SILLY GIRL

"Autumn"  by Jan Blok

Death was not a ride at the amusement park… 

Or was it?

Amanda Dear gained perspective in the afterlife.  She never thought death would be this way, imagined this way, but her death had fashion.  Here, she didn’t have to worry about what clothes to wear, hot meals, or meaningless appointments.  Amanda Dear was able to shape death into something new.  The idea was funny because she didn’t have shape.  She was just a thought, a memory, an unphysical thing moving through the conscionable universe.  Yes, she was dead, but she was able to think.  She was sitting at the potter’s wheel, molding, sculpting, bringing death together the way she wanted, and not somebody else.  She was shaping death into life.  The answers to the mystery were everywhere around her, brighter and more beautiful than she’d ever thought possible. 

She’d begin with Manny.  He was the reason she was here.  She was still angry, of course, any bright-minded girl would be.  He’d raped her, left her for dead.  Of course, she could only imagine Manny.  This was death, after all.  If his soul weren’t here for her to maim and torture, she’d have to rely on the power of her imagination!

She’d grab his balls between her teeth, sever his manhood, similar to the pain she’d felt before she’d arrived.  Make him a girl!  That would be the perfect redemption, the joke of the year!  If death had mercy, such liberties should be allowed.  Oh, she could imagine easily!  Death had granted power to her imagination, and Amanda Dear considered herself a rather imaginative girl!

Manny had called her every crude name imaginable, but that didn’t bother her anymore, either. 

Death had brought her relationship with Mother to a close as well.  Amanda didn’t have to listen to that constant grip and worry anymore.  Not that she’d had to before.  She’d moved out before she was eighteen (She was twenty-eight when Manny left her for dead), but the memory of Mother was enough, the constant gripe, making Amanda feel unloved and neglected.  The memories of her mother were still powerful, though, strong enough to make her feel guilt even here. 

But you can forget, she thought.  Death puts distance between you and the past. 

Yes, she could forget.  She’d begin with Manny’s balls…She’d grab them between her teeth, rip them violently from between his thighs! 

“You want to know what popping and oozing is?” she imagined saying, nails puncturing the crotch of his jeans.  She’d spit into his slimy face.

Reason to laugh, she thought.  Oh God, have mercy and give me one reason to laugh. 

Amanda Dear did not create death by hand.  She had to succumb—at times—to the throes of death’s embrace.  Death had horrors of its own.  Death, in fact, had a little game to play. 

She would make herself original again.  Here, she’d reclaim the elusive harmony she’d sought in life. 

Hellish monsters in the shapes of men had manipulated and destroyed her dignity: old boyfriends, lovers, one-night stands.  Somehow—whether she believed it or not—her boyfriends were here now, too.  She didn’t know if all of them were dead, of course.  She supposed it didn’t matter.  The hell, the horror—she realized—was having to relive every atrocious second spent with them. 

Was it a reminder?  Something telling her what kind of girl she was, the mistakes she’d made?  Wasn’t Life punishment enough?  She had to undergo this shit all over again? 

Are you fucking kidding me?

What kind of Creator allowed such a thing? 

A bastard Creator, Amanda thought.  A ruthless, sonofabitching, bastard, chauvinistic Creator with no fucking balls and a penchant for cold beer and football games, the worthless prick. 

 “You made me this,” she shrieked into the afterlife, imagining her tormentors.  “You made this happen.  Prepare to meet your doom.”

As it was, Amanda was a willowy, smoky shape moving through the expanse of stars.  She couldn’t feel the air, tell whether it was warm or cold.  She couldn’t see her body.  Her soul was a lacy ribbon shooting through space like a comet.  Death, apparently, had stars and planets.

That’s kind of cool, she thought. 

As she moved through space, Amanda constructed a plan, something final, eternal for her salvation.  In death, she’d show no mercy.  She’d raise her salutary finger for the universe, for death, even mommy.  Especially mommy. 

“See my finger, mummy,” she’d say. 

Mommy had always been brutal, at least verbally.  Boyfriends had been physical.  Mother had been verbal.  It was a miracle she’d made it to twenty-eight.  Mommy did not represent ‘goodness.’  Goodness never came with mommy.  She’d never found ‘goodness’ with Manny, Jon the Doctor, or Shelby , either.  Goodness came with what you loved, Amanda knew.  She’d sail into death and create beauty, goodness, mold it into shape as if she were sitting at the potter’s wheel.

No more of this constant laboring, she thought, these nightmares before my eyes, this thing pummeling my vision with stars and clouds, crags blanketed by snow and thin air.  From dust life is made, and back to dust, I’ll take it. 

She’d drop everything from above the clouds to the rocky crags below, because in death, she was able to soar.

Happiness is in the rocks below, Amanda thought.  Of course, she had to imagine the rocks because this was death, and all she saw were stars and space.  You are something special, Amanda Dear.  You are not for their amusement, a meaningless, unemotional toy for them to manipulate and take advantage of.  You’re not a punching bag, a crippled dog defeated by its master.  They can do you harm no longer!

They’d put her through endless pain and abuse: Manny, Shelby, Jon the Doctor, even Mommy.  Amanda knew hell.  She’d seen it first hand.  She and hell were pals.

The August heat had been merciless that day in the alley.  She remembered dying, too, left for dead—her bleeding, damaged crotch sending bolts of pain throughout her abdomen.  Similar to what she’d do to Manny. 

Claws dug between her legs, tearing her crotch asunder.  Rocks, pebbles, and broken glass clung to her bleeding lips.  Her face bled, too, eyes swelled shut.  Did Manny think Amanda Dear would forget?

Manny had been too dramatic anyway.  Everything was always a problem for him.  She’d paid for it then. 

Amanda did everything she could, everything Manny had told her, and it was never enough—one of those relationships.  The sonofabitch actually had the balls to say he deserved more.

Balls? she thought.  How ironic!

She gave more of herself than necessary.  She couldn’t remember why she’d been lying in the alley.  She wanted to make amends despite the cost.  Something originally brought her and Manny together, hadn’t it, the ride on the merry-go-round, the cotton candy that day?  It had been for real then, right?  Amanda Dear, even then, had been determined to make this relationship work! 

In death, though, nothing made sense, a rhapsody of past images and flashes as she flew through space, what life had been before, what death was going to be like now…

So far, it wasn’t noteworthy…

Something nudged her in the ribs… 

Quit wasting time in bad memories!—a voice said.

Amanda Dear tapped her feet impatiently.  Well, she imagined feet.  She just wanted to keep moving through the clouds and stars of space.  She would do everything she could.  Death wasn’t a re-enactment of life, the torn, ill-treated events she recalled.  This was Amanda’s time.  Her hands would do damage now!  Since she hadn’t seen proof of God’s existence, she’d build Heaven from the potter’s wheel.

Only twenty-eight when she died—a bleeding rape victim left for dead in the heat of the city—Amanda was still going through challenges.  Something endeavored to break her even here, to punish her further, accept her inevitable defeat.  Life, or death, was more challenging now. 

Still, the vision of her death assaulted her:

The August heat had suffocated her, burning her cheeks, the back of her neck.  She’d been coughing up blood, dirt, and broken glass.  Manny had pulled her pants down, exposed for all to see.  Nothing honorable in that—even death had stripped her of dignity. 

“Is this a joke?” she said in death. 

She could hardly remember the rape, a single, chaotic blur. 

She’d avenge herself if she could remember who she was.  Identity was the key to freedom.  All she had to do was remember her name.  Yes!  She’d pluck Manny’s balls from between his thighs! 

Did someone, something laugh as life slipped away?  She was still lying in the alleyway!  What a cruel, insensitive world! 

Amanda Dear couldn’t blame them.  The same world had shaped and molded her into the woman she was now.  She’d probably do the same, she thought.

For the moment, however (still sailing through the dark of space), she forgot about Manny, that he’d raped her at all.  Her chance for redemption would come later. 

Amanda closed her eyes, trying to forget she’d actually lived.  This amusement park was more thrilling anyway, if not questionable.  Some things were actually on her side here, it seemed. 

It’s about time, Amanda thought, and sailed through the confines of limitless space.  Sometimes, death could be so predictable.

*

It had to be more complete.  Death wavered.  Sometimes, it thrilled; often, it disappointed.  Through the unexplainable—the dark of death—she moved like a comet, the life she’d lived unfolding before her eyes like a movie screen. 

