Oblivion Is Not An Option

By Gareth Macqueen

When you've had enough of life, the last thing you want is more life, but that's exactly what Post Material Services have given me. You see without my two boys, life in the afterlife sucks. And then I hear about all the disasters happening on Earth, and I worry about them. If only th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rustik Haws LLC
• Release date: Jun 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649340924

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OBLIVION

IS NOT AN

OPTION

G. MacQueen

Oblivion is not an Option By G. MacQueen

This book is written to provide information and motivation to readers. It’s purpose is not to render any type of psychological, legal, or professional advice of any kind. The content is the sole opinion and expression of the author, and not necessarily that of the publisher.

Copyright © 2020 by G. MacQueen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or distributed in any form by any means, including, but not limited to, recording, photocopying, or taking screenshots of parts of the book, without prior written permission from the author or the publisher. Brief quotations for noncommercial purposes, such as book reviews, permitted by Fair Use of the U.S. Copyright Law, are allowed without written permissions, as long as such quotations do not cause damage to the book’s commercial value. For permissions, write to the publisher, whose address is stated below.

ISBN: 978-1-952617-43-0 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-952617-44-7 (Hardback)

ISBN: 978-1-64934-092-4 (Ebook)

Printed in the United States of America.

Rustik Haws LLC

100 S. Ashley Drive, Suite 600

Tampa, FL 33602

https://www.rustikhaws.com/

Dedication

This story is dedicated to my family, passed and present

Contents

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 1

Unbelievable. I took a massive overdose last night and I’m still waiting to find out what’s going to happen to me. I was told hours ago, by this bored call-centre voice over a bad phone line that my suicide attempt had been successful, but that I would have to wait to speak to an advisor from Post Material Services to work out what kind of future I qualify for. I told her: I want nothing. To be more precise, I want nothingness.

Apparently, it’s not as simple as that.

I’m sitting in my living room. Actually, I know it’s not my living room, because there’s no window or door. My phone lights up, the classical music stops, and yet again, I go to pick it up.

The automated message I’ve been hearing every ten mi-nutes or so has changed slightly. It’s now, ‘Due to recent events, we are experiencing a very high demand for our services, but an advisor will be with you within the hour,’ instead of, ‘Due to recent events, we are experiencing a very high demand for our services, but an advisor will be with you sometime today.’

I shake my head, almost laugh out loud, conclude that at least I don’t have to worry about phone charges any more. Then I get up, pace about for a bit and run head first into the wall again. Apart from a momentary pang of embarrassment (because it occurs to me that someone or something might be watching), it still doesn’t hurt, even though, this time, I lined my forehead up with the bent nail a large picture once hung from. No blood, no pain, no dizziness, no escape. I don’t really mind the on-hold music –a medley of well-known classical pieces – but the tinny speaker of my mobile phone doesn’t do it justice. If this is a taste of what’s to come – if the ‘post material’ world is as annoying and as disappointing as the material world was – I don’t want to be any part of it.

The missing picture, which I smashed up a couple of weeks ago, had been a family photo montage, mostly made up of camera phone snaps that I’d taken and then printed off during happier times. I don’t miss Donna any more – what a granite-hearted bastard she turned out to be. It was losing access to my boys, and then them being brainwashed to hate me, that led me here, wherever this actually is.

I’ve got all the surviving photos in an envelope in a drawer. I’ve been trying not to look at them. The only intact one is of Ben, my eldest, taken when he was two-and-a-bit and nowhere near ready for bed. In loose-fitting Dinoco-blue pyjamas, he charges at the cameraman, clutching his two main buddies: a fluffy white dog over half his size, and a die-cast fire engine salvaged from my own youth.

Right, what’s on telly? I can’t believe I haven’t tried to turn it on yet. It comes on slowly. Even though it looks just like a brand new forty-two-inch LED screen, it warms up with the sluggishness of a cathode ray tube on its last legs. The fuzzy outline of a suited woman doing some kind of presentation materialises. Though horribly distorted, I know from the rhythm of her speech that she’s performing a scripted sales pitch. Is this a shopping channel? Information is scrolling along the bottom of the screen, but it appears to be in Latin. Suddenly, the picture and sound become as sharp as anything I’ve ever seen. The glossy doll of a woman steps up to the camera, looks me in the eye, and asks, Did you know that you are in possession of an amazing gift, an incredible reservoir of energy that is virtually indestructible?

"No one’s told me anything yet," I complain.

The smiley brunette is now looking at the wrong camera. With the right help, you can focus this energy where it is needed the most. Find out how to join the struggle by choosing option seven when you speak to one of our advisors.

