Juxtaposition

"Juxtaposition" is one of our two Editor's picks for this month. (The other is Mike Penncavage's "The End of the World.") Storm "weaves" us a tale (sorry, we couldn't resist) that takes a unique look at the ideas of the afterlife, reincarnation, and the choices we have to make ... even in death.

     "Why don't you just sit down, lady, and shut up?"
     The waiter at the restaurant where she had to pick up this delivery had been slow, but rude and insufferable as well. He'd been no help at all when her order didn't come up after three failed tries. Zeenie tried to brush the hair back from her forehead. Sweat had beaded across her brow, and as she brushed back her bangs, they matted and stuck. She had never had to spend so much time outside in the humid southern summers, but she was becoming accustomed to it. At least, as much as any human could become accustomed to living in a perpetual sweatbox. Even sunset only brought minimal relief, especially on days like today, where there was absolutely no breeze.
     The traffic began to move, and Zeenie prayed that she would get through the intersection with this light cycle. She glanced down at the clipboard and noted that she only had six minutes to get this delivery to the customer.
     "Damn, I'll never make it in time!"
     The delays at the restaurant were compounded by traffic delays. She'd been late for the pickup, and it still hadn't been ready when she arrived. It was always a challenge when she had to cross cells from one city to another in the middle of a shift. Especially since she wasn't very familiar with this city. She was terrified of getting lost in the spaghetti of cross-streets and one-way roads that she needed to get where she was going. At least it looked like this customer should give her a decent tip, even if they only tipped ten percent.
     She edged her car forward and nudged the gas, hoping that the car in front of her would move so they could both get through. She was three cars back when the light changed to yellow and she revved her engine and sat right on the bumper of the car in front of her. There was no way she was going to sit through another cycle!
     Sheet metal creaked and groaned, and the sound of shattered glass split the air. Zeenie's fragile metal universe rocked as she felt her door give way. She couldn't breathe! The air had been forced from her lungs, and she couldn't get it back! Eyes wide, she surveyed the scene. There was blood on the steering wheel and on the windshield, but she felt like she could move. The driver's side had been crushed to a pulp, and the door met the steering wheel, so Zeenie moved to the passenger side of the car. The passenger door had been popped open by the blow and Zeenie stepped out. She wondered momentarily why her seatbelt had not held her in the seat, then she began to walk around the car and survey the damage.
     The car that had hit her was a Lincoln Towne Car. No wonder it had done so much damage to her poor little Hyundai. It looked like the passengers were all right. Zeenie felt guilty that she had tried to run the light, but at least it didn't look like there was too much damage to their car. Hers had been totaled, but she knew that before she got out.
     There was a commotion around the other side of her car, so she hurried around the Towne Car to see what was going on. The police would be arriving soon, and she was sure that she should be nearby so that they could question her. She remembered that she should see if her radio was working and let Base know what had happened to her. This order would be really late now!
     As she walked around the car, she noticed someone apparently sitting in the driver's seat of her car. She hurried, hoping that they wouldn't take off with the equipment before she could stop them. People were clustered around the car, and Zeenie struggled to get through.
     "Let me in!! This is my car!!! I need to get through and let Base know that I'm OK!!!"
     Nobody seemed to hear her, and nobody moved. She heard someone retching a few people over and closer in to the car. She tried to elbow her way in, still shouting, but nobody seemed to notice the pokes in the ribs. Zeenie skirted the crowds, and she noticed with some relief that the middle-aged couple from the Towne Car had gotten out and were standing by the hood of their car, crying. Zeenie was too angry to cry. She couldn't understand why these idiots weren't listening to her!
     The sound of sirens caught the crowd's attention, and they parted to let two officers pass.
     "Out of the way, coming through." The first officer pushed his way to the car as the crowd tried to get back in behind them.
     "Clear a path for the medics, please. And those of you who aren't involved, please move your cars to the side of the road." The second officer began to take control of traffic around the site. He opened flares and began to herd the crowd of onlookers back to their cars. Zeenie ran up to them, but they ignored her and kept walking up to the car.
     Zeenie looked inside the car to see if the radio was intact...
     ...and saw herself!!!!
     Zeenie shuddered, horrified at the scene that met her eyes. Her body was impaled on a beam from the door. It entered her side, and touched the bottom of the steering wheel. Her eyes were wide open, and blood covered the front end of the car. Confusion hit her like a hammer.
