A young man jumped off a stretcher, just as it wheeled him into the emergency wing of the hospital. He was bleeding profusely, from the chips of glass still trapped in his forehead. He ran up to an orderly, and asked, “Where’s my wife? Is she ok?”

“Calm down sir! They are working on her…”, the orderly replied, as he looked through the window pane at the gore spread out across the table.

A few moments later a nurse came out of the operating room, where they were working on his wife, and said, “What’s your name? I understand that Linda is your wife.”

“My name is Jean. How is she mam?”

The young and inexperienced nurse sat him down at an empty stretcher, and began to examine the shards of glass protruding from his head. An instant later, another nurse, shrouded in a blood laden lab coat, leaned over and said, “She didn’t make it”.

Jean jumped down off of the stretcher and cried, “I must see her”.

“I’m so sorry Jean, but you can’t enter yet. They are cleaning her up”, the young nurse uttered, as she motioned for security.

Jean had overheard the whisper, which was only supposed to pass over the ear of the nurse. He burst the double doors open, darting his eyes from one corner of the room to the other, only to find his beloved laying still in a pool of blood. He gasped, as he took in the hoses running down her trachea, the open gash running along her right side, the blood still oozing out of her nose, tickling down onto her ear, and dripping into a puddle on the sterile surface.

As the stores of memories began to unwind before him, he began to weep over her lifeless body. He wept as he tried to straighten her hair, amongst the flood of tears masking his sight. He embraced her tightly and said, “Don’t leave me”, as the security passed through the double doors.

Two large men grabbed him and started carting him out, until he managed to get a foot grip, and lunged himself away from the guards, just long enough to say, “Please don’t leave me here alone…”.

At the same time, Linda was in queue at the Gate to the Great Beyond. She had already realised that she was dead, for she could see everything going on below her feet. Everyone in queue was enshrouded in weightless fabric, glistening from the light within the gate.

As she got closer to the Gate, she cerebrated what she was missing, and then she thought of poor Jean, sobbing over the remnants of what was her. “I must go back, I’ve got too much to live for”, she thought, as she stepped closer to the gate keeper.

********

“What’s your name my dear?”

“Linda”, she replied, as she gazed at the gate keeper flipping through his book of souls.

“OK Linda, here you are…”, he uttered, as she interrupted his felicitous speech.

She stared straight into the depths of his glowing eyes, and said, “Wait, I’m not ready to go yet”.

“Are you sure madam, because you are on the list?”

“Yes…Yes, I’m not ready for the afterlife”, she exclaimed, as he glanced over his book again.

“Hang on a sec, and let me make a call”, he said, as he tapped his nose, and another gate keeper appeared before him.

She tried not to look down at her former self and Jean, but she couldn’t help it. Jean surrounded by nurses and security. “I must go back”, she cogitated to herself.

While her fate was being ploughed by the two gate keepers, Jean was panicking. He couldn’t imagine a life without her. They had just cut their wedding cake an hour earlier, and now she was laying exanimate on the table.

He blinked, as the blood and tears began to seep back into the dried crevices of his optics. He could not fathom a time when they would not be together. They had been inseparable, since they met over the summer. He had met her, while taking scuba diving lessons in Aruba.  He knew without a doubt that she was the one, from the first time they had kissed, while floating in the turquoise sea.

After pondering all the glorious memories of her, he hurled himself forward, away from the guards and nurses, which were mending his wounds. At the end of the hallway was an enormous window pane, letting the rays of the sun filter through the dust particles.

“I can’t live without you Linda”, he screamed as he started running faster and faster down the hallway.

He knew that either the four stories beneath his feet or the shards of glass would kill him instantly. As he leaped through the glass, he felt at peace, for he would be with her for eternity now. “Linda…”, he cried, as his body met with the hard asphalt in the parking lot.

He arose, expecting to see Linda smiling down at him, to the horror of a spectral being hovering over him. “Where am I”, Jean asked, as he examined his surroundings.

********

“Tis…Tis…Young fellow. You are condemned to spend the next forty earth years, helping others that have the audacity to pull the stunt you just pulled”, the ghostly character answered, as he swayed his bony finger back and forth.

“What”, Jean asked, as he realised he had never left the parking lot.

“That’s right Jean, you had forty good years left, and you had to throw it all away in one fleeting moment of pain”, the spectre answered, as he faded into a misty fog.

Jean looked up towards heaven, and shouted, “Noooo”.

Linda had watched the whole event play out beneath her feet, as she was awaiting a decision. She glanced over to the gate keeper, and he made his way towards her, saying, “OK Linda, I’ve cut you a deal. You can go back to earth now”.

As a tear filtered down her cheek, she turned to the gate keeper and said, “Nah, I was just with him for the money. Now that he’s dead, I might as well go on through the gate”, as a grin began to overtake her face.

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