Synopsis: Nigel finds his life rudely interrupted when a car hits him. Upon reaching heaven, he discovers what really happens when you die.



He neared the main road, where he was wishing the traffic lights would turn in his favour as he reached it. They didn't. But the road seemed strangely deserted this morning, so he chanced it anyway.

The first car, a deep red colour, shaved a few hairs from his arse, and the wing mirror left a nasty bruise, the kind of injury where you can't sit down without wincing for at least three weeks.

The second car, a silver BMW, didn't so much as give any warning of it's arrival, and smashed into Nigel with such force, he was convinced he had endured an outer body experience for a couple of seconds, until his mind caught up with what had happened to his body, which was a considerable amount of damage from his point of view.

He was thrown a fair distance, so much so that he couldn't quite work out where he was. That was when the tall figure leaned over him, casting a dim shadow over him, blocking out the seemingly endless beam of sunshine.

'What's your name?' The figure asked.

'Wh...' was all he could muster at this moment in time.

Now he began to wonder if he had actually died, and the figure speaking to him was heaven's receptionist, preparing to tick his name off the guest list into the never-ending party that is heaven; where everyone always seemed to wear white, and no shoes.

He carried on in his dazed wonderment until the figure spoke again.

'What about your phone number? Or your address?' It spoke hastily. Not very heaven-like if he were to be honest.

Reality took hold of Nigel, and shook him to at least semi-consciousness.

'Ngh...' he said.

His vision started to clear, and he saw the BMW a little way down the street, door open, and lights still on. He assumed this was the driver standing over him.

'What?' Nigel managed to murmur.

'Your name,' the driver urged. 'I need your name, your phone number, and your address.'

'Why?' replied Nigel, suddenly very wary.

'Insurance purposes,' the driver said matter-of-factly.

For the first time in his life, Nigel was dumbstruck. He made a move to get up, to slap the nose to other side of this berk's face, but immediately regretted it as indescribable pain shot through his whole body mercilessly.

'Are you...are you serious?' he tried to shout, but it came out as a whisper.

'Well, yeah,' the driver looked at Nigel as though he were an idiot. 'You ran out in front of me, the accident is you fault.'

Nigel stared at the man, managed to produce a croaky sound that could have been 'bollocks', before shutting his eyes and slipping completely out of this world, as he knew it.

***

He'd seen all the movies. He'd heard all the fairy-tales. He realised that most of them were pretty much spot on. You did float.

He seemed to rise endlessly; the scene below him was becoming smaller. The people gradually become dots on the surface of the planet amongst the squares of the buildings.

He did manage to see the driver of the BMW going through his now lifeless body's pockets, pull out a wallet, return to his car and carry driving to wherever it was he was going before Nigel had thoughtlessly ran into his car.

'Arse hole!' Nigel tried to speak, but it seemed as though he no longer had a voice.

The Earth was now beginning to rapidly recede into the distance. Nigel came to the conclusion that this was not good. Not good indeed.

Still he was floating; floating through the ceaseless and utter blackness of space. He could now see a lot more of it. The stars were burning pinholes in the very black surface of the universe.

He managed to turn his worryingly fading body around, to face wherever it was that he was going. All he could see however, was a light so bright he thought he'd go blind. Was this the sun?

Fearing he wasn't going to stop, that he'd just float effortlessly into the sun and merely sizzle out of existence, with a slight wisp of smoke and a slight burning sensation, he began to babble hopelessly. Not that he was making any kind of sound; not even when he screamed at the top of his lungs.

He was nearing ever closer to the burning ball of fire.

'This is it, isn't it? I'm going to be flambeed 'til I'm nothing but a crispy pile of ashes! Well, thank you very much you son-of-a-bitch! Things were just about to go my way, and you thought, "We can't have that now, can we", pointed your trident in my direction, and ended my pitiful, pointless life just like that! Well, I for one think you are an anus! That's right, an anus! Do your worst you all mighty arse!'

These were his final thoughts; the very last things to go through his mind.

