Forever After (a dark and funny fantasy novel) by David Jester Read Free Book Online Page B

answer he had been expecting: “You chose to work. You chose to live on.”
                  He sagged back in his seat. “Fine.”
                  “Immortality not good enough for you?”
                  He shrugged nonchalantly. “At the time it sounded like a good idea,” he explained. “But I expected a little, I don’t know, just...more. I guess.”
                  “More?”
                  “Naked virgins and free whiskey on tap,” Michael explained with a wry grin. “A constant state of euphoria, a body that never feels pain or disease.”
                  “It didn’t live up to your expectations then?”
                  “No. I’m on the breadline. I live in filth. Last week I had the biggest haemorrhoids I’ve ever seen. It was like a grape vine growing out of my arse,” he shook his head disconsolately. “How the hell do dead people get fucking piles?”
                  “It is a complicated world.”
                  “Too complicated. None of it makes any sense and every time I ask about something, every time I complain; you know what they tell me?
                  The doctor nodded. She had said the same thing to him before.             
                  “In time you will learn,” she recited.
                  “Exactly,” Michael spat distastefully.
                  “And they are right,” Doctor Khan told him. “This world has to be experienced to be understood. You may think thirty years is a long time, but in the scheme of things, here , it isn’t.”
                  “So they keep saying.”
                  “It’s true. I’ve been around a long time and I’m still learning.”
                  Michael deflated in the chair. He hadn’t gotten what he wanted and once again he was going to leave just as clueless as he was when he arrived.
                  The doctor continued. “My advice to you Michael, is to relax. Stop wondering, stop asking questions and just let it be.”
                  “Fine,” Michael said with the stubborn and unconvincing tone of someone who certainly wasn’t going to relax and definitely was going to ask more questions.
                  He stood up, straightened his jacket, smiled appreciatively and turned to leave.
                  Doctor Khan called to him before he exited the room: “And lay off the dope.”
                 
                 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    3
     
     
                  On the night of his death Michael had experienced the same contented sobriety that he had since glimpsed in the eyes of so many of the recently deceased.
                  That night, when the final rain drop splattered on his pale face and his soul slipped out of his body, he felt empty. He felt like he was the body his soul had left, and not the other way around.
                  The man who had spoken to him before his death and then watched him die, extended a hand.
                  “Samson,” he offered with a smile.
                  Michael looked at the proffered appendage and then at his own lifeless body. “I’m dead?”
                  Samson withdrew his hand, tucking it into his jacket. “I’m afraid so.”
                  “You knew this was going to happen?”
                  Samson nodded apologetically.
                  “So what now?” Michael clambered to his feet and looked around the dim alleyway. There were no bright lights at the end, no ethereal melodies. “Is this it?”
                  “It doesn’t have to be if you don’t want it to be,” Samson said cryptically. “That’s what I’m here for. My offer still