An Unassigned Life

By Susan Wells Bennett

Frustrated novelist Tim Chase just thought of the best plot idea he has had in three years. The problem is he's dead.

Now he's stuck in the afterlife as an unassigned soul with two goals in mind: getting his last and greatest novel published and moving on.

Why can George see me? he thought. Pulling the El Pad from his pocket, he read the answer:

Some living humans, particularly those suffering from a chemical imbalance of the brain, are able to see and interact with you. Unfortunately, this imbalance frequently leads others to label
these individuals as insane.

Great, he thought. If I want to hang out in an asylum, I can have all the company I want.

Yes, answered the El Pad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inknbeans Press
• Release date: Feb 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452459448

Susan Wells Bennett

Born in 1971, I am a third-generation native Arizonan. My grandfather’s family arrived here from Missouri in 1912, just after Arizona became a state. Thanks to his stories and those of my other family members, I know how Arizona used to be and how it is today.After years of working as an editor and a writer for local companies, I began my wished-for career as a novelist in 2009. I have completed four books so far. My fourth book, An Unassigned Life, will be published by Inknbeans Press in February 2011.Please visit my blog to see my indie-novelist book reviews and recommendations. Visit Inknbeans.com and join their mailing list to receive coupons and up-to-date information regarding my books and the books of other Inknbeans authors.

Book preview

Frustrated novelist Tim Chase just thought of the best plot idea he has had in three years. The problem is he's dead. Now he's stuck in the afterlife as an unassigned soul with two goals in mind: getting his last and greatest novel published and moving on

An Unassigned Life

By

Susan Wells Bennett

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Inknbeans Press on Smashwords

An Unassigned Life

Copyright © 2011 by Susan Wells Bennett

And Inknbeans Press

Cover art by Nikki McBroom

([e-mail])

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Dedicated to my dear friend Nikki McBroom, who has often wiled away hours listening to and discussing the plots of my books. Thank you for lending me your ears as well as your masterful artistic talents.

Prologue – The End…

Tim slammed his cell phone closed in disgust. The barely audible clack it emitted only served to infuriate him more. When he was a kid, the phones were heavy; when you hung them up, you had to be careful not to set them down too hard or the party on the other end would think you were angry. Not so with these modern-day phones: the only way for them to make a loud noise was to break them. Tim did just that, shattering the phone into five or six pieces and leaving a good-sized dent in the wall.

Damn her, he thought, sitting down in front of his still-empty computer screen. Ellen knows I have writer’s block. He let his fingers click angrily on the keys, creating a few lines of gibberish.

His first novel was a critical and popular success, but his second novel had been a disaster. The New Yorker book critic had called it florid. Hah! Working for The New Yorker, you had to wonder how that hack would be able to recognize floridity. Now the publisher was demanding that he produce the third book due on his contract or return the advance he’d received. Tim didn’t have their damned money – he’d used it to buy the old bungalow he was sitting in right now. He’d thought the house would inspire him, that the previous residents of the past century would show up and tell him their stories. They hadn’t, though.

Looking around the sparsely furnished house, he thought he missed Tina’s things – the comfortable sofa, the antique dining set, the king-sized bed. He paced through the rooms, taking inventory of the missing furniture and art. She’d left him only a few items: his desk and chair, the old computer that served as his long-term writing partner, and a recliner that had seen better days. After she was gone, Tim had visited a second-hand shop and dragged home a mistreated dining room set and an old twin-sized bed. A twin was big enough for him and might keep him from inviting others to stay the night.

The doorbell rang and Tim hid behind the dining room arch and peered around the corner to see who might be there. He could see it was a man – probably that same bum that kept coming around asking for a handout. The guy must have circled Tim’s house on his map of easy marks. The first time the unshaven, filthy man showed up, Tim had been in a benevolent spirit. He had opened his door, invited the man – Tim remembered his name was George – to have a sandwich with him and had even given him a few dollars when the meal was done. Ever since then, George rang the doorbell every few days, despite the fact that Tim had never opened the door to him again.

It rang again, and Tim’s heart raced in his chest as he continued to hide behind the dining room arch. Finally, Tim heard the man’s boots clomp across the porch and down the stairs. Slumping against the wall, he breathed a sigh of relief and allowed himself to slide to the floor, hitting the wooden slats with an audible thump.

Life wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was a damned good writer – better than Nicholas Sparks, that was for sure. Yet that hack kept turning out book after book while he sat in front of a blank screen day after day. He glanced toward his desk and saw the lines of gibberish filling up the screen. That was the most he’d written in months. He didn’t even have an outline to show Ellen or the publisher – nothing to convince them that he was working on the third book.

