"Life Accounts" by KL Nykwest

Seeing the Station Closed. No Entry sign put me in a sour mood. The 125th St. station was literally right across from my office, and beyond convenient. I’m normally not one to complain, but with late-night sub-freezing temperatures, I just had no interest in weaving through aimless pedestrians to the 116th St. station. Unfortunately, the alternatives appealed to me even less. I’ve gotten one too many bad reviews on Uber, and they cost way more than I’m willing to spend on a commute. Buses are almost always mired by traffic, and almost every driver I’ve ever encountered was certifiable. The subway, for all its issues, is the most predictable, cheap and consistent in speed. Once I board a car, I can just check out and wait to arrive.

Having been too busy to respond sooner, I replied to a text from my girlfriend that I was finally on my way home, and then hugged my coat around myself in a meaningless effort to keep warm before starting off in the direction of 116th Street. The hour was later than expected. She would be mad, but I had no other choice. My legal team had received a massive contract, and found several major discrepancies the other party had either missed or willfully neglected. I’m used to 60+ hour work weeks and well-paid for it, but after the tedium of re-reviewing the entire document with a fine-toothed comb, I wanted nothing more than to go underground and let the train transport me. 

Something about being underground has always appealed to me. Barreling through the tunnels and peering into the endless dark always put me in mind of my History and Anthropology studies – the Ancient Greeks’ conception of Hades, to be specific. Most movies depict the Greek underworld as a hellscape, as if Zeus equals God and Hades equals Satan. but if you read the academic literature on the subject, it was a totally different interpretation of the hereafter. Everyone crossed over to Hades after death, regardless of who they were. Judgment was someone else’s job.

I likely could have had a career in history or anthropology, but there was a recession on when I graduated, and my loans were through the roof, so a postgraduate law degree it was. 

I checked my phone just as a gust of wind belted me in the face, forcing my chilled frown into a grimace. No response from Min to my previous text. A fragment of a recent argument flickered through my memory, but I blocked it out, shoving the device back into my pocket with more force than intended.

I reached the stairs of the 116th St. station, and descended, leaving the cacophony of traffic and humanity behind me, trying to push the thoughts of my girlfriend away. I had about ten minutes before the next car came in, and from what I could see, the station was empty. This was a bit of a surprise, but it suited me fine. An invariable aspect of public transit is always feeling like I need to shower whenever I’ve used it. Call me misanthropic, but I’ve seen the numbers. As a general rule, most people in the city are dirty.

I had been waiting at the station for about five minutes when I realized I wasn’t actually alone. A gaunt, balding, white man stood far to my left, leaning over a derelict on the floor, slouching against the wall. He dressed in gray and had circular wire-framed glasses with a body and demeanor so frail, I probably wouldn’t have noticed him at all if he hadn’t been stooping over the derelict. Unable to look away or contain my curiosity, I directed my eyes to his feet. He had placed a brown leather briefcase on the floor, and had it opened toward himself in such a way that I could not see the contents. I assumed they were conducting some kind of illegal business when, in one swift movement, he plunged his hand into the derelict’s chest and, after feeling around a bit, extracted a small ball of pulsing white light. He then set the ball down in his briefcase, and closed it. 

I realized I was staring when the man in the suit picked up his briefcase and walked toward me. I quickly turned away and looked toward the wall across the tracks.  The man continued his approach until he stood only a few feet away.

“Excuse me, do you know if this line goes to Queens?” he asked in a sort of mellifluous English accent.

“Uh, no,” I said, without really thinking about his question, “I think you need to get off at 42nd Street and switch lines.” He nodded curtly, as though he didn’t care either way. I suppose I could have given him better directions than that. Queens wasn’t part of my route and my mind was too preoccupied to think critically about where he wanted to go. Without being too blatant, I glanced over at the derelict. He hadn’t moved since I’d last looked at him, and he appeared to have stopped breathing. “Did you—What did you just do to that guy?”

“He died,” the man said simply. I didn’t know what to say. I had hardly believed my eyes, but I knew what I saw. The man had pulled a ball of light about the size of his fist from the derelict’s chest, and put it in his briefcase. No blood. No incision. It was as if the dead man had faded from existence.

“He died?” I asked. The man nodded to me, “Should we, like, let someone know?”

“It’s already been called in. I got here early.”

“Right. And that thing was his…” I gestured to his briefcase, trailing off at a loss for words. He looked at me plainly, his face carrying the dispassionate expression of an overqualified craftsman, used to fielding the same questions about his profession day in and day out.

“His life,” he said to me. “Always a bit of a shock seeing it, I know, but we’re not allowed to display souls for the purpose of advertising,” I should have left right then and there—just taken the Uber, but the thought of my low customer rating coupled with my curiosity kept me from doing so. The carefree manner in which this man had walked away from the dead vagrant was somehow both vulgar and thrilling, and I found myself drawn to his confidence. The train pulled into the station, and we both got on board.

“I’m sorry, so… you stole his life?” I whispered. 

“Oh no, I just collected it,” he sighed as if this should be obvious. “He’s dead.” 