Amanda moved into a deeper darkness of death, one with fewer stars and consuming black.

“Mommy?” she said.  “Is that you?”

No reply.  An ache developed at her crotch.  Apparently, she was still in the alley lying on her stomach and coughing up blood.  Someone pointed to her and laughed.  She could barely see an ambulance out of one swollen eye.  It backed into the alley, police sirens wailing, making her head throb.

Could someone turn that down, please? 

An officer told everyone to back away.  There was nothing to see. 

She’d died on the way to the hospital, she remembered. 

But just as quickly, she returned to the afterlife, not reliving her death in the city.  Manny stood in front of her.  Had he died, too?  Why was he here?  Amanda didn’t know, but suddenly… 

Manny kicked her in the stomach.  He’d done that before, the reason she’d been spitting up blood in the alley in the first place.  He’d pulverized her then, and he was doing it again now, even though she was dead.  Manny, apparently, owned power in death. 

Flares of fire shot through Amanda Dear’s abdomen.  Blinding light sent her farther into space.  Manny, too, made of stars of his own, and Amanda sailed with the momentum of his power. 

*

Manny was gone.  She slowed through space, and the pain subsided. 

Death would be something like this, she thought, a constant reminder, never making sense. 

No wonder she had the thoughts she did.  Beauty had always been out of reach, but not now.  Beauty was the only thing worth reaching for. 

Another moment in life presented itself, much different than the memories she had of Manny, mommy, and the others. 

Amanda Dear was lying on a bed, looking out the window at the stars.  The Milky Way stretched across a cloudless sky.   

Something about stars, she thought.  Salvation and death are in the stars.

She didn’t know it then, but she was looking into the afterlife. 
Amanda smiled.

The window was open.  A cool summer breeze, the scent of lush grass and pine trees came in from the window.  She’d just finished grinding to an hour of good sex.  Amanda Dear needed a cigarette.

She was made of stars.  She pulsed and tingled with lights of her own.  The memory was telling her this. 

Yet, this wasn’t Jon the Doctor, Shelby , or Manny.  Those bastards never made her feel this way.

Ah!  She had it!

“I love you, Wesley,” she said.

Yes.  At one time, Wesley had been her guardian, the man of her dreams, her hero on a steed.  Wesley was everything the others were not.  Wesley, her knight, her paramour of the cosmos.  That non-existent God had sculpted Wesley just for her.  Between trauma and torture, he’d procured miracles.  Light made him magical.  Wesley cured affliction, eased every abhorrent scar. 

Back in death, she might’ve thought: Whatever happened to Wesley?  Why does he always disappear when I need him most?  He always comes when I least expect it. 

Wesley’s huge, thick arms hugged her tight.  Amanda breathed him in, looking out the window still into the night sky, her back against his burly, bare chest, bear-like arms encircling her.  She felt she was in the arms of a bear—or a lion.  More a bear, Amanda thought, because Wesley had thick, black hair.  Amanda ran her fingernails across his forearm.

“Flying is for suckers,” Amanda Dear said.  “Who needs wings?”

Wesley smiled.  She didn’t have to see the smile, of course.  Wesley smiled at everything.

“Doesn’t a grilled-cheese sandwich sound good right now?” he said.  “Something about a grilled-cheese sandwich.  Sounds like the best thing in the world.”

“I didn’t say anything about a grilled-cheese sandwich,” Amanda said.  “I asked you about flying.”

She thought about death, even then.  Who didn’t?  Perhaps she knew it was about flying.  In death, you were a bird, and all you did was soar from one terrible vista to the other.

“You said nothing about flying.”

“I did so,” she told him.

“It’s over-rated,” Wesley said.  “Doesn’t a grilled-cheese sandwich sound good?”

“What’s with your fascination with grilled-cheese sandwiches?”

“The same fascination I have with thunderclouds.  Can you smell thunderclouds?”

“It’s a clear night,” Amanda told him.  “Look.  There’s nothing but stars out.”

“Thunderclouds are over-rated, also,” he said.  “So are stars.”

“But not grilled-cheese sandwiches?”

Wesley smiled.  He brushed a lock of blonde hair behind her ear.

“You never answered me about flying,” she said.

“What did you say?”

“I can’t remember.  Who cares?  This is better anyway.  This is what I’ve been waiting my whole life for.”

“I think you should make me a grilled-cheese sandwich,” he said.

“With thunderclouds?”

“Humans worship birds because—since the dawn of creation—they’ve dreamed about flying.  They think birds are heavenly, something along those lines.  People want to be super-heroes.”

“There,” she said.  “Was that so hard?”

“I love you, too, Amanda Dear,” Wesley said.

*

Amanda soared through space, a delectable moment with Wesley lost in the memory of stars. 

In death, she thought about the life she’d lived, and another memory assaulted her now, time spent in an apartment she’d rented in Denver .  She’d been working for the Fillmore Company at the time, a company manufacturing fake flowers.  She worked in the main office. 

Planters and plants covered the floors and shelves of her apartment, but not from Fillmore.  Amanda was a fanatic with shrubbery perhaps because Fillmore produced fake flowers, and she wanted the real thing.  Amanda wanted plants everywhere!  Whenever, and wherever she saw them for sale, she always bought one.

This wasn’t Manny’s time.  This was Shelby ’s.

They hadn’t had a romantic night in weeks, she’d been thinking.  Candles burned on the dining room table, instrumental jazz on the radio.  The room was atmospheric, the perfect mood.

If Shelby didn’t think this romantic, he was crazy. 

You’d have to be a lunatic not to be swayed by the atmosphere, Amanda thought. 

Shelby had gotten a promotion.  For a long time now, she’d wanted to do something nice for him. 

But everything happened too fast.  Commotion and screaming came from the bathroom.  The jazz disappeared in a whirlwind of chaos.  Overhead lights came on, destroying the mood.  Shelby cursed and screamed from the bathroom, a lunatic in his own right.  

Of course, it was Shelby .  Only he administered this kind of force, this brutality.  She must have done something to upset him.  Why else was he so enraged! 

Amanda frowned and looked toward the bathroom. 

How petty it was!  Shelby was looking for a reason to pulverize her!  If he couldn’t find a reason, he’d make one up.

Within minutes, Shelby ’s snarling, contorted face—eyes burning with anger—took up her vision.  Amanda couldn’t imagine what had set him off.  What was he trying to tell her? 

Shelby grabbed Amanda Dear, steel fingers digging into her biceps, and threw her against the wall.  She crashed into the plaster, her head whipping back against the wall.  Pain rang between her ears. 

A picture of her younger brother, Michael, shattered to the floor.  Plants fell from a shelf, spilled potting soil into her hair.  Bright lights filled her head, a coming wave of blackness… 

Shelby backhanded her.  White lights rocketed through her brain.  Amanda spun in a circle, knees turning to liquid, and dropped to the floor. 

Shelby had never been nice.  Every memory Amanda Dear had of him was violent, more terrible than the last.  She should’ve known…the way he’d taken her arm that day when they’d gone to the movies.  He was making his presence felt now…

Shelby picked her up and threw her against the wall again.  In her ears, the ringing turned to sirens.  Blood warmed the side of her face.  What was she, another sparring partner, one of his bar-buddies?

This wasn’t the first time, either.  He’d done this before, and she—the frightened fool—told herself he’d change.  She’d laugh—at least later—when she understood why he’d lost control. 

The air went out of Amanda.  She was going to throw up… 

His hands were steel.  They drove into her stomach, lifting her off the floor.  Amanda Dear gasped for breath, but it was useless.

Am I really this stupid?—she thought.  Another chance?  Staying again?  It will be all right?  Everything?  He will change?  Didn’t he say he would change?  Things would be different from here on out.

He’d said those things, and she—the idiot—believed him.

It had to do with the soap.  Amanda was so confused.  This was her apartment, but Shelby treated it like his own.  If she didn’t wash the dishes, he got mad.  If she used all the hot water, he got mad.  If she left her clothes on top of the dryer, he got mad.  Who did he think he was?

That coffee you’re drinking, buster!  Know where that comes from?  Whose car do you drive?  Answer me that, sport.  Who takes care of your mail?  

Something more powerful than Amanda Dear, at least in life.  That’s what Shelby was telling her. 