I jab the on/off button and the screen goes black. Maybe I’m in hell. Maybe this is my punishment for ending my life, even though it doesn’t feel particularly ended. Perhaps it wasn’t my life to end in the first place. I mean, control in life was becoming increasingly elusive, so would it totally surprise me if I wasn’t allowed to quit it just how I wanted?

I curl up on my long, brown, slightly cracked leather sofa and pray for a long, dreamless sleep. I give up after about half an hour and start pacing again, quickly, to upbeat, slightly lesser-known tunes, like Vaughan Williams’ English Folk Song Suite; dragging my feet a little, to sadder, better-known tunes, like Mascagni’s Intermezzo. After another hour, I hate them all equally. I start tapping and knocking on different parts of different walls, especially where the door into my hallway used to be, and where my double-glazed view of a residents’ car park used to shout, ‘Buy some curtains, for God’s sake, or jump, you loser’. It’s all solid, all smooth, all the same. There’s been no patching up or repainting. It’s like my memory of the window is false. Is this how I bought the flat? Is this why I was able to afford it after Donna cleaned me out? I start pacing again, trying to get my memories in order. I somehow know that I’m beginning to lose things, bits of information, slivers of my identity, but for the time being, I can’t pinpoint what’s gone. I vigorously massage my temples. Sometimes, it works, like spinning the batteries in a remote control that’s stopped working – only, this time, the batteries are not just completely dead, but leaking their corrosive chemicals all over the circuitry. I need to test myself; ask myself some basic questions.

Name? Michael Blacker. Correct. Age? About fifty. Correct. Interests? Science and nature. And beer. Correct. Ambitions? To write a book, to find love, to be somebody’s hero.

My phone falls silent, and I pause, hating myself for acting like its puppet. The loud, relatively clear voice of a mature, well-spoken woman erupts from the straining speaker. It’s another message. Thank you for waiting. Please choose one of the following options. Please press one if you would like to be assimilated into a collective pool of knowledge. Please press two if you would like to apply for access to your religion’s version of the afterlife. Please press three if you would like to gain access to an infinite representation of your favourite material location. Please press four if you would like to inhabit, with a very weak form of interaction, a small material location that is linked to you. Please press five if you would like to only observe, from afar, events on Earth in general. Please press six if you would like to request your total extinction. Please press seven if you would like to hear a list of job vacancies in Post Material Services. Please press eight if you are still undecided or think that you may have left the material world at the same time as your children.

I snatch my phone off the glass-topped coffee table, off a cloudy cluster of beer-can rings that sort of remind me of the Olympic rings, and press six. Now, it’s ringing.

At last!

After a minute, a young bloke with a subtle Geordie accent introduces himself as Anthony. He tells me which option I’ve chosen and then asks me my name.

My name? You don’t already know who I am? Seriously?

"I’m afraid that I’m only permitted to view your previous life and come to a decision concerning your request after I’ve confirmed your identity. You need to give me your full name and then answer the two security questions that will appear before me."

I grow suspicious. Why does there need to be any security here? I don’t have any money, I’m guessing. For some reason, I try to remember how much money I left behind in my current account. It’s gone; not the money, but the figure. Did I have hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or just a couple of quid?

Money is irrelevant, but people are people, if you know what I mean.

"Yeahh. I think I know what you mean. Can you see me, by the way?"

Of course not, sir. Newcomers are protected by a strict pri-vacy policy. You probably still think of yourself as a material, earthly being, and we respect that. Many newcomers are in a delicate state of mind.

Let’s just get on with it, I say with a sigh. This place just intensifies my desire for oblivion.

Your name, sir.

I’m tempted to say, ‘Michael Mouse’, just to see what happens, but I’m extremely wary of having to start this infuriating process all over again. Michael Blacker.

And your worst fear?

"Jesus! Sorry. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that. He’s not my worst fear, by the way. Erm, I suppose it’s got to be my kids dying. Or would I actually get to see them, now, if they did, you know, pop their little clogs?"

That isn’t the answer we’ve got here, Mr Blacker.

"Well that’s the answer I’ve got here."

What we’re talking about is a mechanical, primal fear, unconnected with any other emotions; the nightmare you’ve been carrying around with you for years, long before your children were born.