On the surface alone, there were several dozen ontological questions floating around my mind concerning the nature of life outside a physical body and how or why they manifested as balls of light, but I was too consumed with other questions to waste time on these. 

“So… does that make you Death?” I asked, following him as he made his way to a seat.

“Hm… well, after a fashion, I suppose,” He said, nodding.  Far away from scythes, cloaks and skeletal specters on Swedish shores, this man had all the sterilized vapidity of an auditor in his mid-to-late forties.

Still, the prospect that he might actually be Death made me nervous. Why else would I see Death, unless it was my time? 

Up until this point, I had suspected that he was playing some kind of bizarre joke on me, but I couldn’t figure out why he would have chosen me as the sole recipient of something so clearly elaborate, particularly when he seemed to treat me with such disinterest. It had occurred to me that he could have been an impressive street magician, but there again, I felt like they typically performed for audiences larger than a single man on the subway. A third option was that the man was just off his rocker. He certainly wouldn’t be the only one in New York, but something about him seemed totally genuine and sane. On top of that, there was the issue of the glowing fistful of light he pulled from the derelict’s chest and put in his briefcase. It was so far beyond convincing, I couldn’t help but take it at face value.

We sat down next to each other, and he set his briefcase on his lap. I noticed that the combination locks were jumbled. No chance that I could get in there to take a closer look, I surmised.

“What did you mean by that exactly?” I asked, as the doors closed, and the car kicked to life.

“I’m sorry?” He asked me.

“You said, ‘After a fashion.’” I repeated, “Like, are you Death or not?” He paused to collect his thoughts. I felt good knowing that I could pose such a hard question for Death to answer. I felt that if I were alive during medieval times, my ability to outsmart Death would have branded me as a sort of dark-horse traveler. Unfortunately, the role of dark-horse traveler in modern society was impossible to maintain financially unless you were independently wealthy or a vagrant.

“The thing is,” he said to me, “That’s rather a misconception that a lot of people have. I’m only one of many employees, and we’re not just ‘Death’ per se.”

“Uh… come again?” I asked. He spoke so fast, I missed the majority of what he said. I felt the advantage of my intelligence slipping away. I had to reconnoiter. 

“Well, first of all,” he began, struggling to find the words, “There’s not just one ‘Death’ responsible for closing lives out. I work with many agents—thousands really. Which makes sense. I mean, how else could we be in so many different places at once? You might as well believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy—and they’re endlessly more plausible than the notion of a single Grim Reaper or an Angel of Death.”

“They are?” I asked.

“The number of teeth lost in a day, and presents given on a single night are far exceeded by the number of deaths that occur in a 24-hour period,” He said to me. I saw his point. I could feel my advantage growing again. If he was going to try to take my life, he wasn’t going to get it without a fight. I was a fairly successful lawyer and I wasn’t about to just take death lying down like that derelict.

“So how do you become an Angel of Death– or are you a subcontractor or something?” I asked. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. Up close, I could see bags under his eyes and graying stubble that hid in plain sight from a distance. It occurred to me that like myself, the man had been pulling long hours. 

“Well again, we’re not so much angels as we are agents...” he said. 

“So you’re an agent of Death?”

“Uh, no. Death collection is just one of our responsibilities…” He muttered, “Let’s see, I suppose I went about this backwards…” He paused to collect himself and held up a brittle hand to clarify. Taking out his wallet, he fished in one of the pockets, extracted a small card and handed it to me. A QR code sat at the top next to a large harp logo, under which minimal text read from top to bottom:

Arlington Hough

Account Manager

Life Ltd.

“I’m an account manager for Life Ltd. I, like many others, manage both lives and deaths,” he explained. I detected a small shadow of forgotten pride, but paid it little attention. A vague everyday memory clicked into place next to what he was showing me. Somewhere in the back of my memory the name Life Ltd. floated around with terms like death collection and EOL scores, but I had never given them much consideration before.

“Life Ltd,” I read aloud, “Are you the ones with the commercials with all those black and white vistas?”

Arlington nodded, “‘We’re ready for you, so you can be ready for what comes next,’” he intoned before rolling his eyes and shaking his head, “Awful slogan.”

“Right,” I said, “I always thought you guys were a life insurance company.” 

“You wouldn’t be alone. It’s an industry-wide problem if I’m honest.”

“Interesting. And as an account manager, you manage death and life?” I asked. He directed his eyes upward to think. 

“Uh… As I said, most people have it all wrong,” he paused, “Each life is an account we’re assigned to manage. An agent is assigned to new lives every day. One of us comes in, opens up the account, and that’s the beginning of the new life. Most lives are grandfathered into policies. If your parents were with Life Ltd, chances are you are too. The same would go if they were with Karmic, RM&A or Spritus. And it’s not just human life either. Life Ltd. has a range of departments, each of which covers different kingdoms or genuses depending on the complexity of the demographic. In the case of myself, I’m in the Primate Department on the negative fifth floor of the New York Branch. But all plantlife falls under a single department on the negative second. And then felines and canines fall under their own departments, on the negative 21st and 22nd, respectively.”  

I wasn’t sure what to say, but I was following him, save for the quivering feeling inside me that the very fabric of reality was shifting.