Soap?  Was that a joke?

She’d left the soap in the tub without draining the water.  The soap was a mess of cloudy, pink particles adhering to the sides of the tub.  It was an entire bar of soap, Shelby screamed!

He was explaining this to her, but she couldn’t hear him.  Lightening bolts of pain exploded through her brain instead. 

The soap…the soap he did not buy was the reason she her head wailed.

She was going to learn, Shelby was saying.  Was she trying to make life difficult?  She did not understand the foundation of their relationship.  He was explaining this now, the funds, the money they had to save…   

“You ought to be thankful I’m just ramming your head through the wall!” Shelby shouted. 

Before the dark, Amanda had just enough to think, Thanks, Shel.  You’re a sport!

*

Again, through eons of space, she flew.  She had no conception she had a lower body.  Why would she if she could fly?  To Amanda Dear, it seemed she was made of a single face, hair like silver trailing behind her, and an upper body. 

For the moment, the hell and torture of her life’s memories fled into the dark.  Even in death, she tried to catch her breath. 

Of course, back to flying!  She was dead! 

Clouds rushed by.  She gulped cold air.  Limitless sky surrounded her, clouds, a view of mountain peaks.  Apparently, the world above Earth and under space, was part of death, too.

Amanda smiled.  She might not get the chance to see these sights again.

Not with the hells I’ve been facing.

She descended through the clouds.  Light mist touched her face. 

Ah!  The sight did not surprise her! 

Yes, you know what you are.  Wesley called you that a thousand times.

An expanse of ocean beside a rocky bluff stretched below.  An awesome castle made of gray stone came into view.  Mountain peaks loomed to the north.  The sun was going down.

Wesley stood on one of the battlements.  He wore a long black cape and chain mail.  The hilt of a broadsword was visible behind his head.  He waved at her from one of the battlements.  Was he waiting for her, his bride, his queen of castles across the sky?

Amanda tried to wave, but something held her up.  That’s right.  She was only a face zooming across the cosmos.  Wesley laughed at her, as if sensing her thoughts.  Did he know something she did not?

Just as quickly, Wesley and the castle slipped away.  Death swept her into the black of cold stars again.

Earth never was!  Don’t you see?  Damnit, why can’t I stay here?

Amanda tried willing herself back into the clouds, to Wesley, but she disappeared, rocketing through space and colder air. 

A demon chuckled behind her as if replying to her demand.

*

Another memory from the life she’d lived played before her: 

She was standing in a lighted hallway, and open door several feet to her right.  The lights were off in the room.

That was her room, she realized.  She was in a hospital. 

Amanda Dear closed her eyes.  It was her spirit in the hall looking at the door of the room she was in.

When she opened her eyes, she was in the room, lying in bed.  Shelby had mangled her to the brink of death.  She was a pulpy, swollen mess, her face damaged beyond repair.  She felt like rotten fruit.   

What was that smell?  Was that her?  How embarrassing!  Didn’t they clean her up?  What were the nurses for? 

“Good of you to come back.”

A man in his mid-forties, wearing tortoise-shell glasses, sat on the edge of the bed.  His left arm strecthed across her body.  He was tall and rangy, reminding Amanda of a large, gangly bug. 

Yes, the hospital!  She hurt all over!  She remembered now…

“It’s horrible, what he did,” Jon the Doctor said.  “Lovely young thing like yourself.  Perhaps next time you’ll choose better lovers.”

Was he lifting the gown off her legs?  Was this his way of inspecting the damage?  And in the dark, no less! 

Despite her bumps and bruises, the damage to her face, she was still a beauty, he was telling her.

“Your face will heal soon enough,” Jon said.  “That doesn’t worry me.”

If this was death, it was cruel and unmerciful to have to relive it.  Why didn’t God show His putrid face?  She had a million questions to ask!  And where in the hell was Wesley?

Amanda tried sitting up.  To her horror, she realized her hands were tied to the bed rail. 

“You were hysterical when you came in,” Jon told her, explaining the constraints. 

Hysterical, huh? she thought.  That’s good.  Hysterical.  I like that.  You can still find time to be hysterical when you get your head bashed in.  I didn’t know that. 

The privilege of being a doctor!  Why he signed his name on the dotted line!  Violating patients came with the job, and a paycheck to boot! 

Her legs were free, though.  Maybe Jon had done the honors.  She might be able to deliver a swift kick to his ribs if she tried hard enough...

Jon’s hands moved over her thighs, between her legs.  He cupped her breast…

“Yes, it’s too bad about the face, though,” Jon said.

Amanda positioned herself onto her hip, reeling back her leg.  With all her strength, she brought it forward, and her knee connected with Jon’s kidneys.  He made an, “Uumph!”  sound, and fell on the floor, right on his ass.  

More humiliated than pained, he stood up, brushing off his long white coat. 

“You’re obstinate, like a horse,” he said, cheeks flushing in the gloom.  “That’s okay.  I like that.”  Jon rubbed his back and winced in pain.  He looked down at her, smiled, and rubbed his chest with perfect arrogance.  He raised his hand and backhanded her. 

Sparks of pain showered in Amanda’s brain.

And I thought I’d missed the Fourth of July, she thought.

Her skull was an intense white flare.  Jon the Doctor hit her again. 

Yes, always slipping away.  I seem to be doing that a lot lately.  No wonder this crack-pot reality of death is the way it is!

How she was able to think these thoughts, she didn’t know. 

She was thankful to lose herself in the darkness when it came.  Unconsciousness could, at times, be perfect bliss.

*

When she came to, she was not back in the stars of death.  She was still in the hospital, reliving the horror of that day.  She thought she was going to throw up.  Carousels of light and pain circled through her head. 

Jon the Violating Love-Doctor was astride her.  He was having his way…

His pants were below his ankles, repeatedly thrusting into her with a single-minded purpose, his belt buckle clanking loudly against the bedpost at Amanda’s feet.  Apparently, Jon wasn’t in it to help the sick and afflicted. 

Amanda tried to scream.  Opening her mouth, however, was painful.  She tried to buck him off, but she was too weak, and Jon was far too heavy. 

“How do you like that?” he panted, between breaths.  “Shows you who’s boss?  There’s plenty more where that came from, you know?  Hope you’re ready.”

Please!  If there was a God, let her go abhorrently into the dark.  No wonder He was invisible, the spineless prick!  Someone had a lot of explaining to do!

Jon tensed with orgasm.  He stiffened, panted heavily, and slowed down.

Amanda tried willing her own demise.  If she couldn’t throw up, surely she could will herself to die.

Jon climbed off and buckled his pants, as if violating patients were something he did everyday. 

Probably right after he kisses the wife and kids goodbye, Amanda thought.

Despite the horror, she’d never seen a man look as clownish as Jon did then.

Amanda (shocking even to her) found the courage to laugh.  She laughed uproariously.  She didn’t know how that was possible.  Yes, it hurt; the laughter rocked painfully through her.  But once she started, she couldn’t stop.  She was maniacal with laughter!  For some unexplainable reason, Amanda Dear could not stop laughing!

A hateful looked crossed Jon’s face.  It was hard to tell in the dark, but his cheeks seemed red with anger. 

“What the hell’s so funny?” he said.

“You…” Amanda tried to say, but words were difficult.  Pain flared through her face still from what Shelby had done, but she forced herself to go on.  She had a statement to make here.  Her death would be worth it:

“You’re the smallest I’ve ever had.  I didn’t even feel you!”

A fit of giggles tortured Amanda Dear.

Jon was on her in seconds flat.  Now, the Fourth of July was everywhere!  Lightening blasts of pain rocked her skull.  An angry siren shrilled between her ears.  Warm blood spilled down her face.  She was going numb…

Amanda Dear wanted to make sure Jon never forgot her… 

Despite the damage, she smiled through her swollen, purple face. 

Don’t worry, said Perennial Darkness.  I’m here for you.  I’ve been waiting…

As she went down—taking the hand of Darkness, her friend—the last thing she heard was Jon’s incessant whining:

“Why?  Why are you laughing at me?”

*

Eventually, Jon the Doctor died in prison from a violent rape.  Where his soul was now was anyone’s guess.

Behind her, lost again in the space of death, Amanda soared.

Flying, she thought.  You get to fly in death.  Is this how it’s going to be forever?

