BARRIERS 

This can’t be right, Carrie Weis thought.  This is some kind of joke?  The rest of my life is not going to be this way. 

But this is the rest of your life.  Welcome to it, skinny.

The voice of reason throttled and tormented his life’s spirit.  In this mess, spirit was a cage.  If this was redemption, he wanted his life back.  Every minute that came afterward, every abhorrent reality that he was dead, and not a damn thing could he do about it.  Jesus, he realized, was not going to save him.

Carrie Weis was thirty-four when the truck hit him.  He was here because of the stupid truck.  Life proved stupid, and death was no different.  Mother, on top of everything, had given him a girl’s name.  He’d heard about men named Carrie before, but that never made him feel any better, especially now.  He was still fuming about it.  How they’d teased him at school!  The heckling never stopped. 

“Carrie!  Carrie!  Carrie, the Fair-y!”

“Didn’t she see your little wee-wee?  Oh, yeah, I guess that’s why she gave you a girl’s name!”

Mother was in on the joke as well.  She and the Great Almighty were sitting on their celestial thrones laughing their lordly asses off.  If she’d wanted a girl so badly, why didn’t she adopt one?  Would naming him Carrie change him into the precious beauty she’d hoped for? 

“I named you after your great-great grandfather, Carrie,” she’d said, when he was thirteen.

“Was he a homo?” Carrie had asked.

A hot sting numbed his face when she slapped him.  He’d gone to his room, feeling the imprint of her hand on his cheek for two and a half hours.

She could have at least put a ‘Y’ on the end, said the voice of reason.

Yeah.  A ‘Y’ would have made all the difference.  A ‘Y’ would’ve kept him from this horror, this deadpan world of craziness, a nightmare of things gone terrible awry.

He’d cried when he realized the horror, the predicament he was in.  At least he’d tried.  Tears, apparently, were non-existent in death.

He should’ve adopted a pet, someone to lie next to him in his misery, keep him company.  What would that do, though—a dog, a cat, or a fish—besides curl up and beat its tail against his thigh? 

Doom, he thought.  Nothing but doom.  To see the sun again!  Time with friends!  That girl I never called!

Only now can you appreciate how good living was, said the voice.

“Why don’t you shut-up?” Carrie said, into the dark.

The casket hemmed him in from all sides.  Nicely pressed,, seeing nothing but darkness, nothing but the picture of memory. 

Maybe this was stage one, he told himself.  After all, he hadn’t been here that long.  Maybe he had to familiarize himself with hell before ascending to the stars.  It was only a matter of time before he took the climb was all.  He’d ask God what the hell this graveyard shit was all about!

Instead, much to his horror, Carrie heard the voice of his mother: 

You’re a grown man, for God’s sake!  Why don’t you just shut-up and deal with it!

Maybe the voice belaboring him and his mother’s were the same.  There was a ghoulish thought.

“If you can’t make up your mind, then just shut the hell up!” Carrie cried.

In reply to his outburst, laughter boomed through the cemetery.  Was it possible to go mad in death?

He could talk.  He couldn’t move his lips, but when he voiced his thoughts, they cracked over the graveyard for every soul to hear. 

Oh, the unhappy days he’d spent in resentment!  To think release was possible only to come to this!  Shouldn’t tears be a sign of mercy?

I’ll be better next time!  Just a chance to say I’m sorry, look for that job, that girl!  What was her name?  I know one of them would’ve made a difference! 

The dead could shout a warning!  Get the scientists to ponder this!  Someone had to find a way out of this madness!

God was an unconscionable nut-ball, Carrie decided.  A warped comedian!  It was the only thing that made sense.  