“In any case,” he continued, “once accounts are opened, lives pretty much take care of themselves. We’re seldom involved in the general goings on of existence. We basically just keep track of your credit rating, and collect your life upon your time of death. Upon your EOL– or end of a life– whenever that time comes, we close down your life account, and a record of it is stored in a filing cabinet in the sub-basement to be used for reference if need be.”

The subway car stopped. I half considered getting off here and just walking the rest of the way home. What this guy was telling me was not the most pleasant news. I thought about the various dramas playing out in my own life, and wondered what the point of it all was if I was just going to be stuck in a filing cabinet after I die. A sudden loneliness came over me. I was well into my twenties. How had I managed to miss this? Was this something everyone else was aware of? I thought about Min and our meager single-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. How would I explain this to her when I got home tonight?

I checked my phone again. Still no response. Over the course of the last few months, radio silence on her end had become more and more the norm whenever I worked late. The sex had been getting worse as well and I half suspected her of cheating on me with one of the other editors at the Lightning Rod office.

That was the online publication she wrote for. They covered up-and-coming bands throughout the indie music scene, and billed themselves as trendy, hip, and underground. Their Brooklyn office was in a basement with a lot of interior brick, mannequins in vintage clothing, and a kitchenette to help distract from their leaky drop ceiling. They’d been in operation for over ten years and offered the cultural capital associated with writing about more alternative music than Rolling Stone, but in a way that was “more accessible” than Pitchfork. 

Really, it was just another place that traded in cultural capital, which is all most publications sell. In some ways, I’ve always envied this. Cultural capital is possibly one of the greatest inventions of modern capitalism. You hardly have to put any work into having it, and it can afford you all kinds of social accolades. On top of that, if you can write well enough, you can convince people you actually know what you're talking about enough to sell words to them. It's an amazing system.

The editor Min was salivating over– a guy named Barri (yes, with an “i”) – was a king of cultural capital. I only met him once at a release party she dragged me to, but since we spent the entire evening in his company, I got a pretty good measure of him. He was essentially just a walking, breathing version of their office mannequins, with thoughts and opinions gleaned from a cursory skimming of about a year’s worth of articles on Substack. Not that she noticed. She doted on his every pontification, laughed at all his terrible jokes and melted into a puddle without him having to lift a finger. 

As the subway car pressed onward, I envisioned how a mild flirtation might be turning into intercourse at this very minute. His crotch accidentally-on-purpose grinding her bony waist after a few drinks at the bar, followed shortly by their absconding to his apartment, where she would fling off his thick-framed 80’s glasses, unbutton his tight, sweat-enameled flannel shirt, and rub his greasy femme hair, while they scrubbed each other’s faces with their tongues.

Were they ahead of the curve? Did they already know about companies like Life Ltd? Or were they too up their own asses to care?

In asking myself this, I realized how I might turn this chance meeting with Arlington Hough to my advantage. The one thing stronger than cultural capital—the one thing that can afford you almost anything you want in life is a solid network. I now knew someone who was possibly more powerful than anyone else in my network. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to have Barri killed, let alone my girlfriend, but having a contact that sat in an office that traded life and death could possibly bring certain privileges. 

I looked at him again. Up to this point, his tone had wavered between that of an overworked cynic who had all but given up, and a middle manager whose ambition hinged solely on an ingrained corporate mandate to sell whenever the opportunity presented itself. How would he respond to my offer?

A few people boarded the car, the doors shut, and we were moving again. 

“Well, I work at a corporate law firm, and have a pretty extensive network,” I said, lowering my voice, “maybe we can give each other some business?”

“Oh… Unfortunately it doesn’t really work like that.” He groaned, “There’s rather a lot of paperwork you have to go through before EOL can be declared. You have to sign off on various statements to confirm it is the correct time to close the account, and then you have to sit hours in Circumstance Division’s office just to verify with your supervisor that circumstances are present for you to close the account. If you don’t keep up, you’ll fall behind, and once that happens, you're fired and liable for any credit lost. They don’t waste time with you. If you can’t handle the job, they don’t care.” He sighed, took his glasses off, and again rubbed the bridge of his nose. 

“That’s all life is really about when you get down to it: credit,” he continued, returning the glasses to his face. “Once you have cleared circumstance checks, you have to establish a clear credit history. Then you have to verify the credit history. And believe me, if you think they won’t catch you for a lack of due diligence in verifying a life’s credit, then you are wrong. They will catch you—especially if you close prematurely. The thing is, the company can lose millions if only a few agents jump the gun. Then, beyond that, there’s still the role of interest fluctuations, securities, insecurities, physical fitness, etcetera, etcetera, all of which have to be filed to establish the correct credit level which itself must happen before you can file an account away. The value of a life, er—your credit, can change quite rapidly in a very short amount of time, especially toward the end, since that’s when people really start thinking about their afterlife.” 

“Wait, what about the afterlife?” I asked.

“Oh, well, that’s really most of what our ads are referring to: ensuring you can choose the best afterlife for yourself,” He said, an inquiring look on his brow. “Many people stick with the afterlife their parents went with simply because it’s what’s in front of them and easy, but you absolutely have a choice, unless of course your credit plummets, in which case your place is most certainly not guaranteed.” 

