Life After Death

I was dead.

This wasn’t part of the plan! I had spent months devising the perfect plan and this was definitely not in it. I was supposed to be going out for a special dinner with my girlfriend later tonight, supposed to be picking up the bouquet of multicolored tulips that were her favorite, supposed to be pulling out a ring from my jacket pocket and asking her to love me forever. Unthinking, my hand reached up to pat the pocket where that ring had been hidden; it was still there. I guess the afterlife took you “as is”. Ugh, did that mean I was meant to live out my eternity in this overpriced suit and smelling of Bleu de Chanel?! I sniffed myself surreptitiously, wishing I hadn’t splurged on fancy cologne.

“Ahem.”

I glanced up in surprise, noticing for the first time that there were a number of people – beings? – around me.

“The first few moments can be difficult,” the middle figure spoke kindly. It felt like he looked into my soul rather than into my eyes. I couldn’t tell where his long robe ended and the creature began. I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out. Where were the pearly-white gates, the God I had never prayed to, the Angels flying around with an unlimited supply of bacon cheeseburgers cooked to perfection –

“Ahem,” the figure stopped my spiraling. “This is a judge and jury of sorts. At least, that is what your world would call it,” he made a strange noise that may have been amusement. “In fact, you may call me The Judge, and I am here to send you with either the Angels or the Demons.”

Angels or Demons? Jesus – wait, was that offensive here? – Gosh, was I a candidate for both Heaven and Hell?

The Judge sighed, “Look Liam, like I said, this can be overwhelming. I can see you have questions. Here’s the quick rundown: everyone gets a trial once they die, everyone is considered a contender for both Heaven and Hell, and everyone can appeal their assignment once every million human years." He waved this off impatiently. “Let me introduce you to the Angels and Demons present; The Devil and God don’t sit in on mundane events such as the Afterlife Court, so they send representatives. Your Demons are Baell, Gorge, and Vanth,” The Judge pointed to three figures to the left of him. They also wore robes, but these seemed to play tricks on my eyes, making me uneasy as if I couldn’t be sure what was going on behind them. “Your Angels are Arael, Nakir, and Sarawyn,” The Judge continued, pointing to his right.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Nakir was the driver of the car that crashed into my little Ford Fiesta and killed me. She looked different now, less human, but the eyes and face were unmistakable. This Angel had killed me! 

The Judge was still talking, but I wasn’t listening. The Angels had all given me a warm wave, but Nakir didn’t give any outward signs that she knew me. Had I seen a small glimmer as her robe moved? A bead of sweat dripped down my back as I considered my options. I could call her out right now and get to the bottom of this, but would that piss her off (or the other Angels?) and result in me being sent to Hell? Maybe she was a guardian Angel, trying to crank the wheel to prevent the accident before it happened but failed? Probably not a good idea to point out failures either. I needed answers, but I wasn’t ready to gamble on my afterlife by singling out one of God’s representatives and making demands. One million years was a long time to spend in Hell if I messed this up. Alright Nakir, I’ll play it cool for now too.

The Afterlife Court passed in a blur as I answered questions about decisions in my life, avoided traps the Demons crafted to catch me in a lie, and cried about my almost fiancé that was never going to be my wife. Perhaps this sad story is what got my relatively unremarkable life into Heaven, and I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. 

I awoke in Heaven. There weren’t unlimited bacon cheeseburgers, but all in all it lived up to the hype. One day, a few of us were sharing stories about how we died. Anna was sharing her half-crazed dream of a woman coming into her hospital room the night of her fatal heart attack. After recovering from an emergency appendix removal, she had realized she finally wanted to move forward with her 8-year relationship. Her boyfriend had been waiting for her to be ready, and she had just hung up the phone after telling him the good news. In her dream, a woman came in and started adjusting Anna’s IV line. Anna noted that she must have been really out of it, because the mystery women didn’t seem to move like a human; it seemed more of an afterthought to touch the IV after the bag had already bulged with new fluids and her steps didn’t match the pace she moved. Anna shuddered, recalling the deep green eyes and thin lips that had parted in a horrific smile before the mystery woman had left the dream. 

I jumped up, “Green eyes? Did she have a scar on her cheek too?!” I was practically shaking Anna as she fumbled for words.

“Woah, easy Liam. Um, actually yes,” Anna paused, considering, “Yes, I think she did. Was I dreaming of someone who actually exists?”

I sat down with a thud, “Anna, she killed you, that wasn’t a dream. She’s an Angel and she killed me too.”

Silence. My mind was racing with the implications, but the others seemed hesitant to accept the idea of a serial killer Angel.

“Liam, what are you talking about? This was just a dream; I died from a heart attack.”