He thought of Dorothy Parker’s ode to suicide, Resumé. Nooses give, he thought. Not if they are tied right. He’d had a therapist since that incident a few years ago with the pills. His therapist had told him to call if he had suicidal thoughts again. He slid himself around the corner into the living room and eyed the pieces of his phone. He smiled. Sorry, Doc. The phone’s out of order.

With renewed sense of purpose, he exited the house to the garage, where he located a length of nylon rope he had purchased a few years ago for a camping trip that he and Tina had never quite gotten around to taking. Carrying the rope inside, he sat down in front of his computer and researched nooses. It didn’t take long to find instructions on the internet for tying a noose. He thanked his father for insisting he participate in Boy Scouts when tying the knot proved a simple job. With a real sense of accomplishment – the first he’d felt in a long time – he put the noose aside and went back to his page of gibberish. He opened a new Word document and wrote a flowing and detailed suicide note, assigning blame and praise appropriately to everyone in his life. When he reached the end, he reviewed it. Remembering The New Yorker critic’s accusation of floridity, he deleted the whole thing and replaced it with a simpler, all-purpose note: Fuck you all. I’m out of here. He saved it as suicide note, printed a copy that he left on his keyboard, and emailed it to his sister and his agent – neither of whom would see it until Tuesday morning, since it was a Friday afternoon before a long weekend.

He walked out his back door without locking it, went into the garage and threw one end of the rope over the exposed beams. Standing on the hood of his old silver Honda Civic, he secured the rope with one of the knots he’d learned in Boy Scouts, slipped the noose over his head, and jumped off the car.

Failure to Contemplate

Tim never gave much thought to what came after death. His experience with religion had been limited to a few sermons in his best friend’s church when he was a kid and a brief foray into the world of Buddhism, led by Tina’s search for fulfillment. Neither had provided Tim with more than a comforting, if inappropriate, nap. He used to watch the shows about hauntings and laugh at the foolishness of men trying to communicate with something that was most assuredly a figment of their imaginations. He had long since decided that nothing followed life besides a long sleep in a cold, dark box. All of which is why, when he landed with a thump on the ground next to his car, he thought the rope had broken.

Damn it, he muttered. He closed his eyes and lay back on the ground, his arms crossed behind his head. Maybe I should have tried pills again. The idea that struck him a moment later was so brilliant that he opened his eyes in surprise – and saw himself hanging from the rafter above.

Stunned, he hopped to his feet and backed away from his swinging corpse – that which he’d always believed to be the essence of his being. He nearly jumped – or maybe floated is more accurate – a foot off the ground when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder. The scream that escaped him was both unmanly and potentially insane.

Pardon me, Mr. Chase. I didn’t mean to startle you.

He turned to face the being behind him, recognizing immediately that it was an angel, despite its lack of requisite wings. I get to go to Heaven?

No, I’m afraid not.

Oh. He wasn’t really surprised, but he was confused. Why are you here?

Think of me as your concierge. I’m here to answer questions and give directions when necessary. The angel smiled. I’m a big fan, Mr. Chase. I was looking forward to your next book immensely. This, he said, gesturing to Tim’s hanging corpse, "is quite a disappointment. Ah, well…c’est la vie."

You read books?

Of course. It’s one of the perks of the job.

What job?

Heavenly concierge, of course. I only work right after an unassigned soul dies or when one requires assistance.

Unassigned dead?

We’re getting ahead of ourselves. First of all, allow me to introduce myself: I’m Ezer. I’m here to help you to adjust to your new status. He pulled a slim device from his suit pocket and handed it to Tim. This will answer many of your questions.

It had a flat screen similar to one of those e-readers everyone was using now. Along the edge of the device was an inscription: El Pad. There didn’t appear to be any buttons on it at all. What is this? Tim thought, and the answer appeared on the flat screen: The El Pad is an intuitive instrument provided to all unassigned dead for their use until such time as they are assigned or the world ends.

Okay, Tim thought. What are the unassigned dead?

The device answered. The unassigned dead are those people who, for whatever reason, failed to choose one of the five paths of enlightenment.

Paths of enlightenment?

The paths of enlightenment are the major religions of the world.

Nifty, isn’t it? Ezer asked. "We just got these in a few years ago. Before that, everyone got this huge volume called The Book of El. It wasn’t really portable for your average human. Even we angels had a heck of a time hauling one around. Anyway, after this came out, it really made my job an easy one."

Even with this, you’ve got to be busy. People die all the time.

Ezer laughed and shook his head. Yeah, you are a clumsy lot, aren’t you? Always crashing to your untimely deaths. The things I’ve seen…let’s just say this – he gestured at the body again – is clean and simple, comparatively speaking. Tim grimaced and the angel resumed his professional demeanor. I only work with unassigned souls, and I only serve the Northern half of the Western Hemisphere. Since I don’t sleep, I have plenty of time to read.