He sat up again a bit straighter and forced his intonation to shift to one of sales, “For instance, personally, I am sponsored by the First National Purgatory of America, but that in no way locks in any of my accounts with First National. After your account is closed, the choice is still completely up to you. That said, what I can do is tell you about the many advantages of going with First National and recommend several good policies to you through their office.

“After the whole Bordwell v Greener Pastures decision of ‘53, life management firms were barred from coordinating directly with afterlives without making customers aware of alternatives,” he added, his cynical inflection returning, “However, I can say that generally speaking, First National Purgatory of America can guarantee you a spot of space in their afterlife that is both stately and affordable.”

“Wasn’t purgatory disbanded around 2007 or 8?” I asked him, recalling a news story I’d heard at the time.

“Oh, you're thinking of the famous non-discrimination case. First Catholic Purgatory Holdings got slapped with a non-discrimination lawsuit over an admittance policy that had, up until that point, barred the unbaptized from their various subsidiary purgatories.”

“What happened?”

“Well, as I just said, First Catholic lost.” He said, “Hardly surprising, really. They had the market cornered in post-life dwelling and when you sit at the top for so long, it's only a matter of time until you fall. And of course fall they did. Two years after the court decision, they split up into five smaller purgatories.” He brightened up, “Great news for the small afterlife though.”

“So, can I start looking at afterlives now?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” he said emphatically, “In fact, I recommend it. So many people wait until the last minute to start looking at afterlives. They get fooled by cheap marketing schemes, make rushed decisions, and end up paying way more for an afterlife with little value. If you plan ahead, you can make much more rational decisions, and reserve yourself a nice place in an afterlife.”

“What about Heaven?” I asked.

“You mean Heaven Multinational?” he inclined his head.

“I guess?”

“If you're asking about getting in, well, let’s just say I wouldn’t get my hopes up. With the market like it is right now, and with Heaven in such high demand among Christians and agnostic generalists as the afterlife of their choosing, prices have gone from high to astronomical,” He said with a note of unease. “How many credits do you have?”

“Well, I don’t know,” I said. My mind was suddenly racing to figure this out. If this were what lay beyond, I’d need to know how to get into the best afterlife. I began to feel flushed around my collar as various questions about afterlives consumed me. Who offered the best afterlife for the best value? How would I know where to start looking? What if I found an afterlife I liked, but it had no vacancy? Were other people getting into better afterlives ahead of me? I envisioned some lucky bastard who hardly worked a day in his life getting into a nice space of afterlife just because got in when the market was ripe.

“I would recommend getting in touch with your life account management agent,” Arlington said, “He manages your account. He’ll know how much your life is worth.”

“You don’t know?” I asked hopefully.

“I’d have to see your account file.”

“Can’t you just… divine how good I am?” I asked. “Like… Isn’t that a job perk of being a life account manager?” It seemed perfectly logical. How did he know what to put in his paperwork when he closed an account? The car stopped again, and a few more people got on. I noticed that Arlington didn’t move. There were only a few more stops before 42nd Street. If he was planning on getting off at that stop, I would need to get the information I needed out of him fast. 

“I, personally, could not,” he said, “Even assuming you’re with us and not one of our competitors, I would need to obtain authorization from the agent assigned to you— who usually works out of the office that opened up your account at birth. That’s an old regulation.”

“How can I tell which account provider I’m with?” I asked.

“It should be on the back of your driver’s license.” He said. I quickly fished my license out of my wallet, and with a wave of relief found a logo on the back that matched the business card Arlington Hough had given me. Without saying anything, I held it up to show him.

“Ah, well, that should certainly make a credit check easier.” He said, “Are you from the city, originally?”

“No, I was born in Scranton,” I said. His face contracted.

“Oh dear…” he said.

“Is that bad?” I asked.

“Scranton is one of our worst franchises.”

“You mean, all your offices don’t offer the same service?” 

“Well, ultimately, yes, we do,” he noted, “but the quality of that service depends on which franchise holds your account.”

“And the Scranton Office is bad?”

“As bad as our Guiyang office, I’m afraid. We hear about them all the time at meetings.”

“Why don’t you guys offer the same service to everyone?” I objected.

“We do,” he said a bit defensively, “but keeping the franchises in competition with one another increases profitability, and keeps regulators off our backs. Just be glad you're not with RM&A.”

“Who?” 

“Rhadamanthys, Minos and Aiakos,” he said, shaking his head, “Imagine Aspen Dental were a life management firm...” 

“Sure,” I said, urgently shifting the subject back to my present situation, “But so, if my account’s still in Scranton, can I transfer?”

“It’s rather time-consuming, but yes,” he lamented, “If you get in touch with one of our agents at the New York Office, he can begin the necessary paperwork, do some internal background checking, and get back to you, usually, within the month. Though whether or not you can transfer also depends on your credit rating.”

“What do they need to confirm it for? As long as they have my file, can’t any of the agents in the New York office tell how good I am?”

“Well, no,” he said wincing, “and unfortunately it’s not just about how ‘good’ you are. I mean, how good you are does factor into your credit rating slightly, but only insofar that being bad adversely affects it.”

