Story-time | Moribund | by K.T.McQueen

A little introduction to Moribund

Moribund visits the dying just before Death arrives. Whilst they are teetering on the edge. And offers them an opportunity to live the life of their dreams in the next life. Would you take it? Story-time!

I haven’t done a story-time for a while on the blog. And I was looking through some old files sitting on my computer when I came across this. I enjoyed re-reading it so I thought I would share. This is the first chapter of a novella as yet unfinished. I’m considering posting a chapter once a month (I have about 5) – which means I have to write the rest – but if you’d like to read more do let me know and I’ll get to work 🙂 I hope you enjoy Story-time: Moribund.

Story-time, Moribund

Chapter One

Teetering on the edge brings death clearly into focus. But death is slow to approach, nervous of arriving too early, trying desperately to time his entrance to perfection. He wants to be sure you are both emotionally ready and physically prepared. Whereas I need to speak to you in those moments before, when you are moribund. I can only make my promises when you are on the brink of exhaling your last breath. That brief respite before death makes his grand entrance.

I can’t get to everyone obviously, there is only me, I have no minions or followers. In fact, very few know of my existence and those that do expire shortly after. But to you it could mean everything. Because what I have to offer is the certainty of a next life, and one that is worth living – or shall we say, the one that you would like to live.  I can make a bargain with you to put you into a life that holds all the possibility of the life you want to lead. There are, of course, a few caveats. But let’s not worry about them right now.

I am one of the very few who can access your Akashic records and make changes to it. I can give you the chance to think with your human mind, with your human experience, to help you move on to a life you want to lead. I’m sure some of you believe that you can do this yourselves once you have left your current meat sack but the way your ethereal self thinks is very different.

You may be wondering what I get out of it, and I will get to that. But right now I have a more pressing engagement with a gentleman who really didn’t live the life he wanted. He perhaps thought it was the one he wanted when he was in his prime, when he was raking in the money, lording it over all those foolish enough to think he had some kind of godlike power. He probably felt like a king of the world, in his small town hotel penthouse suite. And had he not taken the decision to completely eliminate his rivals he may have still been there.

He lays in agony, drugs coursing through his system, memories crashing into one another, his mind on fire, his skin feeling as though it is searing right off the bone. His last breath is only moments away and yet he fights it still. Some part of his brain telling him he can survive this.

I wait patiently, leaning against the cold tiled wall. Watching as the doctor takes his pulse, the guards stand with a sort of practiced reverence, the few who turned up to witness suffer various emotional outbursts. His son did not come, I know this, I can feel this fact as easily as I know his daughter is the one crying in the arms of her mother. Secretly relieved the ordeal is finally at an end and she might now be able to live the life she wants. The angry man at the back is simply there because he is angry at the world and has chosen this criminal, this murderer, as the first of those he will witness the death of. He has no real connection to anyone here, he is a nobody.

The guard to my left wonders whether he will ever get used to this, to the smells, to the violent response of the body trying to save itself. He wonders whether the nightmares he pretends he doesn’t suffer from will ever go away. He wonders if the life choices he has made have been any better than the ones of the man in the chair. Perhaps circumstances are all it takes to make the wrong decision. He will see the company provided councillor after this is all over then go home and drink a bottle of scotch. He’s applied for many other jobs in the last few years but no one has wanted to hire him. I wonder whether I might visit him one day, give him the next life he deserves.

A laugh escapes my lips. I like laughter, it’s like an energy bursting through the body in need of release. It is the first time the occupants of the room have any reaction to my presence. The Doctor glances up expecting to see someone there and frowns. The guards frown at each other suspecting the resident ghost has come to take its friend to meet his maker. My laughter makes everyone in the room feel a little uncomfortably brighter, happier. It is inappropriate. I do it again as I watch their reactions.

But then the man begins to take the last gasping breaths of the finally dying and I step closer and time slows.

‘Hello’ I say leaning over so he can see me.

He is unsure, he knows why he is here but for a moment the pain is gone, the agony, the dying.

‘I have come to make you an offer.’ I say conversationally. ‘A bargain if you like.’

He frowns at me, am I death, the devil, a ghost?

‘I imagine you have rarely thought about the life you will lead next. Made no preparations, given it no consideration. You probably don’t even believe that it is possible.’ I move around him. Talking. His eyes watch me. ‘But I can tell you it is true; you will be reborn into a new life after a period of readjustment.’

‘Are you for real?’ he asks.

‘Yes, quite real.’ I smile encouragingly. ‘The chances of your next life being any better than this one are slim to none. You have not lived a life that taught you the lesson you came here to learn. You made a bad decision and it was all downhill from there.’

‘Marcy wasn’t a bad decision!’ he snaps. Clearly having been told that on many occasions.

‘Not Marcy.’ I say. ‘Darius. Darius was your bad decision.’

‘Darius was a chump!’ he sneers.

‘A chump that set you on the path to what you became, that lead you here. To this agony, disgrace, disappointment.’

‘I…’ he frowns, thinking. ‘What’s the offer?’

‘Don’t hang around do you?’ I smile. ‘Ah well, you can specify the type of life you would like to live next and I can make the required adjustments to the records which would allow you to be born into a family and location where you would be provided with every opportunity to achieve your desired outcome.’

‘And…’ he hedged, as if that wasn’t enough.

‘You can learn the lessons you should have learnt in this life, preventing you from suffering a spiritual set back.’ I tapped his leg and he winced in pain. A little reminder of where he was wouldn’t hurt. ‘So what’s it to be? Money, love, experiences, salvation?’

‘I want to get revenge on the mother fucker who put me in here!’

‘I don’t think you understand, that would require me to change two records and put you in a spiral of connection throughout all your future lives. You could even find yourselves married to one another, attracted like magnets to each other.’ I peered into his eyes. ‘Do you want that?’

‘No.’ he grumbled. ‘I want him to pay.’

‘Here’s the thing, this life, the one you’re still hanging on to, the one in which this guy deserves to get revenge for what he did to you is no longer any of your concern. You will be in it for exactly one minute more.’

If it was possible, he paled further. The inevitability hitting him like icy water in the face.

‘This one is done, how would you like to spend your next one?’ I ask.

‘I think I would like to be a world famous movie star.’ He smirked. Sarcasm had ruined some of the best next life chances I’d ever given.

I sighed.

‘If you’re not going to take this seriously I’ll move on, go and make my offer to someone more deserving of a second chance.’

‘No, I really would like to be a movie star. A good one, with a big house, fast car, and lots of women.’

‘That’s it?’ I asked, mildly surprised.

‘And a dog, I’d like a dog.’ He was beginning to wince as the pain began to return. Death would be waiting in the wings, preparing himself for his big moment.

‘I can do that, are you thinking L.A.’ I asked.

‘Yes, L.A.’ he gasped. ‘But what do you get?’

‘Everything.’ I said cryptically.

His last gasp looked painful as he glared over his shoulder at me. I was giving him the chance to have everything he ever wanted but he didn’t know what it was I planned on taking in return, as payment.

As Death stepped in I made myself scarce. We’d had a moment years ago and Death had never gotten over it.

Part 2, 3, &4

Nothing in this written work is meant to represent any place, building or person. It’s all the work of the author’s overactive imagination and any resemblance is pure coincidence.

P.S. If you’d like to read more from K.T.McQueen check out The Soul Game