She brimmed with feeling.  Emotions assaulted her for reason she couldn’t comprehend.  They came at her one by one: sadness, despair, and hatred.  As if she hadn’t been through enough!  Emotion pummeled her from all sides.  Emotion came to her in the form of vision.  It gained physicality:

The abhorrence she felt living with her overwrought mother came in the form of discharge.  Shit crawled with flies.  Scorpions moved over mounds of decaying flesh.  Poison manipulated the feelings she had for her mother.  In death, it came to life and chased her through the stars.

“Amanda this, and Amanda that,” he mother always said.  She was a wiry woman with heavy black circles under her eyes.  Her mother was a drug-addict.  They were standing in the living room when Amanda asked her if she’d drive her and Michael to the park.  Amanda had been ten at the time.  “Precious little Amanda dear has to have everyone stop what they’re doing, so she can have her fun!  Let me just put my fucking life on hold!  Isn’t that what life is like for you, Amanda, darling?  Sulk and sulk ’til she’s blue in her room…The whole family has to beg and plead, has to do a fire-dance in order to fulfill Amanda’s obligation to her busy lifestyle!  God forbid we put a kink in her plans!”

It went on and on.  Her mother never let up:

“I’m sure Amanda had something to do with it, the way she keeps to herself!  Just look at her?”

“If we didn’t have this extra mouth to feed!  Michael doesn’t eat as much as you.  Goddamn garbage disposal, is what you are.  Amazing we have anything to eat at all.”

“It’s Amanda’s fault you didn’t get the job, Lou.”  Lou was her uncle.  “See, she didn’t want you to have it in the first place.  Look at her!”

“Your daddy would’ve stayed with me—he would’ve stayed—except for you, Amanda, the Great.  Have to take care of you all the time, right?  Like we’re not starving and on the verge of poverty already!  But noooo, you want to get your ears pierced!  You want to get a library card, so you can spend all you time reading stupid books when you should be doing your homework!  Do you know how many people are looking for single mothers?  None!  That’s how many!  Remember that when you’re old enough to get a job!”

How could Amanda forget?  Her existence was to torment, trouble, and build chaos, so mother could unnecessarily mourn her own pity.  Didn’t people see how much Amanda’s mother suffered? 

“Screw you, mummy,” Amanda said, raising her middle finger with bold, confident rigidity. 

Amanda had a fetish for British comedy.  She feigned the accent often.  Back in death, she was doing so now: 

“See my finger, mummy?  See how tall and bright?  You and Jon, the Bloody Bastard Doctor can go fuck yourselves!  That’s right!  Have a lovely day!  It is bright and warm out!  Perhaps you should interest Jon in a walk round the park?”

Amanda Dear had been quick to leave home.  Unfortunately, she was quick to stumble upon Manny, Shelby , and Jon, the Violating Love-Doctor.

Mercy?  What was that earlier about an Invisible God?  Of course, ladies and gentleman, there’s always more!

Once, again the memory washed away. 

Through a cool wind—an infinite limbo of time, stars, and wonder—Amanda Dear sailed like a galactic ship—a single face maneuvering through the galaxies of a continually unfolding universe.  She was a veteran for a day.  If she had to endure hell and murder, she’d create them herself.  If pain and irrevocability tarnished her fortune, she had no one to blame but the girl who’d run away years ago.

Contentment to her freedom was another emotion.  It came in the form of majestic ships sailing across sun-drenched blue waters. 

Space, life, time, longing, and emotion, continued to whiz past her pale, small ears.  She piloted herself through a thousands stars of the life hereafter. 

Amanda Dear, heralded, she thought, you are pure woman! 

The power of sex moved through her, the purring engines of a cat.  She was silk, softened, liquid-like femininity in the way she waltzed from room to room.  She turned heads.  People gawked at Amanda’s beauty.  She was China pure, sand like silver, touchable throat, arms, and back.  She was slow honey moving to bold inspiration, the power to be fearless.  Amanda Dear was magma.  She left molten paths of jealousy behind every door. 

“Second deaths don’t scare me!  I’ve asked murderers to lead me in the dance!  I don’t trust anyone else!”

It came down to strength, nothing more.  Amanda Dear was getting a handle on this life after death thing.  She was starting to enjoy it!

Even the grandest of them all—the One, the Almighty—must be dethroned at some time by some apostle!  Who said a woman couldn’t do it?

Amanda knew her capabilities.  Strength of spirit and female vitality were her most powerful assets. 

She smiled in the cool air of space.  White, blonde hair trailed behind her, ribbons of silver, sparkling nebulous lights. 

How much was she capable of creating or destroying, she wondered? 

*

Instead of stars, she moved through another plane of solid black.  Amanda stood in the middle of it.  For the moment, she had feet and legs.  Unable to see the ground, she could feel it under her naked feet.  Amanda Dear wondered why death seemed timid to show her anything else.

A carriage emerged from the dark several feet to her left.  She didn’t know how she was able to see because the scene had no light to illuminate it, but she saw the carriage now.  Maybe death granted magic eyes. 

The carriage looked as though it had traveled through flame: charred, flat black and smoking.  It slowed just before Amanda and came to a stop.  Four naked, hairless, human forms pulled it instead of horses.  Like the carriage, they looked as if they’d been roasted over open flames: blistering crusts of flaking black skin; yellow pus oozed.  The harnesses were contraptions of steel spikes, hooks, rods, and wires driven under their skin, connecting them in an organized quad.  The smell of raw, roasted flesh and burning blood hung in the air.

The solely occupant leaned his head out the carriage window and smiled at Amanda.  “Welcome,” he said, his voice strangely elegant.  “It’s good to have you home.”

It wasn’t a surprise coming from him.  This was the last place Amanda would ever call home. 

He opened the door, and Amanda Dear stepped inside.  She wasn’t afraid. 

As death had granted her feet when convenient, Amanda noticed she was wearing a thin, white nightgown.  

Inside the carriage, she could observe the entirety of his bulk.  Huge black horns, like a yak, curved, angling out from each side of his head.  His scarlet flesh was a mirror of flame, changing from yellow to orange and from black to red.  His tail was huge and thick; it snaked up behind his back and disappeared out the carriage window.  His claws and toenails were manicured points of polished black, matching his horns. 

Lucifer’s mouth contorted into a demented smile.  He endeavored to ooze charm.  Heat and flame emanated from his flesh.  To Amanda Dear, the devil looked less impressive than how she imagined.

“How are you, Amanda darling?” he asked.

“Amanda Dear,” she corrected.  She smiled, not wanting him to get the best of her.  “And I’m fine, thank you very much.”

The carriage lurched forward.  The air grew thick with suffocating heat.

“I’ve been looking forward to this moment,” the devil said.  “It’s so good to see you.  You know why you’re here, don’t you?”

“Why don’t you enlighten me,” she said.

“Amanda, Amanda,” Satan said, shaking his head.  He ran a huge index finger along the frame of the window.  “You were always good at pretending to be dim-witted.  Just giving you a bird’s-eye view of what to expect before the choice.”

“Choice?”

“Of course!”

Satan said nothing more.  Amanda Dear wanted to laugh; he seemed so smugly sure of himself.  There had to be more to death than this!

Walls of flame loudly erupted on both sides of the carriage.  Was this the Lake of Fire ?

“It is the continual Nile , so to speak,” he said. 

She must’ve said something.  She knew the devil couldn’t read her thoughts. 

“You know it?” he said.  “You must, or you wouldn’t have made it this far.”

She had to admit, he was quite the charmer, despite his slippery reputation. 

The flames towered higher.  Why had she agreed to come on this ride anyway?  Was she crazy?  She had never—that she was aware—made any bargains with the devil.

Amanda reached for the carriage door.  Just as quickly, Lucifer’s scarlet hand engulfed hers.

“Seen enough already?”

“Mommy’s calling for dinner,” she said.

“Amanda Dear, always so full of life,” he said.  “Do give her my best, will you?  I think about her a lot, you know?  Many of whom you’ve acquainted yourself with.”

Again, he mixed dementia with charm when he smiled.  “In fact,” Satan said.  “I’m supposed to be meeting her for tea in half an hour.”  He looked down at his arm, and for some ridiculous reason, a cheap, digital wristwatch adorned his wrist.

