Balance (The Divine Book One) - By M.R. Forbes Page 0,2

idiot' smile. "Thankfully, no. You can call me Mr. Ross. I'm the Collector."

Oh. "I am dead right?" I asked.

He nodded.

"A beach?"

"Look around son," he said. "Earth, water, air, fire; the feel of sand between your toes, cooling off in the water from the heat of the sun. The fresh salt sea air… Where else does humanity so perfectly merge with the most basic natural elements?"

It made sense, in a nothing-is-really-making-sense sense. "Okay. So, I'm pretty sure this isn't Hell, unless you're tricking me into thinking this isn't Hell, and then it turns out it actually is. If this is Heaven, I don't know… don't take this personally but, it’s kind of a bummer."

Mr. Ross sighed. "You may not be much, but if you’re all we’ve got I guess we’ll have to make a go of it. Now, please try to stop making a fool of yourself. Let's go."

He started walking. I followed behind.

"Wait a second. Where are we going?" He didn't answer. "Mr. Ross!" Nothing.

What did he expect? Two minutes earlier I had seen a beautiful woman turn into some kind of monster right before she blew me to smithereens. I was dead, but I was standing on a beach with one of the Blues Brothers. It had left me a little disoriented, confused, and giddy. I was finding it hard to calm down, so I was getting a little stupid.

We were walking, but I couldn't see where we were going. Ahead of us was a large sand dune, over it the clear blue horizon. There still wasn't another soul around, and Mr. Ross wouldn't say anything. He led. I followed. Until, for no apparent reason, he stopped.

"It'll be okay son," he said. "It happens to everyone. Just let it."

"What happens?" I asked.

Then it did. The reality. The crushing weight of what had actually occurred, the cold realization that I was no longer part of the land of the living. That my mother was going to be hearing from the police sometime soon that her son was a casualty of some kind of terrorist attack, disgruntled employee, or major nut-job. That I was never going to get married, have children, graduate college, or travel to Europe. Heaven or Hell, I was out of the game.

That's the simple description. The pain that ensued was a hundred times worse. Regret, guilt, anger, envy, I think I went through every single human emotion in the space of a couple of minutes. I curled up on the beach and cried my eyes out, the maelstrom of feeling overwhelming my senses and leaving me there for ten minutes, an hour, a month? There was no way to measure it except through pain. It felt like it lasted another lifetime. Mr. Ross just stood there while it happened, waiting for it to pass, as I was sure he had done plenty of times before.

When it did, the resulting reality was cathartic. At least I still had something. Something I could build upon, strive for, be challenged with. I may have lost my vessel, but the soul was still sentient. I got back to my feet, wiped my eyes with my hand, and looked at Mr. Ross.

"I'm ready," I said. He didn't say anything, but he looked pleased, as if I had passed some kind of test.

When we reached the top of the sand dune, we were greeted by nothing but white, empty space. Who knew that nothing could be so amazing? I gawked.

"I've seen this at least a million times," Mr. Ross said. I believed it. "I'm still amazed by it every time."

"What is it?" I asked.

"Think of the beach as a staging area. I'm the Collector. I pick you up here. From staging, you can go to any number of places depending on how you've been assigned. Most people get moved on to a secondary staging area where they're met with by an acquaintance if we have one available. We try to find somebody who's already learned the ropes to help them with the transition. If they don't know anybody, or maybe nobody ever liked them, they get moved on to orientation, which is divvied up by religious belief. A few get reassigned up or down, usually because of a 'clerical error'." He actually did the air quotes. "You're a special case. You get to meet the Boss."

Special case? Up or down? Boss? Too many questions, but I never got to ask them. He put his hand on my back and shoved me into the