How do you do that?

Read? It’s simple enough, really. Except for Chinese. I still have trouble with that language.

Tim shook his head and said, No. Not sleep. How do you do that?

I don’t need sleep. And, now, neither do you. You’ll find you have a lot more time to think when you don’t have to waste so much of it sleeping.

But I like sleeping.

Ezer shrugged. I guess you should have thought of that a few minutes ago.

Tim was tiring of this sarcastic creature. If I’m unassigned, how do I get assigned? Do I just need to accept Jesus, or what?

The angel chuckled. Humans. You’re always so eager to find a path to enlightenment once you’re dead. If you’d only put a couple of days of thought into it before you were in this predicament…ah, well. Not much we can do about that now. The angel looked at Tim’s body again. How long do you suppose it will be before they find that? It’s going to start to draw flies, you know.

I sent a note to my sister and my agent before I came out here.

The angel arched his eyebrows. I guess you’ll be hanging around for the weekend, huh, Tim?

What? Why?

Ezer pulled his own El Pad from his pocket and showed it to him. This is your sister’s schedule for the weekend. As you can see, she’s on her way to California right now. She won’t be checking her email again until Tuesday morning. The screen flickered for a second before showing Ellen’s schedule. Ellen will be in London for the long weekend. She will see your message – but she won’t open it until your sister calls her with the bad news. Ezer shook his head sadly. I’m afraid you irritated her a bit more than you should have.

If he’d still had a body, he would have been sick to his stomach. What do I do now? he asked Ezer weakly.

"You wait. There are some really nice unassigned people in your neighborhood. You could visit them. Most of them are shut-ins, I’m afraid. They haven’t ventured far from their homes since their deaths, poor things. It’s the old Book of El, you see. It’s not very portable and you really need to stay near it in case of exorcism."

Exorcism? You mean that actually works?

"Yes, sort of. The Book of El or an El Pad can protect you, but only if you are within ten feet of it. If not, an exorcism can force you into an assignment."

What’s wrong with that? Assignment is the goal, right?

There are five paths of enlightenment but six possible assignments. Trust me when I say you don’t want to get assigned to the sixth possibility. Dante gave a pretty clear picture of what that assignment looked like.

Hell? There’s really a Hell?

Ezer frowned in distaste. We prefer not to call it that. Let’s just say it’s outside of El’s jurisdiction.

So I just hang around here until the end of time?

You’ll have certain opportunities to earn your assignment. If you succeed, I’ll be around to escort you onward and upward, so to speak. He glanced at his El Pad and said, I’ve really got to fly. A woman in Pittsburgh just tripped over a tree root and stumbled into a broken branch. Death by tree – that’s gonna be a gory one. Good luck, Tim. And Ezer disappeared.

Tim took one last look at his body. His face was turning a purplish shade. This may have been a mistake, he thought. The El Pad’s screen flashed and the words Ya think? appeared on it. He slipped the annoying gadget into the pocket of his old sweater and headed for the house.

He opened the back door and went inside. Then he stopped, turned around, and stared. How did I do that? he thought. He pulled the El Pad from his pocket and found the answer: As an unassigned and earthbound soul, you retain the ability to touch anything that you have touched during your lifetime.

Huh, he said aloud. Maybe all those fools hunting ghosts aren’t so far off the mark.

He returned to his desk and found that he could still use his computer. And, for the first time in years, he began to write.

The Weakest Link

Melissa Strentham sighed heavily as she entered Tim’s empty home. Just what I need, she thought as she did a quick inventory of the run-down house. Then again, it’s no more than I should have expected from him. He always was inconsiderate of others. She ran a finger across the top of his desk, coming up with a finger full of dust. Some writer.

Mrs. Strentham, we need you to identify the body.

Really? She pulled a hard copy of one of Tim’s books out of her oversized purse and asked, Can’t you just compare it to this picture?

No, ma’am, I’m afraid not. We really need you to confirm that the body is Mr. Chase’s.

She pursed her lips and pushed her white-rimmed sunglasses up and into her perfectly coiffed and bleached hair. Very well. Let’s get this over with.

She followed the buff and burly fireman out to the garage, where they had laid Tim and covered him up. The young EMT pulled back the sheet and she saw the puffy, purple face that had once belonged to her brother. She held the book out and compared the two images: one of a marginally handsome young man, the other a decaying corpse. I suppose I understand why you might have had trouble recognizing him from this photo, she said. The fireman was looking at her oddly. That’s him. She pulled the shades back down over her eyes.

Detective Ramirez has a few questions for you, the fireman said, pointing toward a young