His ability to hear was unfathomable.  He saw nothing but blackness.  He could hear as well as Superman!  A radar in his head scanned over the cemetery.  Every plot had a voice, issuing thoughts across the graveyard.  Televisions were audible from the street below, neighbors fighting with one another, dogs barking, horns sounding, kids playing, and birds singing.  The worms, spiders, and centipedes slithered through the mud outside the casket, making wet, creeping noises.  Death should’ve been called, Ears.  What did the deaf think?  Did they obtain the ability to hear in the afterlife?  Who could he ask?  Obviously, death had nothing to do with it?  Death, a term misinterpreted to mean ‘the end,’ was not the end at all, but a nefarious form of immortality.  Perhaps Carrie was in Hell.  God had been usurped from His throne.  Carrie’s mother was running the show! 

For sale, he thought, one body stuck in a lifetime of paralysis and torture.  Casket and suit included.  Wait for our introductory offer!

He wasn’t the only one suffering at least.  The dead, too, were caged alongside him in their black, silent prisons.  They overpopulated the dirt with senseless ramblings, madness, and confusion.  No one got up to smell the cemetery flowers, seeking bigger and brighter things.  This put new meaning to the phrase, ‘ Final Resting Place .’

Hell was the only thing that made sense.  No other explanation was logical.  The flames and brimstone were all a big, fat lie.

Death, quite simply, was a cruel and rotten joke.

He couldn’t wiggle his fingers and toes, couldn’t make wet popping noises with his tongue, couldn’t blink.  What happened if his nose began to itch?  Was he condemned to lie in the darkness of eternity listening to his own insipid thoughts?

It couldn’t stay this way forever, could it?

Could it? 

But it will stay this way forever.  Don’t you see?  There’s no turning back.  That ticket is non-refundable.  You paid for it.  They took it, and now you’re here.  Enjoy it.  Look around you!  Isn’t it a lovely place?  There’s so much to see and do!

Carrie reached for hope.  Hope was crucial, especially now.  If he didn’t have hope—

Actually, you don’t have hope either, said the voice.  Hope is the first thing they take.  I mean, how can you have hope in all this?  And as far as dying goes, well, that’s pretty funny, Carrie-ole-girl!  You’re a riot!

If he listened to the voice, he’d go crazy.  If he went crazy…

Haven’t we been through this before?

Carrie Weis wailed into the darkness.  He’d contemplated madness before in death.  When he was alive, in fact.  It was a strange possibility.  Were there any requirements, he wondered?

I think you meet those requirements, Carrie.

Using the capacity of his lungs and mental will, Carrie shrieked in defiance from his tomb.  The long dead lunatics of Rose Hill Cemetery paused when Carrie disrupted their banter.  If they could, they would’ve turned to one another and grinned, eyes wide.  A newcomer!  After the pause, Rose Hill erupted in another barrage of lunatic cackles.

This isn’t happening, Carrie thought, groaning.  This is some hideous dream.  When the sun comes up, it’ll all be over.  The covers are over me, tight and snug.  That’s why I feel like I’m suffocating.  I’m in bed, dreaming.  Other than that, I’m fine.  I’ll be making coffee soon.

What else could he do but take the punishment like a man?

Or a woman, the voice said, and giggled.

To pass the time, he had no choice but to listen, to hear.

Crazy death? Carrie thought.  How can that be?

Stick around, I’ll show you.

“Shut up,” he said.

A snicker came from the darkness to his left.  The mocking, the heckling never stopped.  The dead couldn’t stay quiet for a single second!  It drove him crazy!  Some played music trivia.  Others were journalists, asking every question imaginable.  Others passed the time solving riddles or complex equations, and trivia was always fun from any category.  Families chatted idly and told jokes together.

“Dirty shoes go on the porch!  You know better, Malcolm.”

“Ah, mom, my feet ain’t dirty.  I’m dead!”

“I don’t care.  Do as you’re told.  You know that dog’s been leaving piles all over the yard.  God knows what kind of filth he’s been trackin’ in here.” 

“Ma, the dog’s been dead for longer than you!  His days of poopin’ are over!”

Some hummed tuneless melodies or sang songs.  Some recited poetry. 

