Out of the Blue Nights of Death and Desire

By Jack Gunthridge

When Candice, a teenage girl, dies on her way home from the prom, she starts to go up to heaven. On the way, she runs into the soul of a handsome man. Her hopes of finding a lasting love with this man are interrupted as his soul is placed into the body of a newborn.

Through out of body experiences, she is able to be with the man of her dreams at night as his body sleeps. But as the boy grows up, will she be satisfied with just his soul as his body starts to become interested in other women?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781626757073

Jack Gunthridge

Jack Gunthridge has a high functioning form of autism known as Asperger's Syndrome. He is very open about his autism diagnosis and doesn't consider it a disability. It is a difference in thinking that people like Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Beethoven, Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein are believed to have had.Jack wants to encourage readers to give his books a try. If you look at his reviews, they are either positive or negative with very little in the middle. Since he has a different way of thinking, his books will be written differently. Some will find this refreshing. Others won't quite know what to do with it because it doesn't fit the standard pattern or expectations of what other authors are producing.

Book preview

9781626757073

Chapter One

I don’t remember much about my life. I remember going to the prom with Mark Jacobs. He picked me up at 6. I was running a little late, so he came inside and waited for me. When I came downstairs, he stood up. I had never felt more beautiful in my life. I thought that it was sweet that he seemed so nervous. My mom took a picture of us in front of the fireplace. Mark had his arms around me. As we were leaving, my parents told us to have fun and reminded Mark to have me back by midnight.

I remember having dinner at Bella Notte. It was just the two of us, and it was everything I could have ever wished for. He was being a perfect gentleman and made sure that the night was about me and that I was happy. We then arrived at the gym around 8. It was decorated to look like the 1950s, even though it was 1978. I’m not sure what was on TV or in movies to make them want to have it look like the 50s. There are things that disappear in death. It is details like this that I have forgotten.

I remember an archway made of blue and white balloons and getting my picture taken underneath it as Mark and I were introduced as a couple. I remember dancing with Mark, and then he left to go get a drink. After he had been gone for a few minutes, I went to go find him. And then I remember seeing him kissing Sandy Nelson. And I remember running out of the high school gym crying and finding a car in the parking lot where somebody had left their keys in the front seat.

What happened between that moment and what I remember next is a bit hazy. The newspapers reported that I was a teen tragedy. They say I was driving too fast and recklessly and didn’t see the train coming at that crossing. I do remember seeing a bright light, but I don’t know if it was the train, or if it was the bright light that you see as you die.

Oddly enough, I do remember more about my death than my life. Actually, I remember more about my afterlife, since my death only involved that hazy part between when I got in the car and when I saw the bright light, but everything after my actual death is clear in my memory.

After the bright light, it became darker for a moment. Then I noticed a certain glow to my body as I started to float up. I was going towards a light. It was much brighter than the light I saw right before I died. The light had a strange quality to it. Although it was bright, it didn’t seem to illuminate anything. I couldn’t see any forms behind the light, and the light didn’t seem to make the world that I was leaving any clearer.

I wish that I could tell you more about death and all that happens to you, but I haven’t really experienced the whole heaven and hell thing. I will tell you that things that once seemed extremely important in life no longer have any meaning. I thought I would just die when I saw Mark kissing Sandy. What would people think about me? It was going to be scandalous at school on Monday. What were people going to say about me? My whole life was over.

And then, after I died, I no longer cared about Mark, Sandy, or anybody else at school. I didn’t care about the gossip and the rumors. I didn’t care about anything. As I was floating up, I felt free.

It was in this moment of peace that my entire life changed. This was when I met you. Maybe I didn’t see you because of the brightness of the white that I was coming towards, or maybe I didn’t see you because I had my eyes closed as I was enjoying the sensation of floating and the freedom that came with it.

Anyway, for whatever reason, I was no longer floating upwards. I was now in your arms and your warm embrace and heading back to the ground. You were beautiful. And if you want to know the truth, I fell in love with you at that moment.

There was an orange glow to you. I couldn’t tell your exact age, but you were fairly grown up. I would put you in about your early twenties. I’m not sure if that is when you will die, or maybe your soul goes in at a certain age and then starts to reflect who you are as life changes you over the years. Either way, you have never really changed from that first time that I saw you.

You were shirtless. Below the waist, you were definitely male, even though I didn’t look to prove it. And if that embarrasses you now, after all that we have been through, I thought that you should know. It was important to me as that sixteen year old girl that had just died and thought that she would never be with a guy or fall in love ever again.

You were much more muscular then than you are physically today. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I know that you might not like your physical body, but to me, you are the beautiful soul