That is, until he realised what he was actually floating towards. It wasn't the sun. He seemed to be moving at a different angle towards it, and he could see around it. What he saw was, simply put, unbelievable.

A floodlight.

The sun, as he, and everyone currently on the Earth, including the moron who had killed him, knew it, was nothing but a giant floodlight. The kind you would likely find on football pitches. Only this one was about a million times bigger than your average flood light.

This wasn't the only thing rendering Nigel speechless (if he had a voice, that is). There was something behind it. Something big. Something ridiculously big.

The shape of this very big thing was reminiscent of a walrus, tusks and all. As he was floating ever nearer to it, he saw that its surface was glittering and twinkling in a rather hypnotising way.

Closer.

Nigel now worked these shimmering points of lights out to be windows. A constant grid of a billion windows, or was it trillions? There were so damn many!

He was still floating. He was beginning to rather enjoy it. If he closed his eyes long enough, he could pretend he was Superman. When he opened his eyes, the downright infiniteness of space scared the bejezuss out of him, quite frankly. He was literally looking at infinity; the infinity of which he was apart; all be it a very tiny, absolutely miniscule part.

The giant walrus shape was now so close it was all he could see; no matter how far he craned his neck. He rounded to the front of it, where its mouth would supposedly be. Instead, the was an incredibly large metal door, with flashing red lights in each of the corners, and a sign above which read:

'PLEASE TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES.'

Well, he really wasn't going to argue with the giant walrus, so he did as he was told. He slipped them off his feet one by one, as he did they carried on floating on their merry way into the deepest depths of space, while Nigel was drawn to the now opening door.

There was utter silence, despite the fact that a thousand million tonnes of metal were moving ever closer to him.

He entered the giant mouth-like door, into blaring whiteness. Although, this time it didn't hurt his eyes. It seemed somehow welcoming. Nigel had a sudden sense of rightness. That everything he was ever worried about was going to be all right after all.

He was still thinking this when the metal mouth closed behind him, still in complete whiteness.

What followed was a strange sucking sound, what Nigel presumed to be some kind of airlock mechanism (not that he thought he was now in the Star ship Enterprise, but when you are subjected to something very surreal indeed, your brain attempts to cover for this by attempting to explain the situation. The human brain, however, is pretty bad in thinking outside the confines of planet Earth, which by now, he assumed, was nothing but a smudge in the distance. Hence, he really didn't have the foggiest what that noise was. Hell, he didn't know what a giant walrus was doing floating through space either).

What followed was a strange dream-like occurrence. The whiteness around him turned to images of people he knew, had known, or had wanted to know. It also showed him images of pretty much everything he'd seen in his life. Considering that this took about one minute and ten seconds, he realised he needed to get out more.

The images ceased. A small black hole opened below him, and he fell downwards into it.

***

'What? Now? But it's almost my lunch hour! There are work ethics to think about you know!' A voice was arguing in the distance. It began as a fairly distorted collection of syllables, which gradually became clearer to him as he roused and looked around him.

It looked like a waiting room. There were four wooden chairs along one wall, a rack in the corner stuffed with magazines, a painting of a steam train hung geometrically symmetrical to every other object in the room, and some Lego bricks and various other toys in the far corner. There was also a sign above the painting that read:

'Please refrain from smoking, yelling, pretending it's all a dream, and talking in tongues. Thank-you.'

The voice had come from a woman now entering the room in an eighties looking business suit. Nigel couldn't stop himself from laughing at the beehive hairdo, done to such precision she must have used around a gallon of hairspray on that masterpiece.

He also noticed she was barefoot.

She looked in his direction, not necessarily at him, but in his direction.

'Name?' She said simply. There was nothing odd about her voice, in fact, for one moment he thought it sounded like one of his old teachers, Mrs. Flangerson, the one he had actually liked.

'Oh, erm, Nigel Barker.' He said surprisingly shyly.

'How long were you on Earth for Mr. Barker?' She said as she let out a sigh that immediately identified her as a receptionist.

She could have said: 'How old are you?', but he didn't suppose things would get very normal from now on.

