Dead!

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

"Now serving Number 728! Number 728, please come to the front of the room! Number 728! To all others: remember that numbers may be called out of order. Number 728!"

Time just continued to march forward, and I continued to wait. Samantha kept me company, but I knew that she would get called eventually. She had been here even longer than I had. "I'm not sure why this is taking so long," Samantha said to me. "I haven't done anything too evil, right?"

"I don't think you have," I said. "At least this makes sense for me."

"Well, I'm not Hitler, and I'm not Mother Teresa either," Samantha said. "That probably means that this is going to take a little while longer."

"I guess this isn't too bad," I observed. "We have food, and the people here are pretty nice."

"Except for the Crazy Religious Lady," Samantha said. "I still hate her."

"Why?" I asked.

"Let's just say her near-constant use of Bible quotes to claim that I'm some sort of aberration who deserves to die isn't exactly helping her case," Samantha said. "It's not like any of that's relevant anyways. I'm already dead."

"Religion isn't all bad though," I said.

"I agree that some religious people are okay," Samantha said. "Like you. You're religious, and you're not a horrible person."

"Do you really think that?" I said.

"Of course," Samantha said. "You told me that you bullied Anthony and his friends, but you were just a stupid kid. You've changed quite a bit since you got here. Just the fact that you regret doing all of that says a lot."

"I suppose so," I said.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they put you into Heaven," Samantha said as she took out her phone. "Ooh! I got a comment on my new blog post!"

"How did you post that?" I asked. "I thought that the Celestial Bureaucracy wouldn't let you post things to accounts that you had while you were alive."

"I created a new blog that's identical to the old one with BlogTron," Samantha said. "It's like Blogger, but it works in the afterlife."

"That's cool," I said.

"Yeah, it is," Samantha agreed. "Let's see what this person had to say...wait, what?!?"

"What is it?" I asked.

"I posted a rather lengthy post on why the media should include diverse characters, and look what this idiot commented!" Samantha showed me her phone, and I scrolled past all of the other social justice warriors with walls of text that mostly agreed with her, and I found the comment that she was talking about.

MayaThePsychic: FRERARD IS REAL!!!

"See what I mean?" Samantha said. "This has nothing to do with the post...or anything on my blog for that matter!"

"Yeah, that is kind of ridiculous," I agreed. I noticed that someone had also replied to the comment.

strange_quark: Maya, what exactly does Frerard have to do with minority representation in the media?

Maya had also responded to that, and the conversation continued.

MayaThePsychic: Frerard is always relevant. By the way, what's with your username, Jack? I don't get it.

strange_quark: Strange is my favorite quark.

MayaThePsychic: The fact that you care enough about sub-atomic particles to have a favorite quark says a lot about you.

strange_quark: Was that supposed to be an insult? If it was, it wasn't a very good one. I'm proud of my geekiness.

MayaThePsychic: Whatever. Let's go back to talking about Frerard!!! :D :D :D

strange_quark: Maya, 99% of people do not care about the relationship status of Frank Iero and Gerard Way.

MayaThePsychic: How do you know that?

strange_quark: I did a survey last year. 99% of the people who took the survey didn't care about Frerard.

MayaThePsychic: But I care! FRERARD IS REAL!!!

strange_quark: Fine. Frerard is real. Please stop shoving it in my face.

Both of them then left the thread. "That was actually pretty amusing," I told Samantha.

"Okay, it kind of was," Samantha admitted. "I just asked for actual feedback on my post, and that was not feedback."

"What about all of those other people who commented?" I said.

"That's not nearly as many people as I had when I was alive," Samantha complained. "It's mostly because all of the people around here are older. None of them want to look at my blog."

"I'm sure you'll find an audience," I said.

"I hope so," Samantha said.

"I'm kind of surprised that Maya made it into Heaven," I said. "I thought that disgusting fanfiction would get her into Hell."

"Either the Celestial Bureaucracy didn't find out, or they don't care," Samantha said. "My guess is that it's the latter. Bad fanfiction doesn't hurt anyone."

"I hope that I don't have to hang out with Maya if I get into Heaven," I said. "She's so annoying." I shouldn't have said that, I thought as soon that came out of my mouth. What if the Celestial Bureaucracy is watching me right now?

"I don't think you'll have to," Samantha said. "It's Heaven. I would think that they could at least keep you away from people that you don't like."

"I guess we'll see when we get there," I said. Or maybe just Samantha, I thought. I might not get into Heaven. After all, I was awful to Anthony. The Celestial Bureaucracy won't be able to ignore that.

All of a sudden, I heard it. "Now serving Number 667! Number 667, please come to the front of the room! Number 667! To all others: remember that numbers may be called out of order. Number 667!"