Neutral.

Jordan didn’t quite remember how he died.

The woman behind the reception was wearing an elegant pantsuit that looked as if it was made of rhinoceros skin.

“Name?” She said flatly, peering over her horn rimmed glasses.

“Jordan.”

“Take this and go sit over there. Wait for us to call you.”

The woman slid a laminated piece of paper with ‘22’ printed on it and a small, unsealed envelope and returned her attention to her computer screen. Jordan pocketed the number and scanned the waiting room for the most comfortable looking plastic chair. He was still wearing his pajamas, so it was only logical to assume that he had died in his sleep. He slumped into a chair facing the television, but had no intention of watching it. The screen was reflecting a glare that didn’t seem to have a source, and the infomercial on mops didn’t seem to grasp anyone’s attention even if it were visible. The television was mounted in the ceiling corner. There were no windows in the waiting room, just bare grey walls with cracking paint, a small water cooler up against the entrance and a pair of glass sliding doors behind the receptionist’s desk.

The only other people in the room were incredibly old and withered. An elderly man sitting near Jordan was feverishly writing in a small notepad. A bell sounds, and through the crackling speakers, a croaky voice calls for “Numbah twenny”. The old man fumbles with his notes, shoving several pages into his pockets and hurriedly shuffles over to the glass doors. They slide open and he enters, and they slide shut so quickly it almost catches the back of his tweed coat.

Jordan, now seemingly the only conscious person waiting, pulled out the letter inside the envelope. It read:

‘Welcome to Death!’

Dear Sir/Madam,

Congratulations! If you are reading this, it means that you are now dead. The turmoil and seemingly endless toil of everyday life is now behind you, and all that awaits you now is either eternal bliss or damnation. 

In order for us to correctly place you, Please fill in the survey on the reverse of this letter. Please ensure to fill your answers with a cross, not a tick nor a colouring in of the box. Please only use blue or black ballpoint pen as our scanners will be unable to process your answers otherwise.

Yours truly,

The Powers that Be

As Jordan was patting himself down in search of a pen, the crackling speaker piped up again, looking for “Numbah twenny-wun”. An old woman was slumped over in another chair, snoring quietly. The receptionist approached her and started prodding her in the arm with the back of her pencil.

“Mrs. Orvelle!”

The woman stirred and smacked her lips. Her false teeth had fallen slightly out of place and were pushing up against her mouth, so when he lips parted she displayed a rather menacing smile. The receptionist ushered her through the sliding doors.

“Excuse me, could I use a pen?” Jordan asked before she could retreat to her desk. The receptionist huffed and looked at him in disdain.

“You didn’t even bring your own biro?” She muttered disapprovingly.

“Well, no, I wasn’t quite expecting to end up here.” He retorted. “Where is everyone, anyway?”

The receptionist raised a thin eyebrow.

“Who is everyone?”

Jordan shrugged.

“You know. Other people. Other dead people, people who have died. Why am I practically the only one here?”

“We’re in the down season.” The receptionist quipped, bee lining back to her desk. Jordan heaved himself up and followed her.

“Down season? You have a down season in death?”

“Well of course we do.” She started flicking through her paperwork. “It get’s very busy during peak periods, but these past couple of weeks are usually quiet this time of year. Consider yourself lucky, it means less of a wait for you to be called through. Here is a biro. You better hurry and complete the form. You’ll be in next. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

Jordan took the biro and left the receptionist to her work. He took a deep breath and squinted at the first question.

“How would you rate your soul on a scale of one to ten, one being a terrible excuse of a person and ten being saintly. Hm.”

Before he could put pen to paper to cross off the box ‘5/10 – alright, I guess’, the crackling speakers beckoned for “Numbah twenny-tooh”. It took a moment for it to register that it was Jordan’s turn, and as he entered the doors they banged shut as he was halfway through.

“Ouch!”