     "I'm dead? Where are the pretty lights, and the fancy elevator music? Where are the angels ... or the devil in my case."
     The fact that she still had a sense of humor amazed her. "Maybe if I go to hell, I can find out what Jim Morrison was thinking of when he decided to cash out. He could have made a fortune if he had hung around!"
     Zeenie wandered around the wreck. What was she supposed to do now? What did dead people do with their time? She looked back at the couple who had hit her. Maybe she was supposed to haunt them for killing her. But that didn't seem fair, since she had caused the accident by running the light. Looking back, she realized that there hadn't even been time for her life to flash before her eyes. Not that there would have been much to look at. At "thirty-something," Zeenie realized that she had wasted an awful lot of time and opportunities. Well, it would do no good to look back now. And if that wasn't an understatement, she didn't know what was!
     Zeenie began wandering away from the scene of the accident. There was nothing left for her here, so she headed west at a brisk pace, realizing that at least she wouldn't get tired or find her feet full of blisters in the morning.
     The first time she hit the wall she found herself sitting on her butt for no good reason. She stood up and started walking again, and this time, she felt herself hit the barrier.
     "Hell, I guess I'll have to go around," Zeenie began. "I don't see anything, I wonder if there are things that the dead can't see in the real world." She started walking off, heading North this time.
     She hadn't walked overly far, her mind occupied with wondering what would happen to everyone she now that she was dead, when she found herself on her bottom again. She didn't remember hitting a barrier, but she stood up and reached out her hand, and there it was, big as day. Zeenie started walking, keeping her hand on the barrier, looking for a break in the invisible, solid wall. When she had walked the entire perimeter of the barrier without finding a single weak spot, much less an opening, Zeenie sat down, frustration welling away at the corners of her eyes.
     She sat that way, until morning crept up on her, and activity once again filled the streets where her life had been torn away. People crossed the streets and cars began piling up at the intersections as they waited for the lights to change. Zeenie continued to, relatively impervious to the reflections of day to day life that moved around and through her. She watched with detached curiosity as cars drove through her body, occasionally being stopped halfway out. Then, even that became boring, as she realized that it didn't elicit any feeling either in her or in the driver. She left the middle of the street where she was sitting, and moved to the median of a nearby street. She sat among the flowers, waiting for who knew what, and wondering if this private hell was made just for her or if others' lives ended this way too.
     A car entered Zeenie's field of vision, and she was swept into the approaching vehicle like a dust mote in front of a vacuum cleaner. The car was old and rusted, and it had no air conditioning. A woman was sweating in a summer housedress, and she occasionally raised her hand to wipe her forehead. She smiled, and hummed along to a song on the scratchy AM radio. She wore a seatbelt across a swollen belly that she absent-mindedly reached down to rub every so often. Zeenie looked back and saw the back seat full of plastic bags. Upon further examination, she realized that the bags were full of second-hand baby clothes and cloth diapers. She found a bag of pins from the drug store, and a little battered suitcase, full of Lamaze items and a little cotton nightie. The car approached a battered building in the center of downtown. The sign over the door said "Community Health Center."
     The woman got out of the car and stretched. She reached down to pat her swollen belly, and Zeenie noticed the stains on the worn housedress. She found herself disgusted by the squalor that this child would undoubtedly have to live in.
     Just as she finished that thought, a passing taxi sucked Zeenie into its yellow maw. She was startled to find herself sitting next to another pregnant woman. There was air-conditioning in the cab, and Zeenie found herself sighing with relief, even though the heat wasn't as oppressive without a real body. The woman was lost in a magazine article. The cover of the periodical was covered with recipe ideas and large headlines advocating the current stars' weight loss plans. The cab pulled up in front of a huge office complex. The woman got out and paid the cabby without even looking him in the face.
     She whisked into the building and Zeenie flew along beside her like they were attached to one another. The woman cruised into a large, plush office, giving polite but chilly nods to the secretaries on the way in. She was well dressed and very neat, and her desk was organized down to the minutest detail. On the calendar, Zeenie saw a notation "Dr. Chilonton-Amnio results!!" The appointment was for the following day.
