Chapter One: Prostitute-Faced Billy Emerson and the Existentialist Dead
William Walter Emerson was just like every other 13 year boy– that is, he was a dirty slut that caked on make-up and sold himself to strange old men in the darkest, dankest alleys of New York City. You see, little Billy Emerson believed he understood the world up and down; it was easy to get the things you wanted if you just abandoned shame (and possibly self-worth) somewhere along the way! It was his philosophy that cigarettes and booze were far more fun than video games and playgrounds, not to mention they were cheaper (and so easy to come by if you just knew who to ask). But do not make the mistake of dismissing Billy as just another pubescent boy-skank. Poor Billy had experienced some pretty bad times. His favorite cartoon channel had been replaced by a channel of the same name that did nothing but air 24 hours of talentless teen celebrities making love to their inflated egos. He could no longer find unfrosted Pop Tarts at the supermarket. Not a single one of his image macros had become internet memes yet. No, the fates had not been kind to William. At least, not until that faithful day…
Which faithful day you ask?
You didn’t ask…?
Oh…
Well FUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOU.
Whore-faced Billy had just taken out the garbage when he saw the oddest thing descending from the heavens. It was a man… a man holding a white parasol above his head, floating gently down to earth. Billy blinked several times, a bit of blank face bleeding through his normal whore-facedness.
“Bonjour!” called out the figure. Billy just stared. The man cleared his throat, and repeated himself. “Bonjour! Bonjour, Monsieur!”
Billy hesitated for a moment, for he had no idea what to say. Just as the man’s feet were hitting the ground, Billy decided to use the most straight forward question. “Who the fuck are you?”
“No nonsense kind of guy, aren’t you?” said the man, collapsing his parasol. “I am the late Jean-Paul Sartre.”
“Late?”
“Yes, my boy, for I am quite dead…. hence the floating down and whatnot.” Sartre adjusted his glasses and smoothed out his hair. “You are William Emerson, are you not?” Billy eyed the specter suspiciously.
“Being cute won’t lower the price, you know. You pay in full up front and then I go where you go. Got it?”
Sartre smiled brightly. “Ah, I knew it was you! Wonderful! I have a message for you.”
And suddenly the world grew very dark. Civilization’s ambient soundtrack was dominated by an other-worldly silence. Sartre convulsed, throwing back his head and emitting an unearthly scream. His eyes and mouth began to shoot jets of terrifying blue flame. The ground began to quake like Santa’s fat rolls when he watches Mind of Mencia, the surrounding landscape blurred and danced as if it were part of an innocent babe’s nightmare world. A great and terrible bellow rang through Billy’s ears, every word piercing through his very heart and soul. “THE INDIVIDUAL IS CONDEMNED TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS FREE CHOICES, REGARDLESS OF THE CONSEQUENCES, BECAUSE THE CHOICES BELONGED TO THAT INDIVIDUAL ALONE.” Billy’s eyes twitched, his mouth frothed, his balls retracted. He screamed out for someone, for anyone to free him from this hell. He felt as if his head had been split wide open, and that God himself had mistaken the gaping wound for a good place to have a long, rough coitus with his omnipotent phallus. What was happening to him? What was happening to anything!? Oh, the HUMANITY…
Billy slowly opened his eyes. The indescribable pain he had just experienced had vanished, leaving behind only a feeling of grogginess. Sartre was sitting on the stoop of Billy’s apartment building, reading the paper. Billy sat up, rubbing his eyes and moaning.
“Ah! Sleepy head is finally awake! Do you know they are reverse engineering chickens so that they become dinos? Dinos! C’est magnifique! Oh, how I would love a dino. Not a big one, just one of the little tiny ones– so cute!” Sartre folded the paper up and set it beside him. “So, the nap! How was it?”
“Nap?”
“Well, it was a long nap. You have been asleep for five hours or so.”
Slutty-Billy had nothing to say except, “I’m going to kick your ass.”
Sartre chuckled. “Well, that would be your decision, wouldn’t it?”
Billy could feel the smug radiating from Sartre’s grin. “What the hell do you mean? What did you do to me?!”
“Monsieur Billy, you say this as if I have done you a disservice! Think of this as an opportunity to further broaden your horizons!”
“Think of what as an opportunity?!”
“I have been watching you. The way you live is very interesting to me. So interesting in fact that I have grown weary of viewing you from afar. But alas, due to the rules and technicalities of returning to the world of the living when one is dead, I can only be here but one single day.”
There was a long silence.
“So I am adopting you and taking you back with me.”
Billy’s eyes widened. “WHAT?!?!”
“Now now, no need to thank me. I am happy to do it!”
“You’re kidnapping me?! You flaming fuck! I’m calling the police–” Sartre snapped his fingers, and then chortled a conniving chortle.
“I am afraid that you cannot call the police, for we have just left your living world.” Billy looked around… everything seemed to be order.
“You’re fucking crazy! Everything is still exactly the same, we haven’t gone anywhere! You’re sitting on the goddamn steps of my apartment building!”
“Everyone that comes here brings a little piece of their home with them. This is what you’ve brought… this area here. It’s a nice way to help the transitioning dead, isn’t it? Very nice of the higher-ups.”
“You. Are. INSANE. I am not dead, I have not taken my home anywhere. This is where I have always been. If you aren’t gone in 30 seconds I will call the police and they will haul your ass down-fucking-town!” Sartre poked at a spot just above his hairline and looked at Billy. Billy raised a hand to the same spot on his head, only to find a wire-thin antenna protruding from his head. He startled and withdrew his hand.
“Did you fucking glue this fucking shit to my fucking head?” was what Billy said, but what he meant was, “Why could I feel that antenna as if it were an actual extension of my body?” And indeed, when his hesitant hands raised up once more, Billy found that this thing was a new part his body.
“There’s some immediate proof, if you needed some,” said Sartre. “It’s an unfortunate side-effect, I’m afraid. The higher-ups do it to label the not-dead, and to keep them within 300 feet of their respective guides. So don’t think to run away or anything… if you get too far, the little fuzzy ball at the end will explode in tragically life-ending fireball.” Billy followed the antenna to its end… and there was a fuzzy ball.
“I’m a FUCKING MOOGLE?!” Billy screamed. And then, more screaming. Billy screamed for a few minutes… mostly obscenities. Sartre just kept smiling; things were going so well!
Billy collapsed in a heap on the sidewalk. Sartre came over and knelt down beside him. “Now now, things will be fine! I know it’s a big change, but it’ll be alright! You’ll get used to it! Trust me!”
“What right do you think you have to just take me away like this? What about all that responsibility shit?”
“I am condemned to the consequences of my actions. See, here you are!”
“But aren’t you’re robbing me of my freedom, or something!?”
“… You are condemned to the consequences of my actions too.”
“Now that’s not fucking fair.”
“Was life fair for Helen Keller? No! But she still managed to be the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean! And even then she died of exposure to radiation– carrying around test tubes in her pocket, what was she thinking? And then she grew that second head after she died, but the second head was alive, and only understood Japanese, but then it died too because the rest of the body was like a parasite or whatever? But… C’est la vie, no?”
Billy’s fornicating brows furrowed in mental anguish. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Regardless, you really should come along inside, for I believe it is going to rain soon. And sometimes it rains acid. CRAZY ACID. It will kill you right dead. What sort of man gambles on acid?”
At the end of the day, it did not rain acid, but pink lemonade. Sartre was glad he set out a pitcher, for he much enjoys pink lemonade. It was something he’d gamble on, at any rate.
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