Eden

One

I die, and I know I'm dying, and I'm fairly sure I feel myself die.

And then I sit up.

Which is something of a surprise for me, too.

I sit up, and look around, and think I must be in a hospital. There seems to be a lot of bright light, enough I'm dazzled and can't see properly. I blink, and start to be able to see a little better, and I realize there's a man standing in front of me, looking at me. I can't see him properly because the light is behind him, but I can make out enough to see that he's there.

It must be in a hospital, I decide. Someone must have found me after I fell unconscious, and saved me. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

"You're not in a hospital," the man says.

I blink some more, and consider that. I wonder how he knew what I was thinking, too. I look at him. My eyes hurt from the light, and my stomach does too, strangely, as though I'm very hungry. Oddly, though, my wrists don't hurt at all. Which seems wrong, at first. But then not really, when I think about it. Because actually, I don't suppose they would hurt, not any more. They must have been sewn up and anesthetized long before I woke up.

I start to look at my arms, almost automatically, to check on the cuts which ought to be there. And then I actually realize what the man just said, and I decide to worry about that instead.

"Um, what?" I say, looking up at him. "I'm not in a hospital?"

"No, I'm afraid not," the man says. He has a calm, soothing voice, and a slightly odd way of speaking. A very formal way.

I wait. I think he's going to tell me I'm in a psych ward somewhere, but no.

"I assume you think you are in a hospital," he says. "Because for the last little while, everyone seems to wake up thinking so. But you're not. You're dead."

I sit there and think about that.

"Sorry," I say, after a moment. "Um. What?"

"You're dead. I know this is something of a surprise..."

Why yes it is.

"I'm dead?" I say. I'm about to swear, but I can't really think of anything sweary enough to cope with this. "I'm dead?" I say again.

"You are."

"Oh," I say. I think. I pretty much decide just to deal with whatever is going on and not to panic. I mean, I want to panic. I just don't really know what good it will do, so I decide not to bother. "Okay then."

"Did you hear me?" he says. "You're dead."

"I heard."

"You aren't shocked by that?"

I shrug. "A bit, I suppose."

"You really aren't surprised?" he says. He seems surprised I'm not surprised, which is weird enough I almost want to laugh.

"Not really," I say. I mean, I remember what I did. I remember why, and I know what happens when you do. "I am," I say. "But not really. Since, well, it was kind of the whole idea..."

The man smiles. "Well, then," he says. "You got what you wanted."

"I suppose so," I say, uncertainly.

I look around. My eyes are still being bothered by the light, and hurting a little, but I can make out walls, and an open doorway, and what looks like a hallway outside. There's a lot of stone in the walls, like some kind of old-time building, and there's also a lot more light out in the hallway, as if there's big windows out there and it's a sunny day outside.

"Where am I?" I say.

"Yes," the man says. "That's a little complicated. Where are you from?"

I tell him. A tiny town no-one's ever heard of in the middle of nowhere.

"But where?" he says. "North America...?"

"Australia."

He thinks. "Which is a similar culture, yes?"

I shrug. "I suppose so."

"And you're from the twenty-first century?"

I nod again. Well, of course.

"Then this is an afterlife," he says. "Of a sort. A place people come to find out who they are, and if they wish to, to go on to the next place."

"If they wish to?"

He nods.

"What next place?"

"I'm afraid I can't talk about that."

"Oh, okay," I say. I think for a moment. "So where am I now? Heaven?"

He shakes his head. "I'm afraid not."

"Hell?"

"Not really."

"So where?"

"A waiting room, might be the best way to describe it," he says. "And now, I'm sorry, but I have others to greet. If you would step out there..."

He points to the doorway. I nod, and slide off the table I seem to be sitting on. As I slide I realize I'm wearing clothes, but not the clothes I died in. I seem to have on a light, sleeveless dress, which turns out to be white, and which goes most of the way to my knees. I look down at it, surprised, and as I do I see the rest of myself.

I see my arms.

I look at my arms, surprised.

The wounds I made are open and gaping and empty.

Empty, as in there isn't any blood coming out of them, but the skin is just there,

It's really quite disgusting. I can see inside my wrists.

I haven't been healed, as it turns out. I haven't even been stitched up. And also, I don't seem to have blood any more. Or at least, none of it is coming out of the huge holes I slashed in my wrists.

I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

I look at my arms for a moment, at the gaps in my skin I can see inside, and then I faint.

Which makes no sense at all. Since I obviously don't have blood, any more, I shouldn't really be able to faint from it rushing away from my head. But I do.

I learn later that this is the least of the things that no longer make sense about where I am.