'Twenty-four years,' he said with an ever-increasing frown introducing itself on his forehead.

'Please take a questionnaire on the table behind you and proceed into the next room through that door please, thank you and have a nice day Mr. Barker'. She pointed to the door next to her desk, flashed him a business smile, and then exited the room as quickly as she had entered through a door on the other side of her desk, presumably to have lunch.

Nigel looked behind him. On a small wooden table, piled in a neat pile, were stapled sheets of paper with nothing written on them. He picked one up anyway and looked over to the door he was supposed to go through. There was nothing particularly unusual about it. It was a plan white, wooden panelled door.

Taking one last quick glance around the room, he moved slowly over towards the perfectly ordinary looking door.

***

There was no telling just how big the room was. I mean, it was big.

Nigel couldn't actually remember seeing any of the far walls, just people; rows and rows of people.

They were all sitting obediently at single-person desks, heads down in profound concentration. They were all writing away on stapled pieces of paper. The strange thing was they seemed to be writing the same line over and over again on the page.

Remembering the 'questionnaire', Nigel looked down at what he had in his hand. The pieces of paper were no longer blank. It seems that, after stepping through the doorway into the cavernous classroom, an endless array of questions had produced themselves on the paper. Front and back.

He took a brief look at the very last question on the back page, which read:

'Describe, in as much detail as possible, not omitting any element whatsoever, the experience of...'

'Ah ha! Nigel Barker!'

Before he had time to read the end of the question, the deep voice called from in front of him. When he looked up, he saw a fairly scruffy looking individual approaching. On any other day, he would have run a mile; situations like this never seemed to end happily. But, Nigel had seen a lot of strange happenings this morning (if it still was morning), and was willing to let what was going to happen, well, happen.

'Erm, hello,' he said sheepishly.

'Welcome, welcome,' the scruffy man said enthusiastically. He was bare-foot, wearing faded blue jeans, slightly frayed at the bottom where they'd dragged on the floor; a white, un-tucked short-sleeved shirt, and a loose red tie. Matching with the tie was a bright red baseball cap, its peak bent down at the sides quite dramatically. Nigel couldn't see his eyes through the scruffy, slightly curled tangles of hair. It came down just above his nose, over his ears, and almost down to the bottom of his neck.

Nigel smiled at him, possibly humouring him.

'I like to make a point of meeting all of our new arrivals,' he was speaking as though he had made this speech a million times. Who knows, it was probably billions for all Nigel knew. 'I see you have picked up our questionnaire, if you would like to take a...'

'What happened to me?' Nigel was growing fairly impatient with the whole deal by now.

The scruffy-looking man was still holding his arm out, pointing at the next available seat waiting for Nigel. He looked at him squarely.

'Don't fret Nigel,' he said cheerily. 'Answers will be on there way shortly.'

'I'd kind of like them know,' Nigel replied. 'If it's not too rude, that is.'

The scruffy-looking man seemed to consider this carefully, then said, 'of course, of course you would. And it is frightfully rude of me to keep them from you. Come, take a seat and I will answer your questions. I want to make sure any new arrivals are as happy as possible.'

He beamed a smile at Nigel, who followed the direction of the scruffy-mans pointing arm, and sat down at the wooden desk, which seemed to be in perfectly pristine condition.

The scruffy-man yanked out a chair from the side of the room and moved it swiftly over to wear Nigel was now seated. He turned it around so that the back was facing Nigel, and sat across the chair with practiced perfection.

'Ok,' he said. 'Where would you like me to start?'

Nigel thought about this. There were about thirty million questions he really needed to ask right now, give or take a few.

'Well,' he began. 'Erm...who are you?'

'Ah, an apt question indeed!' the scruffy-man exclaimed. 'And how very rude of me not to introduce myself! My name is Gary O' Dunn, and I am in charge here.'

'Where is "here" exactly?' Nigel asked.

'Another corker!' Gary exclaimed again. 'You're quiet the inquisitive one. Well, you're in a sub-division of my company, Grand Omnipresent Designs. Think of this as a waiting area, or a temporary holding facility. Most people refer to it as Heaven, though.'