Yeah, what do you have Carrie, but eternity?  Ponder why your mother didn’t put a ‘Y’ on the end.

It wasn’t as if he had any pressing engagements.  He couldn’t feel anything.  He might as well get comfortable.  He had all the time in the known universe.  Could he have done something else to make his situation better, more endurable? 

To lie and think, Carrie thought.  Contemplating every second of my soulless existence, this barrier of eternal darkness and lunacy.  Can’t cry; can’t moan; can’t move my lips, but somehow, I’m able to voice my thoughts.  ’Can only make the sound without knowing why or how… 

Realizing this made his predicament more disturbing.  Not words spilling over the graveyard, but thoughts themselves—perversions, sins, deeds, vices—out there for everyone in the land of the dead to hear.

Time and ears is all you got, buster.  Be thankful.  I could’ve just given you time.

“Yes, sir,” he said, or thought, rather.  “Name’s Carrie Weis, and I’m a newcomer.  Any alcoholics with us tonight?  Yes, sir, I’m just sitting here watching the time go.  Watching the darkness, rather.  Can’t really do much.  Can’t see much, but if you need a safe cracked, I’m your man.  I can hear a pin drop in Montana .”

Don’t forget it, the voice said.

How could he forget?  Wasn’t staring into the permeable dark reminder enough?

I’m waiting for you, cousins, family, friends, Carrie thought.  I’m waiting for you to see what I see, hear what I hear.  A song, a song, a tuneless melody…

People waited their whole lives for death, the hope of mercy and forgiveness.  Ascending into mountainous air and pure clouds, however, wasn’t here, and even in death, thoughts of suicide plagued him.

Just hold your breath, he thought.  If you hold your breath, you’ll blow up like a great big balloon.  You can use yourself as a flotation device, rise slowly out of the ground, above the trees, and into the clouds.  At least you’ll have a view.  You can ask the Big Cheese what this graveyard shit is all about.

No sleep.  When he grew tired, he lied still and tried to nap.  But he never grew tired.  His mission in death was suicide.  He had it now!

He just wanted to know why, for God’s sake?  Didn’t that mean anything?  Wasn’t that a question worth asking?  How could this be all there was, unable to lift a finger, flutter an eyelash, yet he was trapped, powerless except to listen to the dead.  He’d never heard a final, ‘Lights Out!’

It’s kind of funny, Carrie, if you think about it.  Imagine if you had to take a piss, I mean, a really bad piss, or if you got really horny?  That would suck, wouldn’t it?  You’d just have to sit here and douse all over yourself.  You could try willfully procuring an orgasm.  Now, that would be impressive!  What kind of thoughts are going through this guy’s head?  I’d pay to see that?  Can you see yourself on the cover of People magazine?

He couldn’t even roll his eyes.

“I wish you would shut-the-hell up,” Carrie said.  “As if things aren’t bad enough with your antics!  How’s a person supposed to hear himself think?”

All he heard was the graveyard, its primitive characters voicing their inane banalities.  Didn’t they have the desire to shut-up, to take a break, to get some sleep? 

Maybe they’ve tried that already, Carrie?

He had the curious misfortune to spend eternity next to Joe and Nadene Emerson.  Nadene was ruthless, verbally vicious to Joe.  Joe took the badgering like a broken, tormented figure molded to fit his humility and shame.  He’d been one of those people anxiously waiting for death, Carrie thought, and now he was doomed to lie forever next to the belligerent, unruly cow that was his wife.  Joe lived in hell!  That was certain.  But this!  Buried for eternity next to a dragon?  God must be more merciful!

He was quick to learn what Joe’s life had been like.

Nadene complained, insulted, belittled, tyrannized, subjugated, and did everything but tear poor Joe’s soul apart with words alone.  Nadene would’ve crawled into the casket and throttled the poor sonofabtich if given the chance.  After all, this abhorrent reality was all Joe’s fault!  Joe had done something to piss off the Man Upstairs!

