You Had Me at Halo(2)

The fact that he had laughed hysterically at her mistake hadn’t made Holly warm to him much. And besides, from what she gathered, no one really got a good look at the big man, so who was to say he didn’t look like Tyrone? It was possible.

“Yes?”

“There have been complaints.”

“Complaints?”

“Yes, Miss Evans. Complaints. About the talking. It’s got to stop.”

“I’ve hardly said anything,” she protested. “Honestly I haven’t. It’s just that some people around here jump down your throat for even breathing...well, not that we actually breathe anymore. But still, they really should try and relax a bit. Anyway, it’s easy for them to sit there looking smug since most of them got to see the right side of seventy.”

Tyrone gave her a patient smile. “Remember, I explained these feelings are just temporary and as soon as they’re purged you’ll be left with an overwhelming sense of joy.”

Holly grunted by way of an answer, since the longer she was dead, the less joyful she was becoming. It wasn’t that she wanted to cause a fuss, but she was still grappling with what had happened.

She had her whole perfect life in front of her: a great new promotion with the eleventh-most-benefit-friendly employer in the country, a heap of friends and a potential fiancé who was drop dead gorgeous. Oh yes, she had it all to live for, all right. But around here that didn’t seem to matter.

“Look, Miss Evans. This will get easier as you go along. You just need to stick to the rules and do as you’re told.”

Holly was becoming more and more frustrated. She wasn’t usually quite so petulant, but then she wasn’t usually dead either. “What are they going to do? Kill me? Oh, wait, that’s right. I’m already dead.”

“Actually...” Tyrone cleared his throat. “I think you’ll find there are quite a few fates worse than death.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Holly was stung into replying. “I’ve got to say it’s a pretty disorganized up here. All I keep hearing is, ‘Of course you can’t see your parents yet, Miss Evans; you need to wait until you’re at Level Three for that...No, Miss Evans you can’t go and haunt someone just because they took credit for one of your ideas last month...’”

All around her she could see people catching their imaginary breath in an inward gasp.

That was another thing about this place: Everyone just seemed to sit around doing nothing. Tyrone said it was because on Level One people were still waiting for their security clearances before moving up to their higher destinies. But whatever the reason, it was pretty annoying to always have a peanut gallery of dead people listening in on what she was saying.

“I know it seems frustrating to you right now, Miss Evans, but you just need to try and be patient a bit longer,” Tyrone said in a mild voice, which reminded Holly of just how pointless it was to try and argue with him. “So please, no more talking.”

“Fine.” Holly felt the fight drain out of her as she let out a sigh and turned back to her own funeral. She would try very hard to watch the rest of it without opening her mouth, and— “Oh, gross. What’s Vince Murphy doing there? I mean, just because we both happened to go to the same school together and now work for the same firm is NO reason for him to think we’re friends. And why are all the other technicians there as well? Don’t they have anything better to do?”

Behind her Tyrone coughed and Holly lifted her hand in an apology. “Okay, sorry. I was just a bit thrown to see them...Oh, and why does Vince have all those purple flashing lights dancing around his head? I know he’s weird, but that’s just something else.”

“If you’d read your manual properly you’d know purple lights mean the body in question is about to die,” the same annoying person called out from the peanut gallery. Obviously she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been filled with joy yet. This guy didn’t seem to be feeling the love either.

“I suppose that’s right next to the bit about no talking during a funeral,” Holly retorted.

“Actually it is. But since you were obviously too busy doing your nails instead of learning how to read before you committed suicide—”

Holly spun around and glared at the man for the first time. “I. Did. Not. Commit. Suicide.”

“Of course not and I guess those pills just magically entered your system,” said the horrible man (who Holly was very glad to note was incredibly fat). “Oh yeah,” he continued with a snigger. “You’re not the only one who looks down at what’s going on. I saw the hospital report and what they said. Apparently it’s not the first time you’ve tried it either. Sounds to me like you’re not only a big mouth, you’re a—”

“Thank you, Mr. Michaels, that’s enough,” Tyrone interrupted before joining her at the window.

“I didn’t commit suicide.” Holly managed to keep her voice low. She could feel her body shaking, which was sort of weird since Tyrone had explained that once a person got to heaven, while their spirit still had the appearance of a body, it didn’t actually work like one. As in no feeding, no watering, no washing.

Or shaking.

Holly put it down to this purging business.

“It’s no one’s job to judge here, Miss Evans.”