“I just want to make sure I get into a good afterlife,” I said, hoping sincerity would get him to help me out.

Arlington pinned me down with his stare and took a small breath.

“Right. Listen,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but account management firms make almost all our money through service and transfer fees, so it’s really all the same to me: Afterlives make out like they’re run by a merry band of angelic do-gooders. They are not. Most afterlives– particularly the so-called ‘good’ ones– are run by feral rat-bastards who will over-inflate the cost of an afterlife, squeeze you for all your worth and then avoid delivering half the accommodations they promised once you’ve moved in.”

“For real?”

“Absolutely. As I said, the really nice ones have become quite costly over the last few decades,” he said, “Heaven Multinational, Islamic Paradise United, Greener Pastures. The economic landscape has had a severe impact on the number of people able to get into all of them. And I’ve heard especially mixed reviews about HM’s neighborhoods. The properties seem nice enough, but what often ends up happening is that people pour all their credits into getting in, only to discover they have neighbors they don’t like. Radical Evangelicals living next to Unitarians. Jehovah’s Witnesses living next to Catholics. Rivalries have happened, and they can turn quite ugly.”

I thought about this for a moment, as we came to a stop again. He brought up another good point. What if I got stuck with neighbors I didn’t like? I’d already spent years living out of my parents’ house with nasty neighbors that either vehemently forbade you to touch their lawn, or were constantly in competition with you over something. Not only would I have to avoid getting ripped off by one of these guys, I’d have to find a section of an afterlife that didn’t have assholes in it, too. 

The car lurched forward again, and we sped onward. 42nd Street was next. 

“But yes,” he went on, sitting up in preparation to exit the car, “I would recommend checking out some of the various purgatories or limbos. They’re not half bad.” He paused and reached into his pocket, “You should really get in touch with an agent at the New York office. He can determine how much you're worth. Between your net assets, calorie intake, emotional stability, your total consumption rate, overall maturity, etcetera, etcetera, he’ll be able to tell you what your worth now, and recommend a strategy for future credit growth.” He began writing something on another business card that he extracted from his wallet. I tried to see without being too obvious. “Hopefully he’ll also be able to get you transferred out of Scranton.”

He handed me the card. “Here’s the address for our New York Office.”

“Oh, okay. Great,” I said. I felt like I was gaining an upper hand again. If I was lucky, I might even be able to reserve a spot ahead of time. “Which contact method is best? Phone or website?”

“The website’s chatbot function works, but its responses are limited and it won’t be able to retrieve credit reports. It will eventually reroute you to a contact form, but those are known to take days to process,” he lamented, “Calling our 1-800 number works, but it is frequently bogged down, usually because of people calling in to ask the most idiotic questions. As a third alternative, you may just want to schedule an appointment in person at your nearest convenience. It gets quite busy though, so I recommend you plan in advance.”

The subway car stopped at 42nd Street. Arlington Hough stood up to leave. I think he said something to me like, “This is my stop,” but I don’t remember. I was too wrapped in thought, but before he got off, I realized I had one more thing to ask him. 

“Wait a second,” I asked, running to catch him at the door, “When is the office open?”

“Oh… 24/7,” he said plainly. Then he cocked his head, tipped an imaginary hat. “Death takes no holiday, mind you…” 

With that, he left the car. The doors closed, and I was left alone to wait impatiently until the train reached its next stop. When the doors finally swung open again, I rushed out with more zeal and excitement than I’d felt in ages. I texted my girlfriend to let her know something had come up and I was going to be even later than expected, and was unsurprised to see she still had yet to respond to my first text. 

Whatever. We’ll see who’s laughing when she sees the kind of afterlife I’ve landed. Forget killing Barri. Defying old lovers and cheating bastards by transcending their success was the sweetest revenge. 

I decided to suck it up and called an Uber to the office Arlington Hough directed me to. While inside the vehicle, I took some time to think and I began to piece together exactly how I would attack this whole thing. The truth of it was I wanted to guarantee a place in a good afterlife, but ending it all would undoubtedly impact my credit, and dying prematurely might mean missing out on additional accruals. I’d been fairly successful so far, so it seemed reasonable to assume a credit increase was likely to happen. I would need to mature like fine wine. At the same time, I was well aware of the competition I faced against people who would die before me. I kept thinking of that homeless person getting into a neighborhood in the afterlife I wanted ahead of me simply because he died earlier that day and got in while prices were down. 

The Uber arrived at the address Arlington listed, and sped off shortly after I got out. The building was large with a gleaming green logo and dim interior with matching light.

Invigorated, I thrust open the door and strode into a vacant lobby with a single receptionist. It was massive, with a high drop ceiling and white, painted concrete floor that reflected the light of another glowing logo that hung over the receptionist’s desk. Every step I took echoed around the room, but the attendant did not acknowledge me until I stood over her. She was very dark-complexioned and youthful—practically looked 16, and wore an all-black fitted suit over a white shirt.

“I’m here for a walk-in, please?” She looked up at me from her computer, and cocked her head to the side with a vague wince that bordered on melancholy ennui. After looking me up and down, she nodded wordlessly and shoved a form in front of me to fill out. 