“No dinner unless that lawn is mowed, Joseph Waldo Emerson.”

Nadene was notorious for her lack of discretion, too: 

“Sex?  Sex?  You want to get that thing all damp and scrawny after you’ve punished me with it?  You know I don’t have sex with you, Joe?”

“Joseph, you left your under-shorts in the bathroom again!  How many times have I told you?  Like a hairy rat crawling across the rug!  Get in there and put ’em with the rest of your wildlife apparel!  ’Things scared me so bad, I had to fight them off with a broomstick!  They was crawling ’cross the floor, Joseph.  They have legs!”

“Your breath is sort of foul, Joe!  You smell like the crypt.  Why don’t you gargle so I don’t choke to death!”

Carrie, despite Nadene, got a good chuckle over that one.  Joe, however, continued to lie in his eternal nightmare, not saying a word.  Sometimes, Carrie heard an audible groan coming from Joe’s casket. 

As if Joe hadn’t been through enough?  Did the rest of them have to listen to it? 

“Can’t you at least tone it down and give the guy a break?” Carrie said when he’d first arrived.

“You mind your own lonesome business,” Nadene replied.  “You and your imaginary friend, anyway!  Got a real nut-case with us, ladies and gentleman!”

Maybe Joe didn’t mind.  Anything was better than lying here in the dark listening to yourself think.  In a situation of this magnitude, even Carrie could appreciate the worst of spouses.  Joe wasn’t alone in his lunacy, at least.  Maybe Nadene suffering alongside him was a sort of redemption.

Carrie thought back to his own death, the truck blindsiding him.  He’d been walking home from the grocery store.  He’d looked both ways before crossing the street, the grocery bag cradled in his right arm.  It had been a warm, windy day in August.  The gusts threw him off balance.  The truck must’ve come around the corner when he was switching the groceries from one arm to the other.  That explained why he hadn’t seen it.  Why the driver hadn’t seen him, of course, was a mystery.

He’d stepped onto the asphalt.  He remembered taking three complete steps was all.  The next thing he knew, a bright light sent him into the dark.  He recognized—for a split second—a jarring flash of pain.

The grocery sack sailed through the air.  Granny Smith apples hit, split, and rolled across the pavement.  Milk made a wide white patch on the asphalt, spreading toward the gutter.  Broken eggs sizzled. 

Someone screamed.  Not Carrie.  He knew his own voice.

His sight revealed a strange view of the street when his vision returned. 

The truck had broken his neck, but he was still alive.  The reason he was alive wasn’t because he could see and hear, but because he could feel the heat from the asphalt.  Summer had made him sweat.

“Mister?  Mister?” 

Isn’t that a music group, Carrie thought?

“I think he’d dead.”

’Am not.  I can see you.  I can hear you.  I think I’m paralyzed.  Would someone please call a doctor?  Seventeen-fifty wasted on groceries.  Damnit.  My mouth won’t make any noise.

Sweat dripped into his eyes.

Oh, God, he’d thought.  I’m paralyzed.  I’m not dead, but I’m paralyzed!

You have no idea, chuckles, a voice said, a strange, befriending phantom, eager to make his acquaintance.  Carrie thought he’d imagined it.

He had vision after death, even when they’d closed his eyes.  It was bizarre.  Only when they closed the casket…

No, no! he cried, behind his peaceful, sleeping face.  Wait! 

Since then, as Poe would’ve put it, ‘darkness there and nothing more.’

His family and friends had been at the funeral.  Everyone looked troubled, neutral, and emotionless.  Their faces were strange, distant, and personal. 