The carriage stopped, and Amanda opened the door.  It surprised her he was willing to consent.

“You run along now, Amanda Dear,” he said.  “I have more fish to fry.  We’ll see each other again, I have no doubt.  I, too, can be equally patient.”

“I’m sure you can,” she said.

Amanda Dear stepped into the flames.  They did not devour and consume her, of course, because she didn’t have flesh.  She had a bit of merit here in the afterlife.         

Behind her, the pitch black of space consumed the carriage.  Satan’s tail, trailing out the window, vanished in the dark.

All she wanted was Wesley. 

Wesley, darling?  Where art thou?  My big, beautiful lion, my protective soldier?  Where hast thou gone?

They talked like Old English poets sometimes when they were together.  Wesley had started it, like a game.  Trying to sound like Shakespeare, she presumed.  Wesley had always like Shakespeare. 

Amanda didn’t realize how much security she needed.  That was what Wesley provided.  She thought it ironic, too, it was what he did for a living.

*

Wesley had been a security guard.  They shared an apartment together in Boulder , Colorado .  Whenever Amanda thought about Wesley, she was always close, either in his arms or about to be.  Why did life with him feel so different?  It was as if she had another existence besides Amanda Dear.  Did she have a twin? 

Snowflakes, the size of silver dollars, fell outside the living room window, leaving a white canopy across every rooftop, lawn, tree, and automobile.

Wesley was in the kitchen making cocoa.  He’d just come home from work from Detail Oriented, a warehouse specializing in auto design, airplane decal, and other artwork for various forms of transportation.  He was still wearing the uniform.  Wesley looked like a police officer without the gun.

“Hey, my big polar bear of a man,” Amanda said, smiling at Wesley from the couch.  She was wearing the cashmere sweater Wesley had bought her for Christmas three days ago.  White cotton panties were visible between her appreciable thighs.  She was sitting with her legs up on the coach, feet tucked under her—also—appreciable bottom.  “I’ve been a very bad girl.  I think I need to be punished.  If you lock me up, I’ll let you do what you want.  Just be rough and savage.  It’s the only way I can really get excited.  That’s all I ask.”

Wesley took two ceramic, baby blue coffee mugs into the living room.  He handed one to Amanda Dear and set the other on the coffee table.  He sat on the sofa next to her.  His eyes sparkled when he smiled.

“It’s not that kind of uniform,” Wesley said.  “And I’ll do anything I want anyway.  When you’re with me, sweetheart, you play by the only rulebook in the house.  Mine.”

Amanda laughed and shook her head.  “You get so many bad guys,” she played along.  “Wherever do you put them?”

“I frisk them for devices that might later be useful to you.  I take them anyway I can get them.  I own them.  I beat and destroy.  I make sure they never forget with whom they’re dealing.  I’m easy-going as long as you let me.  If you cross the lines, though, you’d better understand one thing: I don’t take prisoners.”

“I love a man who knows how to get what he wants,” she said.

Wesley furrowed his brows.  “I thought I was the polar bear?” he said, frowning.

“You are a brutally savage polar bear with a big, beautiful badge, and I absolutely adore the way you condone your authority.  You make me quiver.  I’m helpless.  Please, take me!”

“I don’t have any authority,” Wesley said, not playing along.

Amanda Dear was crestfallen.  She pushed out her bottom lip and pouted.  “But, darling angel?  What on earth is your big, beautiful badge for?”

All she could muster from Wesley was a crooked grin.  Suddenly, however, Wesley seemed to go back in time, looking—it seemed—at something far away.  Seriousness came over him even Wesley, Amanda thought, was not aware.   

“Well,” Wesley started, “of course it’s for you.  That’s a given.  No one gets the privilege of the badge, the access, the information, the assets, and the contraband.  No one, my sweet, my darling beauty, could gain more, knowing they were emotionally, monogamously crippled by knowing me.  But you, my universal splendor, have found a treasure too far hidden for human eyes.”  As if this jargon weren’t enough, he reverted to an Old English dialect:  “The location, the circumstance of whence thou found me, procured a gateway for you too impeccable, impossible, and wonderful to ignore. 

“I can’t say I blame you.” 

Amanda’s jaw did everything but fall into her lap.  Wesley continued:

“When you came across the bridge in the light of harmony, I knew my isolation had come to an end.  For nine-million-years I’ve put up with it now.  In the light of obsession, I began to wander.  Because of my immortal greed, I lusted over every obsession.  Instead, thank God—who is invisible—found you.  A miracle.  Not a breath elapsed, not a second eclipsed my next wonder.  I faded from desolation to purpose in a flash.  Nothing in my future meant anything except the time spent with you.  Whoever you are, whatever you do.  I saw meaning.  You pulled me from questioning life.  You proved to me God has a beautiful face, and He is always smiling.  There is a reason to suffer, to be blind.  I know that now.  The torture was realizing I might never find you.  Yet, in truth, I found myself standing on the sun.  I became something I never imagined.  Possible, quoth I? 

“Give me a break!  It was perfection, nothing more.” 

Amanda laughed at his sudden change.  He was talking in one dialect, then moving into another as if it were the most natural thing in the world.  Amanda loved it. 

Still, however, Wesley pontificated:

“I knew painful isolation was all that was left, some kind of mystical suicide.  I understood purpose, but never realized He trusted me with one of His unmentionable priorities, the thing that meant most to Him.  If I let Him down or disappointed Him, then only I was to blame.  Nothing more.  The truth still goes.  To this day, I’m still aware of every second—precious to us both—I must turn into months.  I have gone lifetimes, Amanda Dear—hundreds, and thousands of years—waiting for you.  If the best thing came only every ten-thousand years, why not wait?  No matter how many years went by, I knew I was closer to our meeting—when you eventually came across the bridge in the light of harmony.  Yes, the time would come.  And in that moment—even if it lasted the briefest second—it was enough to keep me living in perfect, celestial freedom as an immortal.”

Wesley grabbed the cocoa, took a sip, and looked at her.  He raised his dark eyebrows.  The contrast between his blue eyes and the dark hair was hypnotic.  “And let’s face it, my sweet, adoring Amanda.  We’ve been given a lifetime of seconds, minutes toward the sun.  Nothing can put a kink into the perfection we’ve created!  The answers to our truths lie in each other.  There is nothing left but to conquer that ever powerful, unfolding universe, that timid little runner always trying to get away.”

Wesley paused, shook his head, unable to believe what had spewed from his own mouth.  He took a sip of cocoa.  “Tell me if that too hot.”

Amanda’s eyes were white with shock.  She had never heard anybody talk that way, even in the movies. 

Wesley looked at her and smiled.  “Sorry,” he said.  “Sometimes, I do that.  You didn’t want me to get serious, did you?”

It was her turn to repay the compliment.  She knew just what he deserved.

Amanda Dear looked down at her cocoa, took a sip, and smiled, thinking of her reply.  Looking at Wesley, her polar bear, she decided to play his game:

“I see me in you.  What more do I want?  I’m more unafraid now than ever.  You are beauty to me.  Light, glimpsing memory, making melody and harmony’s sound.  The reason the bridge was created in the first place.  You are the definition of all things magical.  And you love me!  Me, that silly little girl who cannot imagine life any other way but with you.  Dream!  Love for you and love for me in return?  Do you have any idea what it means to me to give you more than what I have, to reach deep inside me—when I feel I’ve given all I can—only to give you more?”

“It’s for you,” Wesley said.

“Me?”

“Yeah,” Wesley said, catering to her kittenish side.  “The badge.  It lets you know—because I am the one in charge of your destiny—that you must submit to everything I say.  You’re a little stubborn sometimes, so I have to wear it everyday, so you, Amanda Dear, are constantly reminded.”

She giggled.  “The way you talk.  You are in charge of me!”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“Brutish, authoritative polar bear.”

“One for the apprentice,” Wesley said.  “That’s you, the sheepish little girl who must do all the polar bear says.  I am the polar bear.  That’s this cup here,” he said, pointing to his mug.  “It signifies my dominance and authority, my unruly position.  It defines me as the polar bear.”

“And a few other things I could name,” she said, taking a sip of cocoa.

Wesley looked at her for a long time, almost wounded.  It was simply part of the act.

“Oh!” she said.  “Did I just hurt the big, terrible, polar bear’s feelings?”

“Not a breath of it,” he said.  “I still have authority.”

