The Afterlife: A Conversation with Richard

[k_a_webb]

There’s a knock on the door. Richard has asked to hold this conversation on Earth, rather than in the afterlife, because he thinks it would be esaier here. I get why he thinks that. Personally I’m not sure if I’m ready to go wandering around the afterlife either, especially as the map is still fuzzy.That’s something I want to ask him about. With a lot of the worlds I write in I seem to get told what I need to know when I need to know it, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the afterlife is the same.

“Come in,” I call, turning in my desk chair to smile at him.

Richard enters the room, his smile a little more tentative, and it’s obvious to me that he’s unsure of his welcome. He is Death after all. Without even really thinking about it I stand, walk over to the door, and wrap my arms around him.

“That’s from both Elizabeth and me.”

For a few seconds Richard is still. He’s taller than me, which isn’t unusual. When he finally relaxes I can feel it and after another few seconds he wraps his arms around me, sighing as he does so, his breath ruffling my hair slightly.

“Elizabeth is a reader of the stories you write?”

I nod. “It’s thanks to her that I’m in contact with you at all. During my first prompt session she left me a prompt to do with Death and that led to me writing about your first meeting with Caitlyn.”

Richard steps back. This time his smile is much more secure and I’m glad to see that. “Yes, I remember that day. She wasn’t scared of me either.”

“You’re a psychopomp, Richard. Guiding spirits to the afterlife is your job. Being scared of you, even though you keep saying you personify death, seems a little silly really.”

“Even though you’re scared of death.”

I bite my lip. “I’m a control freak. Of course I’m scared of it right now. I can’t control death and, even though I have more contact with it than normal people, the afterlife feels tenuous.”

“That will change in time. The longer you spend writing stories about is the stronger your connection with the afterlife will be. I can’t say your need to control things will change though.” Richard reaches out and gently touches my shoulder. “I know it hasn’t been easy. I want to say you’ve got through the worst of it, but I don’t know what your future will bring. Sam might, if you want me to ask him.”

I shake my head. “I think I’m happier not knowing.”

“Don’t you have a connection with Persephone too?”

“I’m not asking her either. Even if I haven’t dealt with all the bad yet I don’t want to know what comes next.”

“Are you sure?” Richard runs a hand through his hair. “Then again I think I would have been the same.”

“Anyway…”

His attention is caught by something on my desk. “What’s that?” he asks.

I turn. “What’s what?”

“The little black machine.”

“It’s my netbook. I use it to write on and connect to the Internet.”

Richard nods. “What’s the Internet?”

How do I explain the Internet, I wonder, and how did this turn into Richard asking all the questions?

“It’s a way of connecting with the rest of the world,” I say finally, going for the simplest explanation.

“How do you use it?”

Shaking my head I turn once again to look at Richard. “Do you want me to show you?”

He nods and I guide him over to my desk. It’s not a large desk and James is using it for his laptop, so it’s cluttered with notebooks, my spare pair of glasses, my MP3 player and a load of other random stuff. I motion for him to sit on my desk chair as I use the touchpad to wiggle the mouse and wake the screen up.

“The window I have up here, which is shown in the blue lines, is what’s called Firefox. It’s my preferred browser. Within the window is everything you need to use the Internet. At the bottom I have my weather forecast bar; at the top is firstly the menu bar, then the address bar, then my groups bar, and finally the tab bar. The menu bar allows you to do a number of things within the browser that we can go into another day. The address bar is where you type in the address of places you want to go. The groups bar is something I added myself, which allows me to have a work group and a play group. The tab bar shows you which website you’re on and what other websites you have connected to.”

Richard looks at me. “So basically the two bits I need if I want to start browsing are the address bar at the top and the tabs bar.”

“Yes, that’s about it.”

“What website are you connected to at the moment?”

“My website. Once I have this conversation posted I’ll load up some other sites.” I smile. “This was supposed to be me asking you questions, especially some I’ve had from Elizabeth ever since I had your character spotlight, but instead it’s turned into me explaining to you how to use the Internet.”

“There will be other times.” Richard looks at me. “Would you mind if I played with the Internet sometime?”

“Of course I wouldn’t mind.” I narrow my eyes. “Does that mean I’m likely to see Samael here too?”

“Yes, but he’s much better with all this technology stuff than I am. He already knows how to use the Internet.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“He did offer to teach me, but I didn’t have a reason to until now.” Richard smiles. “Now I have people reading about me I feel like I should be connecting with at least some of them.”

“I don’t have a huge readership.”

“That doesn’t matter, Kayleigh. We can build on that with the stories you write and hopefully I can help.”

“How do you plan on helping?”

“Sam mentioned this thing called Twitter to me.” I do my best to keep my sigh to myself, because I think I know what’s coming next. “I thought I might create an account myself, although I’d need help with the Tweeting part.”

“Give me a couple of days,” I reply, “and then we can create you an account.”

“Then I’ll answer all your questions.” Richard pats my hand. “Thank you for being so patient with me.”

“You’re welcome.”

Richard stands and for the first time I see his sword. “It stays hidden when I don’t need it, but I have a couple of jobs to do tonight.” He smiles at me one last time and surprises me with a kiss on the cheek. “I promise I’ll come back soon.”

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

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[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>it would be esaier here.<<

That should say "easier" above.

>>The longer you spend writing stories about is the stronger your connection with the afterlife will be.<<

Absolutely true.

>>How do I explain the Internet, I wonder, and how did this turn into Richard asking all the questions?<<

*laugh* Meta: you're doing it right. Yes, this is exactly the kind of thing I've seen happen to every other writer I know who's done meta conversations.

So. Much. LOVE.