His mother had walked up to the casket.  She’d been wearing a black and red blazer with a long black skirt.  She was attractive in her stern, haughty way, lips pressed tightly as if the sight of Carrie had soured her.  Her eyes didn’t show a glimmer of sadness.  Similar to his birth, his death—for her—seemed the same disappointment.  She didn’t say a word.  She’d patted his hand, her obligatory duty as a mother, something she vied to protest.  Her only son, Carrie thought, still wishing for a daughter.  They were all at the funeral, Vicki and Ray, Caroline and her daughter, Susan.  After a while, Carrie wished he could’ve closed his eyes.

So much for the out of body experience, Carrie thought.

Even the coroner had made fun of him, humiliating him, poking and prodding here and there.  If only he could’ve sat up!  If only he had the strength, he would’ve turned their hair blinding white!  That would’ve been perfect!

“What kind of name is Carrie for a guy anyway?” the coroner asked his assistant.

“Maybe she wanted a girl instead and thought it would change him,” the assistant replied. 

“Maybe he’s a fairy.”

“Maybe he wears panty-hose!”

Both men had erupted in laughter.

“I’m still in here, you bastards!” Carrie wanted to shout.  “You bastards, you can’t do this!”

I wonder why she didn’t put a ‘Y’ on the end.

The memory was gone.  It slipped away into his newfound dead.  He was back in the casket at Rose Hill Cemetery .

“Just shut-up, already,” Carrie said, exasperated.

‘Just shut-up, already,’ it mocked him.  Is that all you ever say?

Madness was possible in death.  Proof of that was all around him.

Not an answer, not a single explanation, Carrie thought.

God had no children to begin with.  That must be it.  Religion, the doctrine, the faith, and all that crap was just that: crap.  A bold faced lie!

God was a fruitcake.  Carrie knew He was up there laughing.  Or, there was no God.  Carrie believed the latter

“It’s all mom’s fault,” he said.  “She never approved of me.  That look she always had—the pain of knowing I existed, the grueling horror when she realized I was no one’s responsibility but her own.  If she would’ve accepted me from the start, this never would’ve happened.  I would’ve never moved to Idaho , this quiet town.  The trees would still be green, the sky, blue.  This darkness would not be here!”

It took until he was dead, but suddenly—feeling the years of pent-up fury for his mother—Carrie lashed out like he never had before:

“DO YOU KNOW MUCH THEY TEASED ME AT SCHOOL, MOTHER?  DO YOU?  DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW DIFFICULT IT WAS TRYING TO BE YOUR UNWANTED SON?  YOUR DAY’S COMING, MOTHER?  YOU, TOO, WILL KNOW THIS HELL!  AND IF THERE IS A GOD, WHICH I HIGHLY DOUBT, I HOPE HE BURIES YOU FOR ETERNITY IN A CEMETERY OVERPOPULATED BY WAILING BOYS!  THAT WOULD BE PERFECT!”

Dead at thirty-four, Carrie wished for a single tear.  Just one—to forget—to mourn and be done with it all. 

After all, he had a life to live…

Silence issued over the cemetery.  Laughter failed to sound.  Carrie thought he heard the words, “Long time coming, that.”  Then it was gone. 

What happened to those who took the stove, the kindling and the flames?  Were they trapped forever in the heat of the fire?  Did they feel it?  Or did the urn keep them in the same darkness on the mantle above the fireplace, surrounded by their families as if they weren’t even there?  Maybe Carrie was better off this way.  Maybe the darkness wasn’t so bad.

If only the living knew.  Cemeteries could be built above ground the world over.  You could put in a reservation for a porch swing, an ocean view.  Death could be an even bigger business!  Anything but this monotony, these petty quarrels, meaningless trivia games!  How many times could you recite poetry without growing violently ill?  What had he done to deserve this?  What had any of them done?  If he judged correctly, he’d say he was a decent, law-abiding citizen.  He minded his own business.  He’d been a decent man.

With a girl’s name, said the voice.

