Pisaries Creator

“What in fresh hell is this?” I screamed when I saw what was before me.

It has been five years since my death. I had no idea what would come my way after my timely death. Luckily for all the terrible thoughts running through the little brain of mine, I died naturally due to old age and well maybe smoking more than I should have. Yeah, you could’ve called me an addict but that’s beside the point. No one talked beyond a week’s time of how I could have prolonged my life if I hadn’t smoked so many cigarettes and hung out in hookah lounges alone thinking about what I had done wrong with my life.

“Shit, let me count all the ways. How much time do you have to spare?” I laugh only to myself. No one hears me over the noise the kids are making. “Maybe, I shouldn’t have been so insistent not having any kids when I was alive.”

Being a product of two hippies, I was everything love and peace until I grew up and became my own person. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t out there searching for fights like a flea ridden alley cat knowing there isn’t anything left for me except one more fight before my heart stops ticking. Starting shit with someone wasn’t part of my personality as a child and definitely not as an adult and even if I had the choice in death, I would pick any other option. A man like me wasn’t interested in marrying the most beautiful woman, watching her pop out a few kids, and love that I was raising little humans to carry on my last name but a few puppies into dogs to accompany me on my hunting excursions. I didn’t want this kind of burden, and so, I went through my life in the most selfish way, caring only about my wants being fulfilled.

“The last time I checked being selfish wasn’t a crime and neither is being true to yourself,” I asked but no one answered me. I answered myself. “I don’t know what I was expecting. I’ve been let down more times I can count. Why would this be any different?”

Anyone who got in my way of my independence, I found subtle ways to knock them down like bowling pins. Any woman tempting me with her voice, dress, and flipping of her hair was rejected. I had no desire for her to later cut me into little pieces after our marriage ceremony so I would fit into her image of my worthiness to her. I did not want to be cut down so she could control me the rest of our years together. Worse, I did not want to be manipulated by her friends or parents. Everyone knows how brutal in-laws can be when their daughters insist they have been wronged. If you think a woman holds onto revenge, try her parents.

“I can hear them now barking at me during a holiday gathering.” There is no escape.

“How dare you talk to my daughter like that?” She’s the one who started this.

“How could you be so clueless as to what she needed from you?” When she doesn’t talk and only throws breakable things at me, it’s hard to know what she’s needing.

“Why did you agree to be with her through possible sickness, poverty, disagreement, and death? Are you that wicked of a man?” I don’t think wedding vows say that and if they did, I would change the wording, which doesn’t make me wicked.

Finding myself in a large room full of children was a major surprise to me. Not only was I instructed to teach these strange little humans whatever I wanted because I was given no instruction manual, I had no timeline for how long I would be doing this. I couldn’t imagine spending my days forcing weeds to listen to me in hopes flowers would grow in their place. There was no soil or sun. Every one of these faces staring at me was another punishment come alive. I couldn’t help but think maybe I didn’t do enough while alive to prove I was redeemable for my bad decisions. Maybe there were different realities in hell, and I was in a lesser kind of suffering. There was nothing my eyes or ears recognized to tell me otherwise. The devil was in each of these children.

“Beware of the devil. He comes in many shapes and forms.” I have seen all the powerful evil while alive but not yet in my death.

I imagined each of these children turning into insects: roaches, beetles, wasps, termites, butterflies, springtails, mosquitoes, bees, lice, mayflies, grasshoppers, flies, earwigs, dragonflies, crickets, ants, and cicadas. There were over two hundred gross looking insects in this room. Most of them were roaches of different sizes and shapes. They all possessed that up to no good look in their tiny little eyes. Their six legs full of deceit and speed. The room was split into different cliques. The girls screaming and yelling with and at each other. The boys talking about anything but serious topics. Not one of them had noticed me leave to find some remedy to this nightmare. When I returned, the children held the same proximity and poses.

I was ashamed I had given this solution any thought. If I managed to get rid of all the roaches, they would only be the ones I saw. A few would escape, hide long enough in safety, and return bigger and stronger. What was before me made no sense as the clues I received while alive made even less sense. I was told death was forever. I hoped this is not the case. I survived life too long to have to survive death like a vampire. One only knows the truth when they are there. I am here now in death with no kind of direction or place to call my own. Yes, I have only questions and will repeat them for as long as I need.

“What kind of smelly, old hell is this? Is this the suffering I deserve? A roomful of good for nothing, disease ridden, no matter what I do to kill them, they stay alive through the apocalypse kind of insect?” I simply have no idea. They might not be there at all. This is only an illusion in hell. I am the lesson and have learned from it.

“Are these children loaded into the boat to be rowed to an island to fend for themselves? Are these the lost causes I read about when alive? Are these the children waiting for their own answers to appear? Am I what they view as their sign?” They aren’t in my imagination. They are there in body and soul. Their brains are hungry. I am too.