I’ve never told anybody this. It goes right back to when I was five and watching an old Tarzan film in which Tarzan has to fight this scary native warrior on a plank above giant bubbling pots. Okay, the bad guy went in, but I felt sorry for him, and here’s why: a few years before, I’d climbed fully clothed into a running bath. For some reason, my parents used to run the hot water first; something to do with it coming out more slowly than the cold water because the immersion heater was downstairs. Anyway, ever since learning from Tarzan’s gruesome victory that my own traumatic experience could have been much, much, much worse, I’ve been unable to ignore any stories about people being involved in one particular type of industrial accident; or, perhaps worse, people in harsher parts of the world being punished in a particular way for the steadfastness of their religious beliefs. It’s being boiled, or burned, alive. There; is that what you wanted?

And finally, Mr Blacker, what was your most recent, preferred aid to masturbation?

This is getting out of hand!

Anthony snorts a laugh, but quickly recovers his com-posure. The sooner we get through this stage, the sooner—

It was weeks ago, if not months. I screw my eyes shut with shame and answer the question in one go, without pausing for breath. "A film on an old videotape I stole off my best mate’s dad in nineteen eighty-something, called Wanda Whips Wall Street starring Ron Jeremy. Silence. Maybe he wants more detail. I digitized it last year and put it on my phone. The storyline is amazing."

Right, okayyyy—Michael, you want to be totally ex-tinguished, is that right?

Well, that was the general idea behind necking thirty-two Temazepam and half a litre of vodka.

"Okay, just viewing your previous life. Uh-huh. Yep. Okay. Ha! Sorry. Erm—Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. Right, well, apart from yourself, you’ve never killed anyone."

That’s correct; it’s a record I’m particularly proud of.

Hmm, well, in this instance, Mr Blacker, your non-violent record, interrupted only by brief periods of grumpiness and justified anger, actually works against you.

I feel my smile sag. What?

"If you were a psychopath, mass murderer, serial killer, fascist tyrant or somebody of that ilk, it would be worth the energy it takes to dissipate a charge."

I don’t know what that means.

I don’t claim to understand the physics myself, Mr—

Call me Michael.

Michael— but we all have what’s called a ‘charge’, and it’s not easily snuffed out.

I’m not calling you a liar, Ant, but that sounds like you’re talking out of a part of your anatomy that you very rarely see.

"Yeah, well, it’s just somebody’s theory, at the end of the day. Right, back to your request. If you were one of those highly dangerous individuals I just mentioned, option six would have been your only option. I’m going to play for you the list of options you heard before, minus option six and, looking at your beliefs, or complete lack of them, option two. It’s been nice speaking to you, Mr Blacker."

Wait. Is there anyone higher up I can talk to about this? Oh, bollocks! I didn’t even leave a suicide note for my mum and dad.

The line is silent. He’s gone, the ignorant little sod! He’s probably bigger than me, to be fair; but he is young. Does that mean he died young?

Mr Blacker.

I jump out of my skin – more metaphorically than ever before – and drop my phone. When it’s against my ear again, I say, Yes?

I do sympathise, says Anthony, sounding rather reflective all of a sudden. One little thing like being made redundant can lead to all sorts of very difficult, unforeseen situations.

I was only out of work for three months. I told Donna we’d be all right. And we would have been.

I know, Michael. Bye.

"So what happened to you?"

He’s gone. An automated message kicks in. I’m not really listening. If oblivion is out of the question, then the next best thing is surely a quiet, simple existence, far away from the systems and pitfalls of humanity. I choose option three. Nothing happens. Nothing whatsoever. I drop onto my sofa, head lolling back. I want to scream, but if no one can see me, no one can hear me, either. So instead, I leap up and run really, really hard at the bent nail.

The wall is now composed of just a few layers of soggy paper, and gives, rips, clings to me as I burst through onto a sun-speckled footpath. I try to stop before the nettles, but can’t. I was right to try; the nettles swallow me whole and furiously sting my hands, arms and face.

I think people are watching, so, while still on my knees, I jovially proclaim, Nothing like a nettle bath to awaken the senses. No one laughs as I clamber to my feet and wade out of the nettles. My exposed skin is burning, itching, sore and numb, like the Devil can’t decide what to do with me. I spot something weird and out of place beside the path, and work out that, until a minute ago, I was inside it. It’s a tall, whitish pod with a big rip in its side, like the remains of a giant, free-standing chrysalis. I’m more curious than afraid. I want to look inside, to see where I’ve really been. The pod is empty, although its inner surface is covered in thin white hairs that all point towards the middle of the space.

I keep expecting someone to come over and greet me, interrogate me, or at least briefly check that I’m okay, but no one seems interested. People are sloping off; mostly middle-aged couples in cagoules. This place looks very familiar. I’m distracted momentarily by the pod as it shrivels up with a dry crinkling sound and takes off like an old white bin-liner caught by a gust of wind.