     Zeenie realized that she hadn't seen this woman touch her belly once, and that she tried to move as if there were no pregnancy and no baby. Zeenie knew that she was waiting. Waiting for the doctors to tell her that she had a perfect baby. Waiting for it to be ok to be pregnant. Waiting and ignoring the life within until it would fit into her organized world. Zeenie had never understood how a woman could be pregnant for so long, and refuse to acknowledge it until the doctors said it was ok. She wondered if this baby's life would end with the appointment on the following day. She was glad that she was not the baby of this cold and calculating woman.
     The vacuum hose caught Zeenie again as a young woman approached the doors. Zeenie suddenly found herself attached to this new person, and the woman behind the desk, whose body she had so recently shared, seemed distant and chilly. Zeenie struggled with the change in perspective, and sensed the fear in the movements of the young woman whose mind she found herself partially occupying, as she entered the room.
     This young woman was pregnant as well, although less obviously so. She absent-mindedly touched her belly as she relayed some information to the woman behind the desk. The news was obviously not what the woman wanted to hear, and the aggravated tones of the response grated on Zeenie's nonexistent nerves. The woman stepped backward out of the office and proceeded to her desk. This desk was a jumble of papers and printouts. The telephone cord hung into a desk drawer and pencils and pens were heaped into mugs and vases on the shelf above the computer terminal. Red numbers flashed on the screen, and the young woman sat down and set some of the papers off to the side to reach for a large binder. She opened the binder and began copying the numbers.
     Where the papers had been moved, Zeenie saw a picture. It was a photo of the woman, with a young man of average looks and a small child. All of them were smiling, posed against a swirled blue background. As the woman moved a few more pieces of paper, Zeenie could see pictures on the back wall of the cubicle. They had obviously been painted by a young child. Some of them were so old that the paper had started to yellow, but new ones had been hung nearby without removing the old ones from the wall. As the woman opened one of the drawers, the child in the family portrait appeared in photos with a number of young women, and once with a group of children and an older woman. They were pictures of picnics and amusement parks, of gymnastics classes and days at the pool. The child seemed happy in the pictures, waving and laughing. The phone rang.
     The young woman answered the phone. Zeenie could clearly hear her side of what was obviously a strained conversation.
     "Hello...
     "Oh, hi...
     "Yeah, I heard, but I won't be able to make it this time...
     "Well, I'm sorry, but we both decided that I needed to go to work if we were going to take care of the kids the way we wanted to...
     "Well, it's too late to change your mind now!...
     "No, I'll probably be late again, can you pick her up...?
     "Well, I'll call Cathy and have her pick her up and make sure she gets some dinner...
     "Not 'till well after nine, at least. The forecasts for this quarter just came in, and they weren't quite what the boss ordered. I'll be running numbers for quite a while yet...
     "Yeah, well I'll have to work at least one day this weekend...
     "Not you, too!. Well, I guess I'd better make sure Cathy is available this weekend, too...
     "I was thinking, maybe a nanny wouldn't be such a bad idea...
     "Yeah, well, we can talk about it some time this week. Bye. Love you, too."
     The woman shifted in her seat and touched the slight swelling below her waist. She picked up the phone and dialed a number.
     "Hello, Cathy...?"

     The grass was green and cool under Zeenie's feet. She felt a rush of air brush by her, and it smelled of hyacinth and jasmine. The sky was a jewel toned blue and the sun was warm and comforting. Zeenie saw a table on her right, laid out with a silver place setting and fine stemware. A crystal pitcher sat near the back, with dew running down the sides and a pale rose liquid inside. A plate of small sandwiches, vegetables and fruits sat in the center of the table. Zeenie realized that she was hungry. She stood up and stretched. A woman broke away from the group on Zeenie's left and approached her. The woman carried a spider on her shoulder and was draped in webbing. In her right hand was a spindle.
     "Zeenie, child. Welcome. Have something to eat, and drink and come join us in our talk. You can tell us of your choice and we can talk about your lessons." The woman's voice was melodic and refined, and it set off the day with crisp overtones. "We are sorry that you had to choose so soon. But the change in plans couldn't be helped."
     "That's OK, Clotho, I know that you, Lachesis and Atropos do the best that you can.
     Zeenie understood now that it had been early for her to die.
     "You have chosen, haven't you, Zeenie"
     "Yes, and the lessons will be doozies, I know!"
     "To facilitate the experience of all things, hon." Clotho squeezed Zeenie's shoulders. "But for now, Eat, Drink and be Merry - for tomorrow you Live!!"

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