Amik opened his eyes. A giant TV, a chair, and an old guy in a black T shirt with a heavy metal logo on it. Huh. Wasn’t he just riding his bike down the highway? What was this? 

“Welcome to the After Life Processing Center – your final step to put a bow on the lives you have and could have led. Your Guide will be joining you shortly, so please wait for a few moments.”

After life? After which life? Has his life ended? 

“Oh crap” Amik thought, “Mom’s going to be so mad. She kept telling me to stop riding that bike.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time moms are right.”, said the guy in the T-shirt, deadpan but vaguely amused. “Welcome to the After Life Processing Center. I am your Guide, here to help you with your soul-processing today.”

Soul-processing? More interesting than his words, Amik noticed that though the guy seemed convincingly human, his feet seemed to just blend into the dark floor, almost as if he were one with the room they were standing in. 

“Soul-processing? What, are you going to put my consciousness through the wringer?”

The guy smiled. “In a manner of speaking, I suppose. You’re here to relive two of the possible lives you have led before. You’ll see on the screen a collection of all the possible lives you could led, driven by the choices you made -”

“What if I don’t want to relive any of them? I want to know more about who you are, what this place is. Can I just do that instead?”

Black T-shirt was clearly surprised, but recovered quickly. “You must pick two lives to rewatch, but if you wish we can play them on 4x speed and you can get out of here as quickly as you’d like”

“That’s not what I asked for though. I don’t want to leave quickly, I just want to spend my time talking rather than watching other sorry versions of my shitty life.” Amik narrowed his eyes.  “But it sounds like you want me to be outta here quickly – what, you on some kind of deadline? Got a hot date after?” 

P154 inwardly groaned. It hated when they got personal. It wanted to keep its in-room work and its ex-room life separate, and especially hated when they started asking questions about the Processing Center itself. P154 had been hauled to headquarters more than once for divulging more than was allowed to an extra-curious HSS soul. “They’ll forget it anyway!” it had argued every time. “The rules are in place for a reason!” they had hit back every time.

 “You may spend the time any way you like, but yes, there is a deadline of 30 minutes per soul that we must adhere to. And even if you do not choose two lives yourself, 2 will be chosen for you, and played on this screen regardless of whether you choose to watch it or not.”

Amik rolled his eyes and snorted. P154 did not envy his mother – this was a troubled child-turned-adult if there ever was one. “Fine, I’ll pick something. I want to see the one where I became the most famous, and one where I somehow made my mother the happiest. I doubt I’ll see anything surprising.”

“Ok, I can queue these up. Why do you not expect to be surprised? What are you expecting these lives will look like?”

Amik snorted again. A most annoying habit. “I bet I was most famous when one of my singles went viral – if only I had found a good enough band to make my songs into the hits they could have been! And I bet my lovely mother was happiest when I took a nice stable job, married a nice girl, had 3 sons and a white picket fence. None of this follow-my-dreams, let-me-be-a-rockstar bullshit.”

Black T-shirt listened thoughtfully, then silently turned to the screen, where the video had started to play. 

Amik watched the familiar reel play – getting into trouble at school, fights with his mom, forming a band at his high school. He yawned and turned back to Black T-shirt. “So, what are you, like the janitor around here? Here to clean up the worthless trash souls and put them in the compactor?”

“I am here to guide you through your life’s possibilities, and -”

“You got a choice in who you get to ‘Guide’?”, Amik interrupted, with finger quotes and heavy sarcasm.

“No, we are assigned souls as they come -”

“Are the ones you get all worthless washed up rock stars? Is that why you’re in that get up? Or is this a version specially crafted for me, to make me feel more at home?” Amik peered carefully at his T-shirt

“We adapt our form to suit the person so that -”

“We? How many of you are doing this?” 

Amik’s habit of interrupting was starting to get on P154’s nerves. Not that it had any, but it liked that HSS expression. Like so many others, it made no biological sense but conveyed the meaning so beautifully.

“The number changes by the second – as new souls get created, the need for After Life Processors continues to grow.”

“After Life Processors? That’s a mouthful. How long have you been…” Amik trailed off, distracted by what he saw on the screen. “Is that Ava Plume? What is that bombshell airhead popstar doing in my bed??”

“It appears you met Ava at a bar after one of your gigs, she approached you to compliment you on your music, and you both hit it off.” P154 watched in relief as Amik got back to the business of soul-processing.

“You’re telling me she was my girl? She looks kinda young, and.. not as polished? Did she lose her touch in this version of the world?”

“No, in fact you met before she rose to stardom. In a few short years, she will be on the best-seller lists, and you as her boyfriend and eventual husband will become quite famous indeed.” 

P154 had known this was coming the moment Amik had asked for his most famous life. In fact it was so common that the HSS processors division even had a stereotype for these conversations – the ‘Fame Blame’ loop. Countless ‘artists’ came in here, asking to see their most famous selves, convinced that they were one lucky break, one good agent, one breakout song away from instant and persistent stardom. So rarely though was that the case. More often, their claim to fame would be tied to another, a mishap that went viral, or a one-hit wonder. Only the truly hard working but prematurely dead found their famous selves satisfying in here.

Amik was silent for a few moments, as more reels of him joining Ava on the red carpet, being hounded by paparazzi who wanted photos of Ava, showing up on the front page as the husband carrying Ava’s kid while she went up on stage. He turned away, unable to keep watching.

“I guess mom was right yet again huh. I was always a worthless piece of shit.”

“Not completely worthless. Ava loved you with her whole heart, and you seem to have found peace in your own way. Look again.”