Nigel gulped, 'this is Heaven?'

'Why yes,' Gary laughed. 'Where else do you think people go when they die?'

'So I am dead then,' it was more of a statement than a question. 'I was kinda hoping it was a bad dream.'

'Well of course you're dead, you got hit by a car!' Gary laughed, which for some strange reason, seemed very inappropriate for Nigel.

'But what's all this?' Nigel waved his hand frustrated at the questionnaire in front of him.

'Ok, I'll explain,' Gary spoke a little softer now. 'My company designs worlds, and Earth is my latest project. You see, in order for me to create the perfect place for humans to live, I need feedback. So, at regular intervals, I randomly select a sample of subjects to fill out this evaluation questionnaire, helping me create a better home for humans.'

'So you killed me?' Nigel was surprisingly calm.

'I didn't kill you as such,' Gary looked defensive. 'The only way I can get subjects to participate in the survey is to remove them from the world.'

'You kill people off so that they can do your survey,' Nigel was less calm.

'No, no, no, you've got me all wrong,' Gary was still smiling. 'Look, when the survey is complete, I put any necessary changes into the system and then update the world. It takes a bit of time to do so I keep all the subjects in Heaven until the update is complete, then send them back to wherever they left off, only with any luck, they'll find some nice little changes. Of course, when they go back it's as if it's always been this way.'

Nigel calmed down a small bit.

'Put it this way, you know what rap music is, right?'

'Yeah, God-awful,' Nigel said with a snort.

'Well, it used to be the only style of music there was up until fairly recently,' Gary explained. 'I got an increasing amount of comments about the lack of musical originality, of course no one knew anything but rap music, so I had to invent a few of my own. You know Hendrix?'

'Not personally, but he was one hell of a player,' Nigel stated matter-of-factly.

'I invented him,' Gary looked very smug. In fact, his bottom lip was protruding so far out of his face from smugness, that you could have used it as a cup holder.

'Well, seems like I owe you a lot,' Nigel was nodding softly to himself. 'A few years of my life were devoted to that man, I was a nineties hippy that's for sure.'

'I know, I saw a lot of that, it made good viewing,' Gary's smile was back.

'Thanks,' Nigel said, laughing. 'Well, I gotta tell you, I'm a little pissed that you had me run over.'

'Well, I didn't think you'd want a kiss and a cuddle as soon as you met me, but it seemed like the most appropriate way at the time, you were being a bit stupid running across the road, let's be honest now Nigel,' Gary began chuckling to himself.

'You have me there, I guess,' Nigel said, rolling his eyes. 'So, how long have you been making Earth?'

'Interesting question,' Gary nodded in concentration. 'About one hundred years next Thursday. That reminds me, I should probably organise a little shin-dig, it's a big milestone.'

'A hundred years!' Nigel coughed. 'But, history, technology, surely you didn't come up with every last bit of that?!'

'Why not?' It was a rhetorical question. 'You don't go to UniUniversity for nothing you know.'

'UniUniversity?'

'The Uni is short for Universe, not a lot of Godlets get to go there you know?'

'Godlets? Are you a God?'

'Not yet, haven't got enough qualifications just yet. Earth will be my final step, you see?'

'So, erm, there is a God?'

'Of course there is you dolt! The big guy is in control of the humans. He did design you after all. And whaddayaknow, in his own image no less!'

'I'm lost.'

'Aren't we all, ey, ey?' Gary nudged Nigel's shoulder jokingly. 'Ok, the long and short of it is: God runs the show, he created the first Earth, and when he says he made it in six days, don't listen to him! He dragged it out over about three weeks. He works for two hours a day, takes a week on the sick, and then claims himself the ruler of everything! Where's the justice I ask thee! But anyway, he's the headcheese, the big don, and obviously most powerful of all the Godlets, meaning he is the God. The thing is, you see, he's getting on a bit, the thinning on top gives it away,' Gary made a gesture on his head to emphasise this point. 'He's looking to retire, and consequently, he needs someone to take over. So he's running a competition, whoever seems most fit to create the perfect world and manage all the humans successfully, will take over where he left off. Which is sitting on your arse, eating burgers all day and making sure no one screws around with the humans too much. A pretty sweet deal if you ask me.'