“She was in my Afterlife Court, her name is Nakir. She was the driver in the car crash that killed me!” I heard the pleading in my voice and tried to pull myself together. I did sound crazy after all. “She must have put something in your IV bag to cause the heart attack. Look, if I’m right, there’s got to be others that have been killed too. Johnny, Cas, do either of you remember a woman with green eyes at the time of your death?”

They shook their heads and I tried to reason this away, “Ok, well I suppose there has to be some people who die the good old-fashioned way too. It’d be suspicious if everyone in Heaven started remembering Nakir and talking about it. Maybe we just have to start asking around, meet new people and expand our search, you know?”

The others were skeptical, but I promised to let it go if we didn’t find anything by the end of the week.

As it turned out, the search was easier than any of us expected. The fifth person we talked to remembered green eyes peering over the barrel of a gun, and the twelfth remembered the scar and thin lips passing a joint to him at a party, a joint that was laced with fentanyl. Pretty soon there were 7 deaths tied to the actions of Nakir. Great. They don’t prepare you for the possibility of a conspiracy once you get to Heaven. And not just any conspiracy, but one that didn’t make any sense.

“Why would an Angel kill us? Aren’t they fundamentally good?”

“Maybe Angels go rogue sometimes?”

“But what would Nakir get out of it? If she went rogue, what’s the point of killing us if we just end up in Heaven?”

What if she works with the Devil? Maybe she’s a spy!” 

“So, she spies on us in Heaven? Wouldn’t it be easier just to send us to Hell?”

“Maybe she just likes killing people.”

“I’m sure she could just go join the Devil if that was the case. Why put on a façade as an Angel and have to sneak around?”

And so we spiraled. No matter how many theories we came up with, there weren’t any that truly made sense. Why would Nakir choose us? As we continued to meet and try to make sense of what was happening, word spread, bringing more and more people who also remembered someone matching Nakir’s description present in their final moments. We started to document everyone’s deaths so that we could bring evidence to God directly and not risk him dismissing our case.

“Who is the leader here? I think I was killed by an Angel too,” someone in a flamboyant hat asked as she peered at the notes that were scattered everywhere.

“Well, not really a leader per say, but I’m Liam,” I made some space and motioned for her to sit down. “If you’re comfortable, we’d all be interested in what you remember from the day you died” I reached for a fresh sheet of paper.

“Actually, I was hoping you could tell me exactly what it is you’re doing here.”

I bent to look under the huge brim of her feathered hat and found myself staring into deep green eyes. “RUN!” I yelled, grabbing for our stack of carefully documented evidence, as the group erupted in chaos. The papers were slipping through my hands, disappearing as I reached for them. Thin lips parted into a smile as my world went black.

I awoke in the Afterlife Court, except different. The Judge was here, but now the beings on either side of him were bigger, more majestic than the Angels and Demons had been. 

“God?” I surprised myself by speaking. 

A kind nod from the figure on the right. 

“And that makes you the Devil.” I looked briefly at the figure on the left and turned away. I worried that if I stared, I’d get sucked into that long robe, bewitched by the glittering, unnatural movements.

“Ahem,” The Judge was impatient as ever. “Liam, an emergency court has been called. You have been accused of conspiracy to kill an Angel.” I noticed Nakir for the first time, looking outwardly sober, but mischief danced in the depths of her eyes.

“Conspiracy?!” I exploded, pointed at Nakir, “How about you ask HER about conspiracies! Ask her why she killed me! Why she killed so many others! I have pages and pages of proof,” I looked around for these, and with a quick movement from The Judge, all of us had the papers in our hands.

“These are the pages that were found when Nakir came to me,” The Judge spoke calmly. “She found Liam alone and became suspicious when she saw a description of herself on one of the pages he was writing.”

I looked at the pages in front of me. They were still in my handwriting but had been altered. Instead of the deaths implicating Nakir, they now looked like they were describing ways to try and kill Nakir. 

“No!” I shouted, and The Judge motioned for me to calm down. “No, these have been changed! This isn’t what I wrote!” God and the Devil were flipping through their own copies, and the Devil was gleefully admiring some of the more gruesome deaths.

“Boy, with an imagination like this, you’d be a perfect fit for my Demon Training Program,” The Devil praised. I shook my head in disbelief, instead turning to God. He looked sad.

“No, you know me, I wouldn’t try and kill anyone, I was trying to save more people on Earth!”

God looked at Nakir, then back at me, “Nakir is one of my highest-ranking Angels, Liam. You probably wouldn’t have ever seen her if she didn’t do me a favor by filling in at your Afterlife Court. Do you understand the gravity of what you’re suggesting?”

I missed the question because I noticed a brief but meaningful look pass between Nakir and the Devil. “They are working together!” I pointed again and God sighed.