I’m by the River Trent. It’s a particularly picturesque section of it, about five miles from the city centre. I’ve walked along this path many times before, though not recently. I don’t really want to be here, now, on my own. The river only serves to remind me of those I’ve lost; Ben and Jake, my two boys. No, the river torments me with its gurgle and purl, because their excited voices aren’t drowning it out like they used to. The banks have their absence woven into the reeds, grasses and wild flowers crowding them, while fallen branches and rocks just lie there on the floor, not getting snatched up by mischievous little hands. My heart aches.

At least my skin isn’t burning any more. And my mind feels sharper than it ever has. My powers of recall are not only back, they’re supercharged. Memories are unfolding left, right and centre. No point of my life is out of reach. Things are beginning to overlap: my first day at work; my first day at school; the smell of vinyl records; the buzz of Saturday morning TV; the taste of Germolene-flavoured bubble-gum; the image of my dad snoring drunk on his back in the living room on a Sunday afternoon like a felled giant; being sick in my grandad’s burgundy Morris Marina; Terry Wogan singing The Floral Dance. I need to control this.

"Oi, mate, easy!" rasps a short, scruffy man with a strange-looking dog. I’ve walked into their path. The man looks as I imagine Oliver Reed would have looked if he’d been homeless in his late forties. His face is a bristly bag of purple veins. His dog is a grey and black mongrel, looks like an overweight and somewhat shaggy whippet with a wispy white beard.

I can smell diesel and tobacco smoke on the man. His dog is now licking the tips of my fingers. Its tongue is coarse and careful. Its breath is hot and quick. This feels pretty material to me.

I’m not dead, am I?

I’m now certain of it. I’ve had a nervous breakdown, an episode of some kind. I’ve switched to a long-defunct automatic pilot, and ended up here, perhaps forgetting that I was alone.

The man slaps my arm and bears his crooked, tawny teeth. That’s what I like to ’ear, mate; a POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE. Every time he raises his voice or stresses a word, I feel like he’s firing gravel at me. Start as you mean to go on. You’ll be all right. See you around, newcomer.

Newcomer? Relief and dread collide. "Hold on. Wait a minute. I am dead, aren’t I?"

The man sighs/wheezes and shakes his tangled mop, then tries to stifle a belch. I smell that, as well.

I’m not? Look, am I dead or not? If I am, so are you. Are we dead? We’re both dead, aren’t we?

"STOP SAYIN’ WE’RE DEAD. We’re not dead, all right? Let me ask you this: do you feel dead?"

I’ve felt worse, I confess. I used to have a dull ache in my right shoulder; now it’s gone.

"Well then. THAT MEANS YOU’RE NOT. Does the Co-lonel look dead to you? Put your fingers in ’is mouth. Can a dead dog bite your fuckin’ finger off?"

That’s interesting. He’ll be able to actually bite my finger off? I’ll lose the finger forever?

"Okay, you won’t lose the finger, or bleed for very long, but it’ll bloody ’urt for a while." A hoarse chuckle.

I want to ask him how he died, but he hasn’t asked me. Maybe it’s something people don’t discuss, not with strangers, anyway. Where’re you going?

Just down ’ere, why?

"Just wondering. I was just wondering what people do here, where they go, and why."

"Well, why did you choose this place?"

I didn’t.

But he’s not listening. "We take in the scenery, don’t we? We discover new places an’ enjoy the tranquillity, an’ we don’t tend to bother each other in the process. I can see in your eyes you’ve got loadsa questions. WE’RE NOT KEEN ON QUESTIONS, askin’ or bein’ asked."

Okay, mate, I won’t inflict my quizzical expression on you for a moment longer. And I certainly won’t be bothering you with news of what’s happening to the material version of this place. See ya.

Eh? Wait! What they doin’ to it?

Oh, you know; a few houses here, a new estate there. I’m making this up as I go along. I’ve heard rumours of a bridge —

You’re jokin’, aren’t you? Road bridge or footbridge?

One question at a time. I didn’t catch your name.

It’s Roger. This bridge—

The two estates need linking.

"Two estates?"

It’s upsetting me to talk about it, Roger. Can we just walk for a bit?

"Yeah, all right, newcomer. What’s your name, anyway?"

Michael.

Michael, I’ll let you into a little secret. A lot of the people who’ve been ’ere a long time are lookin’ for somethin’ more.

Well, that’s just human nature.

"EXACTLY. We’re not ungrateful, you know, it’s just that sometimes— oh, I dunno."

Can I ask you a hypothetical question? If I didn’t know how to swim, and I jumped into that river, what would happen to me?