Amik reluctantly turned back, to see himself on stage at a small indie venue, singing an acoustic version of the song he’d been trying to figure out just before he left for his bike ride earlier that day. He seemed to sing it to just one point in the room, and Ava – now a beautifully aged 50 – was looking back into his eyes, tears flowing down her cheeks.

He wrapped the song to thunderous applause with a “Happy Birthday my love”, and walked over to her for a kiss. Their kids made gagging noises in the background.

“Well, whatever. Screw this. I don’t care – I want to know more about you anyway. So tell me, why does your T-shirt logo say P154?” 

“P stands for Processor.  I am the 154th processor to work here.”

“Well shit, if there are billions of souls, you must be hella old right?” A new respect, but also curiosity, had entered Amik’s eyes.

“Yes, I am one of the older Processor’s around. The first one to ever work with a Homo Sapiens Sapiens in fact.” P154 had to fight to keep the smugness out of its face – it so rarely got to tell anyone this fact – none of the souls knew enough to ask, and the other processors didn’t care.

“Whoa. That’s pretty cool! So, what do you think? Impressed with how we humans have grown since the first one that showed up??”

P154 couldn’t hold back a smile. “Yes, incredibly impressed. Being an HSS processor is pretty much the toughest gig here – nearly all other species’ manuals have barely changed from the dawn of life, while I’m updating the HSS manual every 5 years for each new generation. Just yesterday, we had to add Amazon Alexa and Google Home as avatars for the Guides since that form seemed the most comfortable to some of our youngest souls. It’s always interesting around here, I tell you that.” 

Amik howled with laughter. “Alexa and Google Home huh? That’s hilarious! Next you’re going to have to show these life videos in 20 second TikTok formats!”

P154 made a mental note to look into this new ticktock technology. “Speaking of the Life Video, your second life is starting up.”

“The one that made my mom happy? Yeah screw that, I told you I already know what it’s going to look like. Tell me more about what you and the other processors talk about? Who’s the most famous among us humans?”

P154 pointedly turned towards the screen, hoping Amik would get the hint and watch his second life as well. “There are several – as I said, humans are the most interesting species. Some of the most famous people on earth as you can imagine also create waves here. Hitler came and demanded to see the version when he had conquered the entire planet, and threw quite a childish tantrum when he was told there was no such version of his life. Gandhi and I had a very beautiful chat – he asked me to play his same life on repeat twice, since he could not remember a single decision he regretted, and would not have chosen any other way. Now that I recall, he only had fewer than 100 life paths.”

P154 was about to start on the next story when it noticed it had lost its audience. Amik was watching in astonishment at the screen. He was on stage, singing the same songs he’d been practicing last week, with the same band, and his mom was in the front row, face paint and black T-shirt and all, jamming to his music. 

“How.. how is she ok with.. with this? I thought she hated rock music.”

“Ah I believe you missed a few key moments from earlier in this life – allow me to quickly rewind.” 

Amik winced as he saw his 14 year old self have yet another shouting match with his mother, then storm upstairs, slam his bedroom door and put on his headphones to listen to his favorite metal band’s new album. A few moments later, he took off his headphones and went down to the kitchen to grab some OJ, and heard soft sobbing from the living room. 

Amik watched his younger self stand there staring at the ground, and for once show the emotional maturity to recognize that his mother was hurting just as much as him, even if she showed it differently. His father’s passing had not been easy on either of them. 

Suddenly young Amik looked up, resolute, ran up to get his CD player and headphones, and came sprinting down with it. 

“Mom… I know you call it noisy, but can you listen to this song with me? I used to listen to it with Dad, and he told me about how this band did this really cool thing…” his voice trailed off as the video sped up, and Amik’s mom wiped her tears and watched her son try to explain rock metal to his too-old mother. 

“She listened? Was that all I needed to do? Just tell her why I like the music? Was that really it?”

P154 let silence be the answer. There was nothing more to say. The video continued, Amik watched with tears in his eyes as he built a moderately successful indie rock band over the next 20 years, his mom cheering him on at every gig, front row in every performance. He saw himself on the highway on his bike, but this time to go meet his mom for a weekend instead of trying to escape his own reality. He gasped as he saw his life eventually clashing into Eva’s again, in their 40s this time, and finding the same love that he had seen in his first life. 

The lights dimmed, P154 opened the door and Amik’s leather jacketed form drifted towards it. He looked pensive, still processing the eventualities that came out of one different action when he was 14.   

“Before you leave for your next life, we have an exit questionnaire with three questions. First question, Would you replace the life you lived with any of the ones you watched today?”

Amik looked up, tears still swimming in his eyes. “Yes, most definitely the second one. I still can’t believe it. All I had to do was talk to her.” He shook his head sadly.

“Second question. Would you like to have memories of your current life to be available to you in your next life?” 

“Absolutely not. I wasted my life, and want nothing to do with it.”

“Third question. Would you like to repeat any experiences from your current life again in your future life?”

Amik snorted, some part of his original cynical swagger returning. “I… oh this is pathetic, but the only bright spot in my entire life was the freedom of riding on the highways, just me and the road. I hope my next life is one where that isn’t the best thing about my life and that it doesn’t kill me, but I do hope I get to experience that again.”

Black T-shirt gave Amik a short nod. “Ok then. Thank you for visiting the After Life Processing Center. I wish you all the best in your next life.”

P154 shut the door. What a surprise that the guy with so many questions at the start left with none at the end. Humans always surprised P154 with just how many facets they had. Compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, every single human could quite easily be diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder. 

“Teacher Jones? Emmy? Where did everyone go?”

P154 turned around with a groan. Children were the worst. 

Continue to Chapter 3: The Play Doh distraction →