'So are there other humans on other worlds?' Nigel asked in dumb wonderment.

'There were,' Gary continued. 'But Sata Networks, a company owned by an old rival of mine, made a pretty bad mess of it. Before he did too much damage, God put what humans were left onto my Earth. If you've seen Mercury, you'll know what I mean. He has no idea about global positioning or orbital proximity; he thought the hotter the better! What an idiot! That means at the minute, I'm the only guy in the running, so as I'm sure you're well aware, I'm fairly confident right now.'

'It doesn't show,' Nigel remarked sarcastically.

Gary waved this remark off and continued his story. 'You see this is what I've always wanted. I want to create the perfect world for humans. So even though my company is the only one in the running for the number one spot, I still want to do a good job. Hence, the extensive questioning.' He pointed at the questionnaire on the desk in front of Nigel.'

'Incredible,' Nigel whispered to himself. 'So what happened to me between being run over and ending up here?'

'I'm glad you asked,' Gary beamed once more. 'It was a little idea of mine to give you a little show before you do the survey. A little "thank-you" I suppose. The images in the white room were merely a quick summary of your Earthly experience to better aid you in filling out your questionnaire.'

'I see,' Nigel nodded. 'I have to be honest with you Gary, the whole floating through space experience made me want to wet myself.'

'Ah,' Gary looked a little embarrassed. 'Duly noted.'

***

Gary O' Dunn was walking back to his office now, and Nigel looked down at the questionnaire. He couldn't say for sure, but he was absolutely positive the amount of pages had doubled since he picked it up. Nevertheless, he pulled out the pen from its plastic holder on the desk, and began the laborious process of answering the questionnaire that seemed so important to Gary.

He now refused to believe this was all a bad dream, the kind where you wake up all sticky with the covers strewn halfway across the bedroom floor, there was no point anymore. Nigel had had enough of hoping things were different, he'd been doing it since Primary School, so it was about time he changed his ways. He was perfectly happy to believe every word he'd just heard. Every single word. It actually made him feel rather important, because let's face it, no one had every really wanted his opinion on anything ever before, so the fact that a soon-to-be 'God' was asking him to fill in a 'brief' questionnaire, made him feel, for the first time in his life, good about himself.

He gave a little smug grin at this thought.

The first questions were as expected: 'Name' and 'Years spent on Earth'.

He wrote the answers easy enough, but what happened next caused a sharp intake of breath, leading to a full choking, turning slightly purple, then when he finally caught his breath, he looked back down at the questionnaire. As he lifted his pen from the paper, the ink of the answer and the question itself seemed to dissolve completely until there was blankness where they had been. Then, unbelievably, every question underneath moved up a couple of lines, taking the place of where the first questions had been.

The questionnaire continued to do this after each question he filled in. When he completed the first page, the one at the back disappeared shortly afterward.

Nigel couldn't help tittering to himself every time this happened, causing a few people to look round at him. As if this was everyday for them! Don't make me look like an outcast here! He thought about shouting this to the stuck-up looking 'lady' next to him, but thought against it.

He'd finished the questionnaire, and prepared himself for what was going to happen when the last question was finished. He wasn't let down, that's for sure. The ink of his answer disappeared; followed by the printed question, and then the entire thing vanished into a whoof of smoke, which seemed to spell out the words:

'THANK YOU FOR COMPLETING OUR QUESTIONNAIRE, PLEASE PROCEED TO WAITING ROOM 6 UNTIL RELOCATION IS POSSIBLE, AND HAVE A NICE DAY!'