You’d sink, but you wouldn’t drown.

The river bounces sunlight at me through the airy foliage to my left, as though to invite me to try it. Even if my lungs filled with water?

Maybe you’d pass out for a bit. Look, people’ve tried it, LOADSA TIMES. They’ve tried all sorts. Some can’t ’andle the boredom.

So what are you looking for, in particular?

I’m not sayin’.

Okay, be like that.

"Just pace yourself, Michael. You’ve got an OCEAN OF TIME to discover this place."

I want to choose another option. How do I choose another option?

What do you mean?

When you were in—the waiting room, we’ll call it, on the phone, you listened to some options, right?

"Oh, yeah, fink so. It was YEARS AND YEARS AGO, now."

How do I contact Post Material Services?

My endomorphic new friend is now standing completely still. The Colonel plods on until his leash tightens, then he’s more than happy to stand panting, gazing at swaying spears of rosebay willowherb. Roger’s eyes are bulging. The whites of his eyes aren’t very white. They make me think of onions pickling in malt vinegar. I ’aven’t got a bloody clue, he finally says.

I’m becoming a little frustrated. Do you at least know who’s running all this?

"No one knows. Well, no one I’ve ever spoke to. Is it a god, is it a government? No idea. You’ll drive yourself mad wonderin’. Just come up with a nice, simple theory, an’ then PUSH IT to the back of your mind."

Fair enough. If you don’t know, you don’t know. How come you got to bring your dog along, anyway?

Oh, I didn’t. The Colonel ain’t mine. I found ’im ’ere.

Something’s kicking off on the other side of the river, about two hundred yards upstream, in a large hillside field. Dozens of people are running across it, towards something irresistible, or away from something terrible. I turn to ask Roger what’s going on, but he’s trotting along, trying to follow the action, searching for gaps in the trees. I’ve been waitin’ for this, he pants.

What’s he doing, now? He’s dropping the dog lead and leaving the path, bounding down a cleared segment of the bank, towards an old wooden jetty that I’m sure Ben and I have sat upon with fishing rods a couple of times in the past. I expect Roger to stop on the jetty and use it to get a better view of the people. He uses it, instead, to launch himself into the river.

Chapter 2

The river, at this point, is sixty feet wide and flowing slowly on the surface. Roger’s not a very fast swimmer, so I catch up with him before we’re halfway across. The water out here is cleaner; not so many seeds, dead flies and chips of wood floating about, and I’m gradually getting used to the cold, but swimming in my clothes is exhausting. My jeans are heavy, I constantly feel like I’m going to lose my trainers, and my shirt is like a chequered balloon around my chest.

Where we going, Rog?

He can suck and grunt, but that’s about it.

Despite his age, the Colonel makes crossing the river look easy.

"I think I would drown in this river, you know," I call out louder than is necessary.

Stupid, grunts Roger.

Thing is, I don’t have complete faith in whoever’s running this place. I roll over onto my back and all I can see is the bright pastel sky. When I chose the option for favourite material location, I didn’t think about it too deeply, but had I, I would’ve expected to wind up in Santorini or the Lake District or Nice or on the north-east coast of England, not here. Their information is months out of date.

Can’t be.

"I’m telling you that this place is run by people. Dead people, admittedly, but people just like you and I, and people make mistakes."

Roger accidentally swallows some water and sprays it noisily across me. Bull! he bursts out breathlessly.

I hear the Colonel coming out of the water and shaking himself dry on the bank.

Where we going, Rog?

There’s a minute of silence, and then Roger is finding the floor and wading towards the bank with all the grace and immediacy of a clockwork robot with concrete feet. I can’t see ’em, he rasps. Can you see ’em, boy?

The Colonel barks once.

I don’t want to get out of the water just yet, but Roger is now talking to someone, and I’m curious.

It collapsed before we got to it, explains the lanky young man in baggy shorts and sandals, with a long-sleeved, tie-dyed tee-shirt tied around his waist. As though to counterbalance the long, black ponytail sprouting from the back of his head and slithering between his jutting shoulder blades, he has a beard of comparable mass. Its bushy tip brushes his bare, flat chest as he talks, mainly in one tone: low, unexcited, confident. He’s originally from Lincolnshire, or somewhere over that way, I gather. But someone on the other side of the river had a clear view. Said the trend is continuing, getting worse, if anything. Ah, the newcomer, I presume. Saw your envelope and got all excited. My name’s Rowan.

I shake his clammy, elongated hand. He has a silver ring on his thumb for some reason. Michael, I offer. I want to bombard him with questions, but it’s probably not the done thing. "Gents, I might