here?!*

“Well, it all started when I got up today. . .”

Edgar put up his hand in the universal ‘stop’ motion. “Wait!”

“Hmm?”

He cleared his throat. “Is this a long story?”

“Kinda.”

“Is it incredibly gory?”

“Um. . .only the fanny pack guy and the actual death. No one else that day died particularly bad. . .well, maybe the hot dog vender. . .”

Edgar smiled uneasily. “Maybe we can just skip the story. . .”

“But. . .” If at all possible, Nny looked up at him with puppy dog eyes. “But it’s got a surprise ending. . .”

He sighed, crumbling under the weight of the puppy dog face of a criminally insane homicidal maniac. He rubbed at his temple with his index and middle finger. *Man I never thought headaches were possible in the afterlife* He sighed again. “Well. . .maybe just the ending.”

Johnny smiled cutely. . .well, creepily may be a better word, with his tongue peeking out at the corner of his mouth. “Yeee. Okay.”

He sat quietly for a few moments, he occasionally shook his head and looked around, as if he were running through the whole story in his head. He closed his eyes, brows knit in concentration, biting slightly on his lower lip. Finally, Nny looked up at Edgar.

“Splat.”

Edgar’s jaw dropped slightly. Nny just smiled like a little boy, obviously pleased.

“So. . .” Nny began again. “What have you been up to?”

“Oh, uh. . .just sitting around, blissing. Boring Heaven stuff, really. Uh. . .what about you?”

The tone in his voice suggested he was afraid of what he might hear. Johnny ignored it and opened his mouth to speak again.

“Last week I skewed some guy's eyeball with a kabob stick. It was so cool, and he was screamin’, and when I poked it with the stick it popped. . ” He grinned like a hyperactive child after eating a bag of pure cane sugar.

The tone of Nny’s voice absolutely amazed Edgar. Sure, this was really only the second time he had spoken to Nny, but the tone of his voice had stayed with him since the day he died at the maniac’s hands. He could sound very cruel, but most of the time, he was just kind of light-hearted, as if these people’s pain was nothing of great importance, like a child who didn’t quite grasp the concept of suffering. To Johnny, it seemed to be just an interesting reaction to an experiment.

“. . .and all this goo came out, like the stuff that comes out of those Stretch Armstrong dolls if you pop them. . .”

“Uh. . .that’s nice.”

“. . .I was really sad though, cuz that was my last kabob and I was gonna cook with it. I shoulda used a pen or something.”

“Yeah. . .so, how long do you think you’ll be up here?”

Johnny looked up in surprise. “Huh? Oh. . .” He fidgeted in his chair a bit, then ran his thin fingers through his hair. “I dunno. . .I hadn’t really thought about it. . .” He began looking about, not really talking to Edgar anymore, in fact, he just seemed to be thinking aloud. “I can’t really stay here, can I? Especially not after I made the guy at the front desk throw up. . .”

“Did he say anything to you?”

Nny snapped back to reality. “Huh?”

“Did the man at the front desk say anything to you?”

“Before or after he threw up?”

Edgar sighed again. “Either.”

Nny sat with his head on his hand as he looked around thoughtfully. Edgar waited for some kind of response.

“Well. . .” Nny began slowly. “He said something about paperwork.”

Edgar attempted to prompt him further. “What kind of paperwork?”

Nny began to fidget again, he pulled his knees up so that he was now sitting cross-legged in the chair. “I dunno. Something about an ‘accidental death report’. . .probably something about how insanely bizarre my death was. . .I should have known not to put that squirrel in my bag. . .” He trailed off into nothing.

“What else did he say, Nny?”

He began to look frustrated. He raised both hands and put them in his hair. “I dunno, I wasn’t. . .I wasn’t really listening. . .and he was talking so fast. . .he didn’t want me here. I. . .wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Nny, anything at all. . .”

“Just a lot of paper work! After he threw up he said there would be even more paperwork because of all the stuff I’ve done. . .it’s all messed up. . .and he said he’d have to check on something. . .some kind of clause, I dunno, because I’m pretty much insane. . .”

He sighed and began to look around again. Edgar noted that the action seemed to almost be a nervous tick, whenever their conversation slowed or Nny began to think hard he would begin to look around their surroundings, even though he had to have seen just about everything by now. Nny’s eyes stopped wandering and he looked up into the bleak sky.

“I miss being alive.”

Edgar jerked up. “What?”

“I miss being alive.”

He really had no response for him, so he just sat silently. Edgar couldn’t fathom, after his pre-death speech courtesy of Johnny, why the young man would want to be alive if he hated the world so much. His sudden wish to live had thoroughly caught him by surprise. Not that he couldn’t, at least partially, understand. He had also felt the sudden will to live now the chance was gone. Even though he really had no one there for him, he just missed the simple feeling of being alive, of knowing all of the things he could do if he so wished. All he felt when he first arrived was a deep sense of regret, of never doing all those things, and never thinking about that fact that a deranged murderer could pluck you up off the street at any moment.

He looked up and noticed Nny wasn’t really paying attention to him anymore. He had gone from just a general glance around to an in-depth study of his boots on the grass. It was as if Johnny didn’t remember they had been talking at all, he just sat in that chair and stared aimlessly at the ground.

“Johnny?”

Johnny jerked in his chair, startled, and spoke with sudden anger. “What?!”

“Uh. . .” He hesitated, momentarily afraid of what Nny might do. It took a moment to recover what little courage Edgar had had to begin with. “Why do you miss being alive?”