“Ah, you’re just a penniless security guard.  You don’t even carry a gun.”  Amanda leaned back, cradling the mug in both hands.

“I might now,” Wesley said.  “After today, I might carry a gun and a really big stick.  But I won’t use them on the job.  If you know what I mean.”

Amanda looked at him, surprised and a trifle stimulated.  “You wouldn’t!”

“I would,” he said, confidently sipping cocoa.

“Polar bears don’t even know how to use guns!”

“This polar bear catches on faster than you give him credit for.  He’s one of the smartest polar bears you’ll ever run across.”

It was Wesley’s turn to lean back and enjoy the victory.  When Amanda didn’t say anything, he turned toward her.  “Have I hurt the little polar bear cub?”

Amanda stuck out her bottom lip, pretending to pout.

“When I was talking about the big stick, do you want me to tell you what I really meant?”  Wesley said.

Amanda’s eyes went wide.  Her mouth dropped.  “Oh my goodness!” she said.  “I like the way you talk!”

“That’s what the polar bear said.”

Amanda laughed.  They put their mugs on the coffee table.  In seconds, they were laughing, frisky, rolling around on the floor.

Outside, snow continued to blanket the town of Boulder . 

*

If she could find a way to stay with her polar bear, she could endure anything, especially this nightmare of death.  Obviously, things weren’t that simple.  What the hell was next, she wondered?  Redemption was a permanent holiday in the arms of Wesley.  Why did she deserve such perfection?  And God still had yet to show His putrid face!

The snow was gone, a salacious moment drenched in cocoa, lost in the databanks of memory. 

*

Still sailing through the afterlife, another horrifying memory from life assaulted her:

Her arms were bound, tied together, mummified by a straightjacket.  Amanda Dear was a giant knot.  A chain connected her to the floor, hooked to the middle of her back.  She could only move so far because of the chain.

Her thoughts, however, were enormous.  She was too good for them, the people in life, the everyday average citizen.  That’s why she was here.  She had visions, plans, and all of them were perfect.  She was about to shape the world, build new revolution.  She had grand designs, and, of course, no one understood her. 

The medication made her hallucinate.  Black beetles the size of skyscrapers moved over stars and space. 

For a second, she was back in death.  Her dead body in the alley flashed before her eyes.  Partially nude, she felt humiliation thinking about it. 

The world had seen her that way!  Good God!  What was the point of living?

People, she thought.  Where was the humanity?  What about helping your fellow man—or woman in need?  What the hell is wrong with people?

For some unexplainable reason, she thought about death while in the asylum, as if given a glimpse into the future of her demise.  Maybe that’s why she was here.

“I’m really getting sick of this!” she screamed into the padded room.

Her eyes stretched to insane lengths, horizons of their own, trapping the beetles behind her lids.  She couldn’t see the padded cell.  Amanda’s eyes were limitless lines of blood, an interminable razor’s edge. 

They had taken her vision, the staff in the lunatic ward.  Blood poured down her cheeks, making a pool in her lap.  Surrounding her—in the padded cell—blood spread sluggishly to the padded walls. 

They’d cut her eyes in half, expanding her vision over a limitless universe.  Her eyes turned into infinite lines of red thread.  The only problem was she couldn’t see.    

Amanda Dear knew it wasn’t only her eyes.  Every pour of her body oozed.  Somehow, they’d gotten inside her, stretched every part of her until she snapped like a rubber-band. 

Into the bloody view, determined to tear away the constraints, she wailed into the red thread:

“YOU THINK I GOT IT BAD?  YOU JUST WAIT, YOU UNMERCIFUL BASTARDS!  NOT ’TIL I GET TO THE LAST ONE OF YOU!  I WON’T STOP!  YOU’LL BE SORRY YOU EVER FUCKED WITH ME!  DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE DEALING WITH?”

No one was listening.  What was she doing in a place like this anyway?  She had never been committed to an asylum that she was aware, at least not on Earth. 

That was okay, Amanda Dear thought, smiling through her blood-soaked face.  She could scream all day!

Suddenly, the black wind of death swept her out of the asylum.  Her cries echoed down the hallways of a foreign institution.  She prayed the end was somewhere up ahead.  Amanda was growing tired of this phantasmagoria without a single question answered.

Death had ripped her from the asylum and put her back into the void of space.  Stars and cold air surrounded her once more.

To her horror, Jon the Doctor, the giant bug with glasses, stood waiting for her.  He was exactly how she remembered: tall, thin, dark hair, wearing glasses, the smug smile telling her who was in charge.  He was wearing his long, white doctor’s coat.

What was he doing in her death?  Had he perished along the way, sometime after her?  She hadn’t heard about his violent rape in prison. 

I hope it was slow for you, you miserable sonofabitch, Amanda thought.

Were the others here as well?  How much more suffering did she have to undergo?

Jon the Doctor smiled and sauntered casually toward her.  He had some unfinished business, his smile seemed to say.

“You forgot, Amanda Dear,” he said, “who the real polar bear is.”

Amanda Dear closed her eyes.  Jon the Doctor had just uttered blasphemy.  She wanted to throw up.

“You don’t have the balls to be the polar bear,” she said.  “Ask Manny.  You make me sick.” 

Jon the Doctor chuckled, but he didn’t get much farther.  He’d waited too long, savoring his arrogance.

From the darkness, dozens of giant forms emerged, strange beasts composed of discharge, disease, and decaying innards.  They encircled Jon the Doctor now.  The stench governing the air was atrocious.  Amanda—if she had hands—would’ve put them to her nose. 

They lurched toward Jon, issuing incoherent grumbles.  Trails of waste and blood disappeared into the dark. 

Jon the Doctor, suddenly, was no longer smiling.  

Despite the abominable scene, Amanda Dear anticipated the outcome with relish.  It was her turn to smile!

Maybe death is kind of cool after all, she thought.

Something, however, was strangely eerie about the moment.  For reasons she couldn’t grasp, Amanda had an inkling Jon’s death had been similar.  These monsters had invaded the prison corridors to claim him, leaving him to rot in their lingering offal.  For Amanda, it made watching his second death that much sweeter.

I hope it is painful, you monster, she thought, smiling as she watched.  I hope your death lasts a fucking lifetime.

Amanda Dear had no patience for sympathy, not here, not with Jon.  He deserved all the punishment death could muster. 

If this was the guise of her redeemers, her angels of salvation, she’d gotten it wrong.  She smiled at the irony.

To add further insult to Jon’s second death, the monsters held bleeding phalluses between diseased thighs.  Jon the Violating Love Doctor was about to experience the perfect punishment.  In what little light Amanda Dear saw, Jon opened his mouth, eyes going impossibly wide.  He broke the silence of space with a violent scream.  It echoed through the stars.  Within seconds, Jon the Doctor was not a man at all.  He was a living mound of flesh, a slave of crevices and folds.  Even Amanda couldn’t help but gape in disbelief.  Jon’s mouth had been recreated, a quivering labium.  His mouth and feet shifted into similar folds.  Amanda’s redeemers showered Jon the Doctor with discharge and kisses.

She was shocked to witness his soul’s end, satisfied she was able to learn something about the consequences of life and death.  Maybe God was showing His unpredictable face after all. 

Amanda nodded, watching Jon’s violation.  The beasts assuaged every lustful, vindictive thirst.  Nothing remained of Jon the Doctor, but a puddle of thick blood and secretion.  It spread across the black floor of space.  The beasts stood and turned, moving back into the surrounding dark, a job well done. 

Amanda Dear closed her eyes, sighing in the vindication of death.  When she opened them, the scene disappeared, replaced by another.  White pinpricks of light—from every direction—came together, a single point in the black of death.  Shelby , of course, always had a way of making a dramatic entrance.  As far as Amanda Dear was concerned, she might as well be watching Jon the Doctor all over again.  Shelby mimicked the same, smug smile. 

Like Jon the Doctor, Shelby ’s smile was, also, short-lived.  Amanda Dear cried out in victory.  To her joy, monsters did not attack and abuse Shelby .  Wesley, her paramour of the cosmos—her sweet, poetic polar bear—appeared from out of the black.  He stood directly behind him, and Wesley, wearing his security guard uniform, did not look pleased. 