“Have a seat and fill this out, please,” she said with a rushed, deadpan voice. I got the impression she didn’t like her job or walk-ins.  

The form started with the usual stuff: my name, date of birth, Social Security number, but following that, it began asking me for a whole slew of other information including but not limited to the last time I had had sexual intercourse, my reading interests, willingness to contribute a urine and hair samples, my major regrets in life, and whether I thought I still had time to rectify them. It took me about thirty minutes, but in that time, no new walk-ins had entered, and I started to feel like I’d picked the best time of the day to come to their office. 

I finished the paperwork and slid it toward the receptionist. With another pained expression and a sigh, she rolled it up and put it in a pneumatic tube system. I watched as it was sucked away to who knows where. She then handed me a ticket with the number 200343 on it.

“Walk to the end of the hall, until you get to the elevator,” she said with a stiff nod to the nearby hallway, “take it down to level -3. You’ll wait there until your number is called,” I forced a smile and headed off in the direction she indicated. 

Yeesh… I thought. I realized it was late, but it seemed to me Life Ltd. could really stand to hire a receptionist with better people skills. Wondering briefly whether there would be a customer satisfaction survey after this whole thing was done, I put her out of my mind as I entered the elevator and eyed the buttons for the various floors. All negatives, they stretched as far as -47, beneath which was a single button labeled with the abbreviation Sub. Subduing my curiosity, I pressed the -3 button and descended. 

When I reached my floor, I was immediately greeted by another waiting room, only this one was vast, and packed with at least a hundred people. Dismayed, I checked over my shoulder to see if I’d gotten off at the wrong floor. I hadn’t. Signage declaring this floor the Homosapien department was unmistakable. I swerved around again. Modest, and sterile-looking chairs ran in rows all the way to the other end of the room, breaking only occasionally for the odd structural column. At the far side of the room were a set of doors and an enclosed reception window. I continued standing in mild bewilderment until the elevator doors slammed shut behind me, causing several bowed and waiting heads to steal sideways glances at me. I took several urgent steps forward, scanning for an empty chair, but careful not to disturb the delicate atmosphere of silence. 

There is something primal about the modern waiting room. Entering one always seems to have a kind of gladiatorial quality, with various patrons sizing up new entrants first with a vague curiosity about where they fit vis-à-vis the established hierarchy of service providers and consumers, but that quickly gives way to veiled hostility. A new person always held the potential of upsetting the balance of time already spent waiting or worse: extending it. In a waiting room this size, that feeling was increased tenfold.

After a few more sideways glances from restless clientele, the majority of them looked back down in near synchronicity to return to their cell phones or magazines, as if they were only mildly interested in me in the first place. Maybe they even convinced themselves this was the case, but for that second and a half, they were scared and suspicious.

After weaving my way along a row of chairs I finally found a seat next to a large black woman and a glowering white guy with a scar down his cheek. His overall demeanor was unsavory, but I didn’t feel like spending another five minutes looking for a seat. I took out my phone and scrolled through social media until my device ran headlong into a wall of weak underground internet. 

I glanced around the room looking for a guest wifi, but found none. A notable absence of magazines had me wondering how often people were called. I thought again about whether there would be a customer satisfaction survey when this was all over. 

After a small eternity, a faint voice called out over an intercom. 

“199,939,” it buzzed out.

Shit. I thought. At #200343, I’d likely be stuck in this holding pattern for the next several days. I started to wonder if I could hold onto my number and just come back another day, but when I considered the alternative of missing my appointment and not knowing my credit rating, while these other people found out just by sitting around and waiting, I decided to stay. 

I watched as 199,939 (an elderly man in a bowler hat) slowly made his way through the doors at the front of the room. The door made a thunderous bang when it closed. The black woman next to me shook her head slightly. I checked the time: It was nearly 2:00 AM.

“How long have you been waiting?” I asked her.

“Damned if I know…” she said, “I’m just trying to see if I can transfer some of my credit to my Grandmother– she passed away last year.”

I nodded, thought about what she said, and had a small brain wave. Standing up, I approached the enclosed reception office. 

“Can I help you?” She asked, with an intonation that bore the weight of a struggle I would likely never understand. Her voice was loud, and she wasn’t much of an improvement from the woman on the main floor.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, trying to keep my voice down, partially out of politeness, and also in part out of the discomfort of being overheard by one of the other gladiators waiting behind me. “Are there, like, different number sets for different types of appointments?”

“Huh?” she winged, “I’m sorry, sweetie, I can’t hear you.”

 I repeated my question louder and within earshot of everyone. 

“Are there different number sets for different types of appointments– 

“No, listen, I’m sorry, honey,” she said– God, I hate it when they use terms of endearment, “There’s only one set of numbers. You’ll just have to wait your turn like everyone else, m’kay?” 

She swirled her chair away, resumed her position and I shuffled back to my seat, averting my eyes from anyone that might be watching. This is not to say anyone actually watched, but I was sure the entire room heard and was now ridiculing my ignorance inside their heads.

I resumed my seat next to the large black lady and the guy with the scar. They both ignored me. 