How long had he been here?  Weeks?  Carrie couldn’t remember.  It was hard to tell when you never saw the sun.  It wasn’t as if he wanted to get used to it.  If he got used to it…

No, God, please don’t let me get used to it.  Ever.  I don’t want to get used to it… 

Carrie didn’t know what to think.  He felt better after wailing into the dark, but honestly, this wasn’t funny anymore.

Voices plotted murder around him; others conspired heinous acts of violence.  Infants wailed, lost, still frightened in the dark.  A lustful dialogue developed to his right. 

Then, it came from nowhere.  It came from everywhere:

“Just one more hit, just one…one more, and I’d be okay.”

“Does anyone have a cigarette I can bum?”

“Joe, I’ve told you countless times, not to leave the toilet seat up!”

“Anyone got change for a ten?”

“Doctor says I can, which is good, because I have this long flight to Miami .”

“I never told her I loved her.  Blew up over that stupid thing and never told her I loved her…”

If he could’ve, he’d have closed his eyes and prayed, but what good would that have done? 

Carrie Weis tried taking a deep breath, but it was futile.  Darkness filled his lungs.  Like a silent prayer, he begged:

“Please, God.  Just a shred of humanity!  Please!  One display of decency, for decency’s sake!”

I can answer that for you, Carrie.  And the answer is, NO!  Probably not.  Can’t see it.  I can’t really see an end at all.  Don’t know what you’re so hopeful for.  Jeez, a guy dies one time, and look how bunged up he gets?  Thinks the world owes him something.

Another bout of fury gripped him, but not for his mother.  If God did exist, then Carrie had to say something!  If this were as close to Heaven as he’d get, then to hell with it! 

Taking another deep breath, Carrie gathered all his might, and shrieked into the unconscionable universe:

“HEY!  YEAH, YOU?  FATHER OF JESUS!  YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT!  I’M TALKING TO YOU!  CAN YOU HEAR ME?  ARE YOU UP THERE?  I HOPE YOU CAN HEAR ME!  PRETTY FUNNY LIFE YOU GOT DOWN HERE FOR US!  ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR EVER-LOVING MIND?  DID SOMEONE SLIP YOU SOME ACID?  GOD’S ON DRUGS EVERYONE!  WELCOME TO THE NEW MILLENNIUM!  YOU CAN’T DO THIS!  YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO PEOPLE!  IT’S BLASPHEMY!  IT’S INHUMAN!”

The cemetery went completely still.  Not a cricket chirped.  The leaves did not rustle over Rose Hill Cemetery .  Even the wind had died.  All was…like the grave. 

The silence, however, lasted only a moment.  In that moment, Carrie thought he’d found a loophole. 

Laughter surged from the silence, crushing whatever sanity he had left.  It killed his last vestige of hope.  Carrie Weis, despite life in the grave, slipped into an even darker abyss of madness.  Only the dead could travel here, he realized.  Only the dead…knew…  

You might as well get comfortable, Carrie.  We’re gonna be here a while.

Whispers voiced around him.  Someone said, “A newcomer,” and they started laughing again.  Even Nadene drilled him, calling him ‘wet-behind-the-ears.’

I am not suffering! Carrie pleaded.  I am not alone! 

You are quite alone, said the voice.  I’d blame mother.

“Probably,” he replied, in defeat. 

Carrie gave up wanting to understand it.  He tried mustering tears, but he noticed, instead, a strange, forbidden slip taking place in his mind.  Maybe he could get comfortable.  Maybe he could do this.  If he didn’t know any better, he’d say the corners of his lips were curling upwards in a smile.  Yes!  By God!  He was smiling! 

He tried to shift.  Something poked him in the back.  What the hell was that, the tag on his suit? 

No use.

She could have at least put a ‘Y’ on the end…

“At least,” Carrie said, sighing.

The meaning slipped away into the lifeless dark.  You really could go mad in death.  He was there now. 

A long pause followed. 

Hey, Carrie?

He sighed, getting ready for eternity. 

“Yeah?”

His nose began to itch.

’Wanna play music trivia?