Shelby turned and, surprisingly, seemed to recognize Amanda’s lover.  Wasting no time, Shelby confronted his enemy, reached out, and grabbed Wesley’s crotch.

This was not in the script of death.  This was not how death was supposed to go! 

Amanda squeezed her eyes shut.  She willed a different scenario.  This was her death, goddamnit!  By her rules and no one else’s would it play!

Within that second—when she opened her eyes—their roles had reversed.  Perhaps she had power here after all. 

Shelby was on his knees in front of Wesley now.  The man was begging for mercy. 

“You came to the wrong place for that,” Amanda said, from the distance. 

Wesley, however, had done considerable damage to Shelby ’s face.  Much like Amanda in the unknown institution, Shelby held his face in his hands, weeping torrents of blood.  He’d always been too manly for tears, she knew.  Wesley had, in the time Amanda had closed her eyes, torn Shelby ’s eyes from their sockets.  Blood spilled in a ridiculous flow down Shelby ’s face, plating his shirt and pants.  Blood gathered absurdly in a widening pool around his knees.  The blood was an entity not of Shelby ’s creation, but Wesley’s.  It had a life of its own.  Huge, white tusks ascended from the blood and swallowed Shelby whole.  He disappeared into the solid black of a second death. 

His death must’ve been a silent part, somehow rehearsed without her, even though Amanda felt she’d created it.  Wesley turned without noticing her and walked away with a single, satisfying nod into space.

Of course, with one act left to go, he was standing here now, the conscienceless marauder who’d left her to die in the August alleyway. 

Manny strutted, short and confidently toward her.  He didn’t have to smile.  After all, he was the reason she was here.

Manny, however, was not aware he was about to undergo a second death.  His lack of knowledge took him to unholy places. 

In an instant, the darkness came to life behind Manny with another unexpected redeemer.  Casting a quick glance at Amanda Dear, Lucifer—in the form of a dragon—winked at her from limitless space.  The dragon licked his scaly mouth with a black forked tongue.  Amanda had friends in high and low places, apparently.  How a dragon as hideous as Lucifer could look so radiant was difficult to fathom, but he emanated ecstatic joy.  Something about him appeared handsome and child-like, even as a dragon. 

Manny was oblivious.  He had no idea what was going on.  He did not see the dragon behind him.  For Amanda, it made him look even more foolish, weak, and pathetic, or maybe that was because Lucifer was the size of a mythological sea dragon. 

Perhaps Manny had been aware, because when the giant maw reared behind him, a puzzled look crossed his face.  Satan’s enormous mouth clamped down.  With an audible gulp, he swallowed Amanda’s executioner.  Soon, Manny would be slowly digesting in the bowels of Lucifer, a torturous process lasting eternity. 

Lucifer played the role perfectly.  He smacked his lips and smiled.  “I told you we’d be seeing each other again,” he told her. 

As unexpected and preposterous as it seemed, Amanda Dear accepted the fact that she and Lucifer had become friends. 

The monstrous red dragon, however, didn’t waste time hanging around.  Lucifer winked at Amanda a second time, slithering back into Hell, leaving her to puzzle over her situation in the lonesome dark of a bewildering afterlife.

*

She hoped things weren’t over yet.  She still had questions.  What was God doing anyway?  And why were the only friends she had (besides Wesley), abhorrent beings of evil from the underworld?  Did that make her a demon as well, an unrecognized resident from Hell?

After witnessing the end of her life’s tormentors, Amanda Dear was not flying through space.  She was, in all aspects, human.  Ropes bound her hands and feet, her mouth gagged by a slimy rag.  It tasted like gasoline.  The gag, where the knot was tied, pinched the skin at the back of her head, pulling her hair.  Amanda wasn’t aware death granted physical flaws, but apparently she’d been wrong.

She was on the ground floor in the ruins of an abandoned skyscraper.  Debris, newspapers, grocery bags, and pop cans lie scattered at her feet. 

In the coming dusk—outside the broken windows—the entire city had been either bombed or deserted.  In the gloom, it was hard to tell.  A consummate sense of desertion surrounded her.  She was completely alone in the silence.  Amanda Dear would welcome even Lucifer’s company now. 

Ropes also bound her to a wooden desk chair, something from high school.  A section of the chair dug into her back, forcing her to feel pain she didn’t acknowledge as death.  Charred wood, plaster, and the smell of gasoline thickened the air. 

Okay, she thought.  So, maybe this is the second death, the horrible twisted conclusion of an already horribly, twisted fate.  That’s appropriate, right?  Life is unfair.  Why shouldn’t death be the same?  Nice twist, God.  Can we get this over with now, so I can go about my deliriously, comical fate which You happen to think amusing? 

Something moved under the floor.  Whisperings issued around her.  Boards and fallen plaster were pushed aside across the ground. 

Okay, she thought, so she wasn’t as alone as she’d thought. 

To the typical chagrin of death’s reality—its lack of surprise—Amanda Dear tried keeping her fear at bay.  Figures clad in thick, dirty rags rose into view from under the floor. 

You’ve got to be kidding, she thought. 

Amanda tried shaking her head, but the ropes were too tight.  She tried mustering indifference.  She didn’t want them to know she was afraid. 

Of course, she thought.  I knew this would happen.  Show me what you’ve got!

The smell of aged, unclean skin wafted toward her.  Amanda winced at the stench. 

They looked like mummies.  Heavily draped cloth disguised their features, any trace of anatomy.  Some carried baseball bats; others held knives.  She counted seven, but more were coming into view from the shadows.

I’m going to die at the hands of Frosty the Snowman and his nearest relatives, she thought.

Predictable.  All too predictable and disappointing.  Just like life.  The terrible end to all terrible things…

Perfect, Amanda Dear thought.

She closed her eyes.  The figures lurched closer, the smell growing more powerful with each step they took.

Amanda Dear, after the endless charade, didn’t care what they did at this point.  She welcomed hell, as long as it was something!  She didn’t care anymore!  Let her hang out with Lucifer.  They’d had some good times at least.

One of the figures was close enough to touch her.  A diseased, boiled hand reached toward her face.  She could just make out its sunken, sallow cheeks, hungry, dehydrated lips drooping from a thin mouth.  It was an old, malnourished man on the verge of death—or perhaps his second or third by the looks of him. 

Making her recoil, the man caressed her cheek with a bony finger.

But just as quickly—startling Amanda—the hand fell away, rising toward its own lifeless visage.  Gripping the flesh behind his ear, the man proceeded to peel his face off.  Amanda was horrified!  The face came away like paper.  It took her a minute to realize it was nothing more than a carnival mask.  Underneath, she was just as surprised to see her ageless polar bear.  It was Wesley in disguise.  He dropped the mask on the floor.

“God, it’s hot under that thing,” he said, taking a deep breath.

Her jaw would’ve hit the floor if not for the gag.  Instead, Amanda’s eyes grew double in size.  She hopped up and down in the chair with excitement.  Wesley cautioned she might dismantle the legs and go sprawling, if she weren’t careful.  He did not come all the way into death to mend a broken hip, he’d said.  

Amanda made a gagging, whining sound.  To her surprise, she noticed the other monsters had disappeared. 

“Jeez,” Wesley said, irritated.  “Why do they have to tie people up all of the time?  You think they’d get tired of it!  And a gag in your mouth!  I bet that tastes fresh!”

Wesley, being the courteous polar bear he was, untied the gag, and threw it—disgusted—on the floor.  He untied the ropes binding her hands and feet.

In the second she was free, Amanda Dear threw her arms around Wesley’s neck.  She kissed him repeatedly, not giving him air to breathe.

“You taste like gasoline,” he said.

She smiled.  “Please, Wesley, tell me this is the end,” Amanda Dear said.  She was exhausted.  “I don’t think I can take another second!  I’m cracking up in this place!”

“Well, we’ve still got to run to the diner and pick up and order for Joe.  He’s a good guy.  You’ll like him.  Then, there’s the baby shower at the Hilton’s.  Charlene will be there with Rebecca.  But I wanted to go out with the guys tonight, and I didn’t think you’d mind.  The Angels are playing the Demons tonight on channel seven.  We’ve got it all lined up at Michael’s Bar and Grille.  And then, I thought we’d go out for ice cream.  Butterscotch Ripple still your favorite?”

Same old Wesley. 

“God, I missed you,” she said.  She kissed him again. 