Nny’s face softened a bit. “Oh. . .I dunno. I just do.” He gestured towards Edgar. “You must know what I mean. I mean. . .ya know. . .maybe I wanna go see a move. And I can’t. Cause I’m dead.” He slumped a bit in his chair, he lay his head across his arms on the chair back, facing off to the right of Edgar. “Or. . .or maybe I wanna go out to a dance club, or go and get some coffee, or go and get my Sharpie out of that guy’s nose. . .ya know.” He jumped out his chair faster that Edgar could really register and began to pace around, gesturing wildly with his arms, his face contorting with rage. “Ya know!? But I can’t do anything like that cause I’m DEAD!!”

With that, he simply flopped down on the ground and wrapped his arms around his knees.

“I just. . .i just miss being alive.” He lay his head down on his knees, and sat completely still.

Edgar looked at him from his chair. A few minutes passed with neither saying a word, it may have stayed that way for a while, until a low flying creepy angel-bunny slammed right into the back of Nny’s head. . .and he still really didn’t move.

“. . . .ow. . . .”

Edgar sighed for the millionth time. He got up out of his chair and sat next to the silent maniac.

He acknowledged his presence, but still didn’t look up. “You didn’t have to get up, Edgar.”

“It’s fine. I haven’t been out of that chair for days. . .”

Nny looked up with an amused smirk on his face, and he spoke with a slight laugh. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Nah. It’s just really boring. . .”

Nny straightened back up again. “Boring!? I thought this was all you wanted, that’s all you told me when I was trying to ki—“ Edgar turned and stared. Johnny became fidgety under the gaze. “Well, you know.”

They both sat quietly again for a few moments, and Edgar began to think. . .after all, he was right. It was what he wanted, he wanted to go to Heaven. . .if only to prove that he could. He lived his whole life, okay. . .for the most part, just to be here, to live beside God in his infinite wisdom and glory. . .

God’s infinite wisdom and glory was not at all what it was cracked up to be. Edgar had even considered suing for false advertising, but he was. . .well, dead. And here in the afterlife he didn’t really have the urge to do anything anyway. . .anything other than sit in that damnable chair.

“Nny?”

“Hmm?”

He turned to face the man beside him, Nny was again staring out into the distance, he had again seemingly lost interest in Edgar’s presence.

“I wish I was still alive, too.”

For the first time in a long while, Nny looked up to Edgar again. “Why?”

It was an expected question, and Edgar knew the answer, but he still couldn’t help but pause, couldn’t help but think about it again.

“I was happier alive.”

“I think that’s a given, Edgar.” Johnny stated matter-of-factly and with just a bit of sarcasm. “No one really wants to be dead.”

“I know. . .I. . .I mean I thought I was lonely. I thought I had no one or nothing while I was alive.” Another sigh. “I was invisible, except apparently to murderers.” Nny glared. “No offense.”

“None taken.” He kept glaring.

“I mean, I thought everyone would be here—“

Nny perked up. “Everyone? Who’s everyone?”

“I told you I had nobody, Nny. Not even family. They all. . .” He couldn’t really finish, didn’t know how to finish. “They all went before me. And I always assumed they would be here.” He gestured to the field of chairs around him. “But even here, there’s no one for me.”

“But—“

“I guess I’d rather be lonely and *alive* than lonely and *dead*. But then again, I guess life is generally chosen over death. I mean, would you honestly choose to be dead, Nny? Honestly?”

“Honestly? Well. . .I. . .” He stared off into space again. He then turned abruptly back to Edgar. “Well, I’ll see how this goes. Then I’ll decide.” He smiled again, that strange, childish, creepy smile.

Edgar gave a weak smile back. . .

Woah! Stop reading for a moment! I have two endings for this story! --the author

Ending #1

“How did you die anyway?”

“I told you already.” He still grinned.

“What was it?”

“Splat.”

First Edgar smirked. Then he grinned. And then he laughed.

“*What* are you laughing at?” Nny was still grinning. “I don’t think my splatting was at all funny!”

Edgar shook his head and kept laughing. “It’s not. It’s just the way you say it.”

Again, they sat for a few moments in silence.

“Edgar?”

“Yeah?”

Nny again wrapped his arms around his knees. “How long do you think it’ll take for them to figure out what to do with me?”

“I dunno.” He turned around, scanning the area behind him. “The front desk guy is still holding a bucket. He may not be done for a while.” While he was turned, he could here Nny shifting behind him. He turned when he suddenly felt two hands wrapped around his arm. He looked up and saw Nny attempting to haul him to his feet.

“Edgar, let’s go *do* something. Just sitting is so boring.” He had that child-like look on his face again, and he had that light-hearted, unconcerned tone in his voice, as if nothing was wrong. As if nothing was ever going to be wrong.

For that moment, they both seemed to have forgotten they were dead.

“Alright.”

-end-

ENDING #2

, , ,then they both lapsed back into silence. These silences were becoming more normal and less uncomfortable. He lazily began to look around. Everyone was in their chair, as they should be, free from any want or need. Just blissing. . .and Edgar just couldn’t imagine doing that for the rest of his—well, not his life. That was over. This was more than life. This was *eternity*.

“I don’t think I like it here, Nny.”

No response.

“Nny?”

Edgar turned. Nny was sprawled out on the grass, arms and legs laying at odd angles. His mouth was slightly opened, and it looked like he may have been drooling a bit. He was fast asleep.

-end-