The last thing I said to you was about blackness and nothing. That just about sums it up. Oh, and possibly feeling more than a bit pissed off that the snake had bitten me too hard - it was just supposed to knock me out for a day or so. That pissed-offness went though, into the blackness and nothing bit. So now here I am feeling a little bit lost and not really sure what to do. This wasn't supposed to be how it was.
Everyone up there seems to think spending time in the underworld is dead easy - you don't have to do anything and all in all it's not a bad life ( well, life it isn't, but you probably get the point)
Well, I'd just like to tell you - from my experience so far, it's no fun at all. For example, you 've got all sorts of sensations, like itches for example, and you can't scratch them because you haven't got a body. That doesn't seem to stop things like itching, it seems to find a place to happen, but it just stops you doing anything about it. You can see your fingers, but they are something they call "incorporeal" in the guide book they give you when you come in. It's full of words that wouldn't make a lot of sense if you weren't dead. And if you're only just dead, like I am, it's all a bit confusing. You might remember that all those hippies were really keen on the Book of the Dead or something - what they didn't realise was it was just a guide book - a bit like a Lonely Planet one - places to go and things to see after you've passed away - only you have to remember that easyjet don't fly there - and more to the point, they certainly don't fly back. That's it, the end. This book also gives you some clues and helpful hints on how to get on with your life after your life's got on without you and gone. It's not a big bundle of laughs, I can tell you.
So, as I said, the last thing you knew I wasn't really able to talk much - due to being unconscious. Blackness, nothing....you know - Well, after a while - I've absolutely no idea how long, time didn't seem to be any part of it - I kind of came round to something. Some vague feeling of there being something there, a bit like waking up the first time when the alarm goes off after a really heavy night out. Absolutely no idea where I was. That was sort of familiar, well a bit, anyway. It took me a while to realise I wasn't actually alive - the fact that I was there and my body didn't seem to be anywhere in sight was a bit of a clue. I did look for it for a while, but it sure as hell wasn't anywhere. The other clue, a really big one, was that Hades came in and started asking me in a stupid Rolf Harris voice "Do you know what it is yet ? " - "being dead, that is", he said - as a hint. Now I don't think that was funny. He obviously did.
I was still in some sort of shock, I suppose, couldn't really believe it, didn't make sense to me at all.
So the first thing I did was ask him how come I was actually there, in his "realm" as he put it so nicely, as I was only supposed to be in a coma for a while - not really dead. I wanted to know what had happened. He said he had no idea - I just turned up without a body, like all the other dead people, and he hadn't got a clue why that was.
He knew that my plan was to make the great musician feel guilty by me pretending to be dead, so that then he'd have to come down here and rescue me to prove how much he cared - and I said that what had happened wasn't the deal I'd done with the snakes, wasn't part of the masterplan.
He pointed out that something in my plan obviously hadn't worked out because I was, actually, dead. Really dead, not just pretending. As you can imagine, that wasn't exactly something I wanted to hear. Well you wouldn't, would you ? "I'm so sorry, miss or madam, but you are no longer alive" - what am I going to do if anything else goes wrong ? I don't like the way I'm feeling one little bit. I want out of here now. I mean now, if not sooner. Being really dead was not part of the plan. Not at all.
So now I've got to try and sort out what happened - it must have been that little bastard viper who got it wrong - what other explanation could there be? so he said "why don't you go and ask - he's down here too - he got here about five minutes after you did". So it looks as if there is some justice, after all - and I thought why not go and ask him and if he really did mess up - well, I know the little bastard's dead - but maybe you can kill something twice - it's worth a try. So off I go to find him.
At this point things get really strange. He's there alright, he's as dead as I am and he's really pissed off with me ! And I mean really pissed off. Apparently after he bit me he got the crap beaten out of him with a stick by my other half. Killed him, as it happens, which wasn't part of his plan either. He's not best pleased - seems he'd done a deal with someone else to advertise apples or something and now he won't be able to deliver. It'll get serpents a bad name, he says. The Garden of Eden was bad enough, takes a long time for people to start trusting you again. Apples and all, he says - and I have to go and let them down - they're bound to think the worst.
Then he tells me the story of his life - how he had mumps when he was little and lost the use of his poison sacs - so he couldn't really kill anything or anyone - all he can do is bite. I said I did notice that, for some reason. Because he bit me, maybe? He hasn't actually told anyone before - says he's a bit ashamed of it - seems like he usually borrows a bit of poison from his cousin, sticks it in one of his cheeks and kind of squirts it out of his mouth when he bites. It still works, he says. Promises me that's not what he did this time, though. So this is now getting seriously odd. It's official. I tell him I'm sorry he's dead - but that I'm not really able to sympathise too much, because I'm dead too and I don't want to be either.
Off I go and find Hades and say - OK - I can't be really dead, the snake told me his poisoning bits don't work properly. He says that there's no doubt about it - I'm definitely dead, otherwise I'd have brought my body with me. He says that if it wasn't the snake, something else must have killed me. So I say, how can I find out and he says - you really don't want to know, it's not very nice - and I say why's that then and he says, up there, they do something they call a post mortem to find out why someone died. So I said why's that a problem - he said it's because they cut everything up, top to bottom, take everything out, put it back, usually in the wrong place, and that sometimes they keep bits of you for a while or sometimes they keep them for a really long time. He says it makes it very difficult for people who have to account for every bit of them to move on to their afterlife - says he gets stuck with loads of people who can't find vital organs, or more often just bits of them. He says he doesn't mind transplants - all they do is just put things on hold for a few decades at most - it's the little bits here and there that cause the real problem. Takes forever to sort out, apparently, bits here and bits there, you know.
Sounds a bit like an episode of extreme makeover, only using the parts they threw away. Yuck.
The advantage though, he says, is that they can tell you why you're dead - like in your case, when it's not obvious.
Then he says - I think they're doing yours now - do you want to sit in? They won't notice you, I promise. I think -what have I got to lose ? I'm dead anyway. Let's find out what really happened. So up we go.
Now I won't bore you with all the detail and what they cut up and where - just it was all a bit messy, and not very nice - I can't believe it's me on that slab, well, I don't want to, considering what they're doing to me.
I'm beginning to get quite upset about it, so Mr H reassures me that he can get me put back together properly - if someone actually shows up to get me back, that is - and he promises I'll be in the right order, without any scars. I take a deep breath and tell him he'd better, or I'll come back and haunt him. I was joking, mostly to stop myself crying, only he says - come back ? where from ? you're there already, you know. You can't haunt the underworld, they're all ghosts too. And he tells me there's no guarantees I'll get out of there. And that, again, is not what I want to hear. Not in the slightest.
Anyway, to cut this short again - what do they find ? There's obviously a snake bite, so they spend some time working out if that's what did it - make quite a mess of me doing it - and they do decide I was poisoned, but that it wasn't a snake bite that did it. Apparently it might have been something I drank - they're still not sure - the effect of it all just coincided with the snake taking a chomp at my ankle, so it looked as if that was what did it.
This is getting really scary. I need to spend a bit of time working that one out. This just doesn't make sense.