“Is this not your handwriting?” The Devil susurrated.

“Well, yes, but she must have altered it before we arrived. She knew we were close!”

“We?” The Judge looked up.

“There’s at least 50 of us that Nakir has killed and we were working together to understand why she’s doing it!” 

“Nakir said she found you alone,” The Judge looked for confirmation and Nakir nodded. “Are you accusing her of altering your notes as well as lying now too?”

I swallowed. This was not going well. I didn’t know what kind of powers Angels had and if this was even possible. “Yes. And I can give you names if you want proof.”

The Judge considered for a moment, “Alright, in the interest of being thorough, I will summon 3 people of your choice. If this proves fruitful, we can summon others.”

“Anna, Frances, and Patricia.” To my amazement, as I said their names, they popped up beside me, looking asleep.

“Anna,” The Judge woke her with his voice and she looked around, confused. “Anna, do you know this man?”

Anna looked at me blankly and I felt like I had been punched in the gut. Could Nakir have wiped her memories? A brief flash of recognition, and she replied “Yes, he was part of a group discussing death stories one day.” Ok, not the best phrasing, but at least she knew me.

“Have you seen him since then? Worked on any projects together?”

“Um, no, that was the only time,” Anna confirmed. “Woah, are you God??” 

The Devil seemed irritated that God got all the fame. The Judge, in his brisk manner, awoke each of my friends, repeating the same questions. It was useless. It was as if their memory stopped on the day that I met them.

The court was getting restless. “Look, I know this doesn’t look good. But I swear I’m not lying.”

“You said you were trying to understand why Nakir may have killed you. What was your conclusion?”

“We um, we couldn’t figure it out,” I trailed off, looking at the ground. This was it. I was going to Hell. I couldn’t prove anything and hadn’t had enough time to figure out why Nakir would choose to torture us with death. I thought of my almost fiancé. I would never see her now; she wouldn’t end up in Hell and we would spend all of eternity apart. I reached up to finger the engagement ring in its pocket. 

Wait. An engagement ring. 

“Wait,” I appealed to The Judge. “Wait, I don’t think it was about us. We weren’t the ones Nakir was trying to hurt and torture.” A flicker of fear passed through green eyes. “She wanted to torture the people we left behind. Our loved ones! I was going to get engaged the day I died, and Anna had just committed to a long-term boyfriend. Judge, if you wake up Frances and Patricia, I’m sure they’ll have similar stories.” At least I sure hoped so.

The Devil made an exasperated sound, “I think we’ve all heard enough here. This human is going to lead us on a wild goose chase for all of eternity if we let him! I’d be happy to escort Liam down to his new afterlife with your approval Judge.”

The Judge seemed unconvinced. As he considered this proposal, the thought that had been nagging me broke free. My friend’s memories had seemed to be wiped after they met me. Which meant they would still remember their death. Still recognize Nakir.

Nakir had been hovering off to the side, had she realized her mistake too? Had she banked on being overshadowed by the almighty God, to go unnoticed when my witnesses were summoned? Well not anymore.

“Wake them up and see if they recognize Nakir,” I practically exploded. “If she isn’t usually at the Afterlife Court, there’s no reason for them to know who she is.”

I could see God nodding at the sense of this, and felt, rather than saw Nakir move. She was in front of The Judge, telling him how ridiculous I sounded. As she made her animated points, I noticed how I couldn’t take my eyes off her robe. Something wasn’t right about it.

“Enough,” The Judge had his hand up and was waking up Anna, Frances, and Patricia. Nakir was becoming increasingly upset, and Anna was the first to identify her as the woman from her dream. Frances and Patricia confirmed they knew Nakir from their deaths as well, and pandemonium ensued. The Devil was spluttering excuses, accusing everyone from us humans, to The Judge, even God. Nakir was screaming that we were liars, The Judge was trying to maintain order, and then God was there, tearing away Nakir’s Angel robe.

She was a Demon.

With the pure, soft white robe torn away, the robe that played tricks on my eyes emerged; the one that I had caught glimpses of but had stayed hidden beneath the surface. Nakir shrieked and cowered behind the Devil. 

I stood there in the eye of the storm. It felt like I watched from a distance as The Judge forced the truth from Nakir and The Devil. Her mission had been to find people in love and tear them apart by killing one and leaving the other to suffer alone. She had masqueraded as an Angel in order to have access to Earth. 

God asked The Judge if we could reverse some of the damage that had been done and they deliberated a long time. So long, that I fell asleep. 

I awoke on Earth. I had an engagement ring in my pocket, a dinner reservation for six, and I was going to drive the long way to pick up some tulips I had ordered.