God, what is so difficult about this? I wondered. If there were thousands of agents and account managers, it shouldn’t be a problem to just check your credit and get a number. All these people had to do was go into the sub-basement and retrieve my file. Hell, they had pneumatic tubes. Wasn’t the point to have things running like clockwork? It occurred to me that the New York City office was probably just busier due to its prominence, and they probably have fewer agents on staff at night, but still, how hard was it to run to the sub-basement?

The Sub-basement! I suddenly remembered Arlington Hough saying that the files were kept in the basement. I could just go down and find my file single-handedly. I was a lawyer, and I knew how to read both business and legal jargon; the file probably wasn’t too hard to interpret. Anyway, it was an account file—it all just came down to numbers. Not only that, but I was already dressed in a suit. Anyone who worked here and saw me would probably think I worked here, too. I could just go down, peek at my file, get an idea of what kind of credits I have, see if I could find a trend, and then book it out of here. It would be simple and painless. 

I walked through the plan a few times in my head before standing back up, and a few additional benefits started to take form. If there weren’t too many people around when I went down there, I might even be able to take a picture of my file with my phone and create a duplicate. After some independent research on the different afterlives, I could identify one I really liked, hit up their office, and maybe get my file in front of some key players. There were a number of ifs and thens about it, but it was a matter of life, death and an eternity. If this was my best opportunity to reserve a spot in a good afterlife without having to dick around with corporate bureaucracy, I had to take it.

I glanced around the room to see if anyone was watching me, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it had actually worked out that I got into it with the lady at the reception desk. Now when people saw me leaving, they would just think I was cracking under the pressure of the waiting room. I leaned into it. I stood up and briskly walked to the elevator, and made a point to tap the up button impatiently and heave a loud sigh before the doors opened up. I laughed to myself once the doors were shut behind me. Idiots. Little did they all know that I had the leg up on them now. 

I let the elevator take me up to the -1st floor, which was thankfully dark and empty. Once the doors shut again, I descended toward level Sub. As an additional stroke of luck, no one else got on the elevator on my way down, a fact which I attributed to the late hour. The agents were probably out collecting lives right now (In New York, definitely).

I was lost in this thought when the elevator doors parted, and the enormity of my task came into focus. The sub-basement was endlessly more massive than the waiting room. The filing cabinets themselves were ten drawers high, with ladders on a runner system so the top ones could be reached. Row upon row of cabinets to both my left and right went on further than I could see, and the columns of filing cabinets seemed to extend into an equal distance. I felt like I’d slipped into Bertrand Russell’s daydream. 

I looked to my immediate right to find a thick set of binders chained to a lectern with a CRT monitor perched on top of it. The word directory was barely legible under a layer of dust. More disconcerting was the silence. I could hear the occasional click and turn of a page in the distance, but at no point did I see any people. Though this was to my benefit, it gave me a creeping sensation of someone lurking out of sight. I quickly lifted the heavy cover of the binder and sifted through the first few pages. After searching through a sea of various genus and species, I found that primates started at row 43, and humans began at Column 73. Shit… I thought, Arlington wasn’t kidding. Life Ltd. really did service all these lives.

I put this out of mind and started off in the direction of my file at a brisk but dignified walk, avoiding the look of someone in a rush, while still moving quickly. I rounded the corner of row 43, into the primate section. I continued walking, feeling myself begin to breathe harder. Wishing that I’d worked out more often, I pushed on. By the time I reached the Capuchin section, I had broken into a sweat. The sheer length of each column of filing cabinets boggled my mind and I felt the kind of agoraphobia one might associate with being out in the middle of the ocean. I wished they’d installed some kind of rail system or provided a golf cart I could drive around in. It would certainly have saved a lot of trouble. I rewarded myself with a rest by the time I reached the Human section. 

Leaning against a filing cabinet, I looked at the first drawer of the section. It was labeled Aaronsen –Aaronson. 

Shit, this was going to take a while, too. Gathering my strength, I pressed on, keeping my eyes on the names of the filing cabinets. Every now and then, I continued to hear faint sounds in the distance, as someone moved between adjacent filing cabinets. Each time I slowed my pace to see if this was someone keeping track of me, and each time their steps faded away, lost in whatever personal task they were busying themselves with. After yet another small eternity, I reached a drawer that had my last name on it.

I slid a ladder over to my file, ascended, and pulled the drawer open. It was heavy and screeched open as though it hadn’t been touched in ages. I started sifting through all the files that bore my last name, and was surprised to see how often it came up. A few were family members, but most I’d never heard of. After going through several folders, I suddenly reached a new and different surname. I paged backward. The same thing: I wasn’t in this folder. 

Was I in the wrong place? I wondered. 

I thought back to what Arlington said, and just about fell off the ladder.

“At the end of a life, whenever that time comes, we close down your life account, and a record of it is stored in a filing cabinet in the sub-basement to be used for reference if need be.”

 Dammit! These were only records of the deceased! I realized. No wonder it took me so long to get out here. I had walked through the files of every deceased primate serviced by this office since the beginning of primates. I closed the drawer in frustration and began the long haul back to the elevator. I wondered if I had it in me to endure the waiting room again, or if it would be better to just come back another day when I had more energy.

