I hover next to my body. I am intubated. Machines are beeping. Red digital numbers, resounding gongs bouncing from computer monitors display charts and graphics; regurgitating data of my vital organs.
Where am I? Why is everything so dark and cold? What is that smell? Where is this water coming from? A sewer? Am I in a sewer... Anybody? How did I get here? Who are you? Sir? Lady? Please, help me... What's the matter with you? You are not... You are neither... Where am I? Who... What are these things? Are they people? Where are they running to? Excuse me, lady... Can you hear me?
"Excuse me, you there, Undecided, move along. You are holding up the search."
A voice, which sounds like a thunderous echo over a loud hailer is addressing me, but I can't figure out where it is coming from. There is no face.
Search? For what? Where am I?
"In Limbo. Why are you so restless?"
Who are you...what is that? They...those are not human beings...they are-what are they? I must leave. Limbo?
"Up here we call it the zone. For you it's a 50-50. It means you are not dead. Or alive. But, you have a front seat, a little peek if you like.
Peek into what...
"Hell."
There's a mistake... Are they?
"No mistake. They are in a similar place you lot down there spend wasting your life away with careers and meetings and presentations... They are in hell; searching for a way out that doesn't exist.
That's sad...
"That's the reality of that unobstructed front row view you are privvy to."
It's not a privilege... it is the most frightening thing I ever saw, and felt...
"They will spend eternity searching for a way out..."
If only I knew...
"Now you do. Undecided. Now you do. That, right there, is a glimpse of the rest of your days if the Big guy sends you straight to hell. Savour the view."
Big Guy? I don't understand what you're talking about. I still have a career and that meeting and the presentation-
"Not that again. Career? Meeting? Presentation? Up here?"
His questions echo all around me, through me, accompanied by a high-pitched scratchy noise increasing in intensity.
Am I in a cave? Why are you holding me hostage? Why am I here?
"Keep moving forward."
Where is that sound coming from? My ears are hurting. Turn it down!
"Sound?"
Don't you hear it?
"Stay or Leave. That is why you are here. That could be your destiny, Undecided."
YOU ARE READING
GINGER AND BUBBLES
General FictionSusan Dorel Delheim is a single, independent recluse. Lonely and tormented by voices which she names Ginger and Bubbles, she struggles to hold onto her sanity. On the eve of a momentous presentation at her company she has an accident which erodes he...