Author's Note: There is a plot that develops after this, (as well as a lot of background to Nigel). I didn't want to do the whole 'Part 1, Part 2' thing so I thought I'd post the best bit from the whole story. If you want to know the actual storyline that occurs later on, let me know

[Lubesh]

Quite entertaining and original in places with 'deadly' funny quips..A lot of spelling mistakes in there also...in future please read carefully using spell check ur work.

thank you lubesh, which bits in particular need to be changed? It's probably right in front of me but I can't see what needs to be edited...

[Lubesh]

sorry...I corrected them as I went, I should have said.. but watch this space for a more defined technical check as ur comments pour in....lol

[Storiesmaniac]

Interesting story...good work..

[DarkStar]

Enjoyable and well-written.

Though, above all, this has originality. And that's what scores high in my books.

thankyou darkstar

[Nephilim]

i must say this is one of the best stories i have ever read on this site. it was completely unique and interesting. it was refreshing to hear a different take on "big guns upstairs" (God) instead of the usual fire and brimstone that so many groups focus on now.

but i loved the characters.

Nigel was awesome. i pictured him as a young John Cleese (apologies for my limited knowledge of the UK's actors)

and for some reason, Gary seemed like an american to me, like i dont know if youve heard of the actor Norm MacDonald (he's nothing special) but every line of gary's that i read was in his voice, and it seemed to fit well. the only times i was thrown off of this was when he used lines like 'dolt'. again, just me. if you pictured him as a brit, then ignore that.

Mechanical errors: very few, but on a story this good, they deserve to be changed.


'I'd kind of like them know,' i believe you mean 'now'.

"...and moved it swiftly over to wear Nigel" should be 'where'

and thats all i caught. very good story, man,

and yes,

i will take you up on your offer on the storyline that occurs later on.

youve got me hooked.

thanks again, man, for this worthwhile read.

peace.

Neph

sweet i'm really glad you enjoyed i neph, and thanks for spotting those errors, I thought I had had em all as well! lol.

I guess I kinda saw him as an american, but then I'm not sure why I put those brit colloquialisms in there, lol. Oh well!

I've been thinkin of writing what develops after this, I have strong idea of it so that may be soon.

Thanks again neph.

[xtremelady]

A very easy read and I adored the originally of the story. Finding a new take on an old theme isn't easy but you pulled it off wonderfully. The description was great too - very enjoyable.

'PLEASE TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES.'

That part was AWESOME!
If I were Nigel, I'd be all like "Psh...My shoes are too freaking awesome to take off." then keep walking.

By the way, xtremelady, I bet your shoes are awesome! ARE THEY!? HAHAHAHAHA...And it would have been cooler if Nigel had gotten his foot stuck in the door of the building!! And if an elf helped him get through the place...Haha...You should make a second story of these! THREE THUMBS UP, TO YOU! =D

Thanks xtremelady, and Imaguest....thanks I gues

[Corneac]

Yeah it was great! I loved the characters; despite the kind of 'out there' setting they were so believable and endearing. I found the whole thing a delight to read, I especially admire your original take on the whole God and heaven concept.

It kind of reminded me of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in a weird kind of way, I guess it was the similar style of witticisms and characterisation. A clever story, that I enjoyed reading.

[Kitzwa]

Tought this story was witty and clever. Loved the beginning how the man he crashes into doesn't waste his time calling for help, and then robs him on top of it. Real cool spin on God. A lot of spelling mistakes though. Otherwise, awesome story.

THankyou so much corneac and kitzwa. I'll check through for spelling mistakes, see if I can make it better...thanks for reading

[little.gypsy]

I really like this story. It's a new concept. Funny, also. It really is true, then, that the corporate world runs the universe. *sigh*

lol, i'm sorry you had to hear it from me

thanks for the comment and thanks for reading!

[LYNDA]

codos 2 u man.a very nice/fine peice.i didn't/don't agree w/everything;&u have a couple spell&grammer problems... but i must say great job!i'm proud of u.i need 2 check more of ur work out.

thanks lynda. i'm being told alot about these errors, must go through it some time.

[Iscariot]

It's pretty good, and I enjoyed reading it. There is not a whole lot I can say as far as cleaning it up, and you seem to already have a stable understructure. So I guess jst keep up the good work.