“Ah, they always do that,” he said.  “Something about appreciating it more.  I think it’s a waste of time and a crock of shit myself.  But hey, I’m just a security guard.”

Amanda paused, cocking her head.  She furrowed her brows.  “I don’t understand,” she said.  “All this…I can’t remember much of anything.  I think about you, or thought I did, but something about it…something told me none of it was real—what I remembered about you.  That can’t be, can it?”

Wesley shook his head.  “You’ve got to be kidding, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what you are,” he said, as if she’d just caught the joke.  “You did that all the time in life.  You’re not pulling that crap here, missy.”

Amanda Dear, throwing a tantrum, stomped her feet.  “Would you quit being so secretive and just tell me what the hell is going on?”

Wesley took his time replying, putting on a serious face.  “If that’s the nicest way you can talk to me, you can just forget Butterscotch Ripple, young lady.  I’m not running a day care here!  You see any kids running around?”

“Wesley!” 

Wesley laughed loud and heartily.  “Let’s see,” he said, putting a finger to his chin.  He gazed upward.  “If I can access grilled-cheese sandwiches and still be the polar bear…that would make you…”  

It took Amanda all of her control not to slug him.  Wesley continued, however, putting the jokes aside, and told her the truth the only way he knew how: 

“You were, I like to think of, as the silly girl.  That’s a compliment by the way.  I was never there, Amanda Dear.  Not in the life you had.  You knew that all along.  Those moments weren’t real, not with me, the cocoa, the snow, the thunderclouds, even the sandwiches.  But you thought they were.  You made them real.  It didn’t matter what they were to anyone else as long as they were real to you.  I was just an idle whim, a fancy in the span of seconds.  To you, they might’ve been longer.  ‘Out of hope, out of desperation, with the hope of knowing you are always with me.  Dream beautiful.’  You said that to me once at a hot dog stand.  You don’t remember, do you?”

“Am I supposed to?” she said.

Amanda Dear was deeply troubled, trying to piece it all together.  She looked into the night sky, thinking, trying to understand how Wesley had been a beautiful memory, and the others, such nightmares.  She turned to her polar bear.  They had been real, and Wesley had not?  Wasn’t that a bit cruel? 

But wait!  If she changed it…if she reversed it…

“See,” he explained, “the funny thing about you is there was one reality and something else altogether.  Fantasy, I guess.  Personally, I’d use another name for it, but hey, this is your death.  The one reality that people—your mother, for example—denied.  She told you to focus on the other, but you didn’t accept it.  You believed in what you dreamed, what you imagined.  You made the fantasy real, Amanda girl.  A lot of people do not possess that particular talent.  But you do.  Everything was unfair in your life, the way your mother treated you, your relationships.  Even death was unfair, but not completely.  The belief you had in your vision gave you more power than you realized.  The dreams and fancies that you have are what make you as beautiful as you are.  It was unfair, everything in your life, even now.  Sometimes, that’s just the way it is.  We don’t always have a choice.  It’s chance, I guess.  But you dared to believe.  When it got bad, really bad, you made the fantasies real.  You made me.  I was born from here,” he said, pointing to her head.  “I was simply a thought to make the bad things not so bad, the good things a little better, more endurable.”  Wesley paused.  “And now I’m here,” he said, holding his arms out.  “Surprise, surprise.  Real or fantasy?”  Wesley raised his very real eyebrows and smiled.  “You decide.”

Amanda Dear looked around the ruined city.  She grabbed Wesley’s hand—real, full of blood—warm, full of life.  She couldn’t believe it.

“Whatever you dream, whatever you imagine,” he said. 

“The things you always dreamed because you loved them,” Amanda continued, “because you knew they loved you in return.  That’s the only truth you really know, you really get…From here,” Amanda finished, pointing to Wesley’s heart under the badge.

Wesley shook his head and rolled his eyes dramatically.  “Leave it up to a woman to come to a conclusion like that.”

Amanda Dear was not offended.  She smiled, thinking how the most impossible things—dreamed throughout her short, troubled life—had been realities more touchable than life.  She could reach out and grasp them if she knew where to go.  She owned limitless capabilities to her power.  It derived from passion, hope, love, and beauty, the only things that made sense.  In a word, it was a simple belief from which she never wavered.  The images of her in the asylum were nothing more than thoughts her mother put into her head.  Those moments had not been real.

“So,” Amanda said, looking into his blue eyes.  “I wasn’t mad?  I was never in the institution?”

Wesley grinned.  “The funny thing,” he said, “was that you knew something no one else did.”

“What’s that?”

“That beauty can be obtained.  You lived more in a life most people scoff at.  I became more real to you than the life you actually lived.  That’s what you wanted from me.  How else was I supposed to repay you after what you’d gone through?  I’ve been waiting lifetimes for you to come around, Amanda Dear.  Thousands of years, in fact.  Sounds impossible, I know, even ridiculous.  But the fact is, you knew it was true just like I did.  It was okay, because I knew this day would come.  We’ve spent time together before, if only briefly.  It’s like waiting lifetimes for a single, most memorable Christmas Day, and when it finally arrives…Well, my God!  It’s like Heaven!  The best gift you could’ve ever asked for.”

“I can’t believe it,” she said.

“Believe it,” Wesley said.  “Polar bears got it pretty good, really.  Better than most, in fact.  Winters are always so sad for everyone.  I happen to approach it like a summer festival.”

Amanda was puzzled.  She furrowed her brows.  “So what happens now?  Out there?” she asked, indicating the rest of—

(Life?  The World?  Death?)

“Whatever you want it to be,” Wesley told her.

“Why?”

“Because Someone out there thought you deserved it.  Maybe He saw something in you He’d never seen before.  Maybe He has a thing for blondes.”

“You’re incredible, Wesley.  I love you.  I don’t know what to say except thank you.”

Wesley put his palms up and shook his head.  “There’s nothing to say.  You made me, remember?  You were the one who did all the work.  All I had to do was be patient, wait for you, and be there when you needed me most.  To make things endurable, worth living—and I guess—worth dying for.”

“I can’t believe it ended this way,” Amanda said, looking at the stars in the world strangely taking shape around them.  Was that her power bringing these images to life?  Or was it chance?

“Actually,” Wesley said, taking her hand.  “We just got started.  This is only the beginning.  Not the end.”

Together, they walked out of the ruined skyscraper and down the road.  They had no particular destination. 

“Wesley?” Amanda asked.

“Yes?”

“What do you believe in?”

He paused before he spoke.

“Unpredictability.  That no matter how bad things get, in the end, it always turns out better than you expected.  It’s not all that great, I suppose, but it’s the best we’ve got so far.”

Wesley smiled, and Amanda pulled him close.  They walked into a foreign, alien city that didn’t exist to anyone but them. 

“Like the conclusion of a good book,” she said.  “‘The horrors of life and death slipped forever away, and they lived happily ever after.’”

Wesley kissed the top of her head.

Amanda Dear let out a sigh of relief. 

All you loved and dreamed—in the light of purest passion—were the only truths that mattered.  Its simplicity astounded her.  You didn’t have to be a saint or attend religious ceremonies to obtain Heaven, she realized.  All that was already inside.  All you had to do was look for it.  Obtaining enough sacred truths, even angels and demons switched sides in fear of how that knowledge would banish them utterly.

“Welcome to the real world, Silly girl,” Wesley said.

Now, in possession of every capability—to build seconds to last lifetimes—Amanda Dear clenched the polar bear’s hand.  She thought about every possibility with each step she took. 

“What do you want to do first?” Amanda asked.

“I’m dying for a grilled-cheese sandwich,” Wesley said.  “I haven’t had one since this day I spent with this really great girl.  Man, that seems like a looong time ago.”

“Really, what was her name?”

“I don’t know.  She had a thousand names.  She could create thunderclouds out of a clear, blue sky.  She was magical.”

“Wow, I like her already.”  Amanda smiled.

“You’re telling me,” he said.  “One day, she promised we’d build worlds together.  Just her and I.”

“And name them a thousand different names?”

“How could they possible fail?” Wesley said.

She didn’t reply.  To her, it wasn’t a question.

Amanda Dear walked out of the ruined landscape with whom she loved, her beautiful and very real polar bear.  Nothing else seemed real to her then, but that was okay… 

In time, she’d create that, too.