Second Chance

Second Chance



     Downstairs in the livingroom sat a flat screen 52-inch television. Furniture crisp white suede that hardly anyone sat on. Awards and accolades hung from walls and sat on mounted pieces of statuette flat statues. Fine crystal spotless adjacent to the living that had an image of a depressed man sitting in a single chair with his legs stretched out on the Persian white rug. He turns his head and examines the rooms of the house he built with the money he made from writing. Ray is his name and he now carried the sins of his father. “Why me God,” He screamed out but no one answered. The house was empty for the night. His two children were staying over a family member house and his wife was out with her girls. He did what he always did when he was depressed. Sit at home watching movies from the mass library he had. Ray wasn’t a smoker nor was he a drinker, however he was a thinker and that kept him in trouble all his life trying to analyze everything. He wasn’t the type of man to leave things broken in any situation but this time he wasn’t able to fix what was now a broken heart.
     He often threatened to commit suicide but his kids were always on his mind as he shook it off and kept dealing with life’s ups and downs.  He raised a knife and examined and contemplated with himself if he could actually go through it. He ponders and ponders crying uncontrollably. His vision became blurred and his think was very erratic. He began to talk to God and prayed that if he decided to end it on this cool autumn evening that he would let him in heavens gate.
     The sky blue curtains began to shake and he could tell someone of the supernatural was paying him a visit. Every since a child he was often visited by ghost and demons who would talk to him and tell him things he didn’t need to hear. “Who’s there?”

“I. I’ve come to take you home with me.”
“Why can’t I see you,” he asked. He didn’t budge from his comfortable position, although he did wipe his eyes trying to focus on the uninvited entity.
“You’re dead and I am coming to take you.”
“Dead? No that’s crazy I can’t be dead I am sitting here talking to you. You’re in my home. He remained still and waited for the voice to respond.
“I am death and I am here to take you where you now belong. Incase you didn’t know you just committed suicide.”
“No way. Look at me there is no blood. I still have the knife in my hand.”
“Get up and come to the dinning room. I am here waiting for you at your table.”
Ray got off the chair and walk towards the dinning room. He didn’t appear to have any fear as he strolled into his dinning room. He noticed a black smoke figure sitting at the end of the table.
“Sit!” the heavy voice demanded.
He did and stared at the figure with no shame, “all my life you have been trying to get me.”
“Yes and your were determined to live. That says a lot about you and your character. You Mr. Ray have my respect. So many thing were thrown your way but continue to defy the odds and prove me wrong.”
“Who are you?”
The figure told Ray he was death and it was his time to go. Ray didn’t believe he was dead until the Death told him to look over his shoulder at himself dead on the chair.
     Ray was startled and shaken as he jumped up and ran back to the livingroom.
He yelled at the top of his lungs telling death no, “I didn’t mean to do it!”
Death sat still with a somber look on his black smoky face. He almost felt sorry for him.
This man who was so revered in the literary world, was now dead in his home. His family would have to take on the burden of what he was dealing with and most of all they would never get the chance to say good-bye. “Ray, please come here. I have a proposition for you. I ask the almighty if you could have a second chance.”
“Really?” Ray said sitting back down at the table. He understood there wasn’t anything else he could do. He no longer wanted to cry because the pain was over for him. He endured so much during his short life and all he ever wanted was to be loved.
“Ray I have watched you over your life. I saw the time when you got a whooping for getting hit with a snow ball.”
“That was fucked up. I remember that well,” Ray said.
Death went on to tell him that his stepfather was a man with many issues and that Ray and his mom took all that pain for all those years. The beatings in the middle of the night. Being chased from his house running for their lives. His stepfather was a real motherfucker in every since of the word. Death new all about his history and wanted Ray to do one thing for him and he would give him his life back with the blessings from the almighty.





     “Ray I have a deal for you. Two things you have to do.””Ok. I am listening.”
“I understand that you’re a thinker. If you can make me think about something or feel remorse about something I have did, I will give you your life back. Two. You have to write the best book of your life.”
“What would that book be about? I don’t think I have the gift anymore,” he said sitting up to the table.
“This book would be about you. Your story needs to be told. You haven’t written anything worth reading in years. That garbage you wrote sold but it only did because of you’re fan base. I want you to let this hang out. Is that a deal?”
“This is like making a deal with the devil,” Ray said. He was thinking as hard as he could to win his life back. The consequences weren’t tough to handle, however how in the world would he ever be able to stump Death.
“I don’t work for the devil, although I do visit his domain often. I am a neutral source that was created for escorting the life that was,” Death said to him.
     Ray sat in the chair rubbing his hands trying to come up with something. He frowned and looked crazy as Death waited for a question.
“I got it.”
“Ok go.”
“Has there ever been a time in history where you came across someone and made a mistake?”
     Death stood up and floated around the house. He made noises trying to thinking of a mistake. He could have made a mistake because he had the plan from the Devine Father.
“No I’ve never made a mistake. I came for the souls who time was up.”
“Are you sure? You seem to have made a mistake at least once.”
“I’m sure,” he said. Death’s smoky arm appeared to be scratching his head when he seemed to have found a mistake.
He told Ray that he had won his soul back. He was miff and Ray seemed to be happy that he was going to get a second chance at life.
“So when can I get back to my body? I would love to be back before my family sees my body that way. Blood on a white carpet can leave a picture implanted in ones brain for sometime.
“You can go now. But remember what I said. Write that book and change the world with your talent,” he said. Ray gave him the peace sign and walked over to his body. He sat down where is body was sitting and with a gasp of air he woke up with the knife still in hand. Ray remembered everything and looked around to see if Death was still in the house.
“Hey Ray I did make a mistake once.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. It happened about two thousand years ago. There were three men on a cross and I was instructed to take the man on the left while the people watch with sadness in their eyes. I was then instructed to take the man on the right while the people wept harder.
I was then instructed to take the final man in the middle. The strange thing at the time was when I reached out to grab his soul he reached out and grabbed me back. I knew right then and there I made a mistake. He then followed me into hell and took the keys and descended into heaven forever.”
“Wow that’s a deep story.”
“Well Ray its true. Do what you have to do. It’s not worth it to take your own life. Trust me, I was about to take you to a place that nobody would want to go to.”
“Hell?”
“Well let’s just say it’s a unkind place. I hate dropping names of places. I want people to be surprise when they get to their final destination.”
“Fair enough.”
“Fair enough, Ray.”