I walked slowly through the empty rows of filing cabinets, considering my options. Upon reaching the elevator, however, I noticed two managerial types blocking my exit. They dressed in dark suits and looked angrier than Arlington. One of them was somewhat plump with muttonchops, and the other had the look of a long, dark undertaker. 

“And just what do you think you’re doing here, sir?” said the Plump One. My mind raced. I had been cooking up some excuse in the back of my head in the event of such an occasion, but now the occasion had actually arrived, my mind raced to catch up to my mouth. 

“…Oh I um…” 

“You do know that insider trading is an illegal offense punishable by up to ten years in prison,” said the Undertaker, “as well as a substantial forfeiture of credits?” 

Shit! Shit! Shit! My mind was reeling.

“No-no, I’m not– I wasn’t,” I began, “I was just here to meet my agent and I got lost—“

“You accidentally skipped all -47 floors, made it to the sub-basement, and then wandered beyond the rather blatant Employees Only sign?” Undertaker said to me. I actually had missed the employees only sign, but that was because I was in a rush to see my file. 

“I wasn’t here to steal anything!” I said, “I just thought if I could see my file–”

“You can’t see anyone’s files,” said Plump, “It’s a breach of our client’s privacy.”

“It is?”

“Not without strict authorization,” Undertaker responded in agreement with Plump, "Sifting through that kind of unredacted information is—well, it’s just unethical.” 

I tried to think of something I could tell them that would make them understand. After all, I was just a normal guy trying to ensure that I had enough credit to get into the best afterlife for myself. They couldn’t blame me for that. 

“Look, I’m just trying to ensure I get into a good afterlife, okay?” I said, “That’s the whole reason I came to your office. People are dying every day and I’ve worked way too hard to lose out on a good place in an afterlife!”

“The afterlife you choose is a decision that is solely up to you, sir,” said Plump, “Life Ltd. agents can offer credit growth plans and recommendations to afterlives, but we make no guarantees on either. This is all part of the standard liability clause in the terms of service agreement appended to your birth certificate.”

I looked at both of them as sweat beaded around my temples. Neither of their faces betrayed an underlying emotion. They were here to do a job. I felt two hands gently press against the small of my back, and the two guided me to the opening doors of the elevator. 

“Listen, I’m willing to cooperate with you guys to end this all as quickly and painlessly as possible.” I began, trying to weave an escape out of thin air, “I am a rather successful lawyer…”

The doors closed, and they said nothing. We began our ascent in silence. 

“I'm just saying,” I continued, “Rules are what I do for a living. There has to be something I can do to make this right— without taking too much of a credit hit.”

“Well, your credit will ‘take a hit’ whether you like it or not. ‘Rules,’ as you say,” Undertaker replied, “As for your afterlife options, it depends. Are you married or engaged?”

“Why?”

“While Life Ltd. cannot guarantee your place in an afterlife, for an additional fee, most afterlives do offer union or dependency clauses that allow a spouse to piggyback on their partner’s afterlife policy so they can occupy eternity together.”

“Assuming eternity with your spouse is something that appeals to you…” Plump chided.  

Versus an eternity in the section 8 circles of Hell? It absolutely appealed to me. Sure, my girlfriend and I were in a spot of trouble. Our work schedules had carved a distance between us, and that was to say nothing of her likely affair with Barri, but it had also not been so long before that we entertained the possibility of marriage. I had no particular feelings on it either way at the time, but hearing the two security guards on the elevator reminded me that marriage was more than a social custom. It was also a legal status, so revered and cherished over time, that it had been baked into how our society measured an individual. So much of our reputation, status and character rested on our ability to find someone we could love enough to spend the rest of our time with. Min and I were strong. Surely we could find our way back to each other and build an eternity together?

The elevator dinged as we reached the ground floor, and my captors led me out to the hall and into a drab holding room with a single chair and a table with a phone on it. The moment they exited to fill out some paperwork, I made my move. I reached into my pocket to retrieve my phone when a burst of vibrations signaled a barrage of text messages I’d apparently been too deep underground to receive over the last hour. 6 unread texts. All from Min.

Sorry. I fell asleep. What’s going on? Are you still out?

Ffs where are you?

Ugh. Can you call me when you get this?

What the fuck? So you’re just ignoring me now?

This is unbelievable. Fuck you.

Whatever. I’m done. I didn’t want to break up with you by text, but here we are. 

I read through each message at least twice. It certainly complicated the phone call I’d had mapped out in my head, but there was no other way around it. I needed her. With a deep breath, I thumbed my way down to her name and dialed. I had no idea what I was going to say, or how she would respond, but my afterlife depended on it. There was no reason that we couldn’t still behave like adults. The phone rang once, and after what felt like a long pause, a second ring issued from the microphone. Another pause followed this by which point, sweat had collected around my collar. The third ring came and went. I felt my heart sink into my stomach, but held out a flicker of hope. Surely, she would pick up soon.

Karl Nykwest spends his time co-running a small film and video production studio by day, and writing by night; usually something in the neighborhood of low fantasy, magical realism, or speculative weird lit. When his face is not buried in a screen, he’s usually enjoying cooking, or being outdoors.