The receptionist was unsympathetic and rolled her eyes at him before returning to her paperwork.

Through the doors was a narrow corridor lined with what appeared to be conference rooms. It was dimly lit but the room at the end had the lights on. Jordan leisurely strolled down the corridor, peeking in through the doors like a curious toddler. The old man with the notepad that had gone in through the glass doors first was standing on a box in his underwear with his arms akimbo. His flesh was sagging from his bones and his wrinkled skin riddled with liver spots. Jordan waved, but as he did a face popped up from behind the door which startled him. A rather disgruntled Greek-looking man with a bushy mustache scowled at him before pulling a blue curtain across the glass. Jordan shrugged and made his way to the next door. He peered into the next door. A room full of puppies wearing wizard costumes were yipping and chasing tennis balls that were sporadically falling from the ceiling. He smiled and tried to open the door, but as he rattled the doorknob all the dogs immediately stopped what they were doing and snapped their heads around to stare at him. Jordan found this slightly unsettling and decided to leave them to it.

He meandered through the corridor until he got to the end room. The door was unlocked and slightly ajar, but he knocked anyway, just to be well-mannered.

“Helloooo.”

Jordan entered to be faced with God, Satan, and a video projector. God was smiling politely, his crow’s feet crinkling around his eyes like a scrunched up sweet wrapper. He was balding, and was wearing an off-yellow suit that appeared to be made of carpet. His novelty purple tie had a porcupine wearing a party hat embroidered on the bottom. He gestured for Jordan to take a seat in front of the projector screen.

Satan fiddled with the projector, managing to turn it on but unable to figure out how to connect it to the DVD player underneath. He had greasy slicked back hair, as you would imagine from the Prince of Darkness, but was wearing a rather fashionable graphic print t-shirt and blue jeans combo. He certainly didn’t fit into the office setting, but Jordan accepted that under the circumstances the Devil would not be expected to adhere to the dress code. In any case, if anyone was out of place in terms of dress sense it was him. He tugged uncomfortably at his stripy pajamas.

“So, Jordan! Have you filled out the survey?” God extended his hand to take it from him. Jordan fished in his pockets and sheepishly handed over the uncompleted and slightly ripped form from his pocket. God looked disappointed.

“Hm. No matter, you’ll have a couple of minutes to finish it later, perhaps. Is it working, Satan?”

Satan grunted and reached around the back of the projector, trying to plug a wire in without looking. As it connected the sound erupted from the speakers. God winced and quickly turned the volume down.

“Ah ha! Alright, got it. So, Jordan, this is where we look back on your life and you get the opportunity to reflect on yourself, and then we can decide whether you go to heaven or hell. We’ll just watch your life, then tally up all the evil or good things you do on this here whiteboard. At the end, whichever you’re your life sways will be where you end up for eternity. Would you like a drink before we begin?” Satan asked, dusting himself off and readjusting the projector so that the picture was centered on the screen.

“Er, no, I’ll be right thanks. So you have my life on DVD?”

“Yes, we were considering upgrading to blu-ray but it would be too costly. Although we’re having problems with a couple of spirits from another dimension being able to torrent certain people’s lives, but we’ve set a different region now so it should be more difficult to access.”

Jordan wasn’t sure whether or not he was comfortable with supernatural beings watching his day to day doings, and wondered if they were pirate spirits, as it would be most fitting.

“Alrighty! Here we go, God, could you get the lights?”

God flicked off the lights as the movie began. It was slightly grainy, but the image of Jordan as a child grinning into the camera flickered onto the screen. Jordan smiled at his younger self.

“Ooookay. Here we go, Age 5.”

God, Satan and Jordan watched as 5 year old Jordan ran about in the playground at school. He approached a girl with pigtails so tight it looked as if she was having difficulty blinking. She was playing in the sandpit with a shovel and pail. Jordan ran over to her, kicked her in the stomach and grabbed the toys away from her.

God gasped. Satan scored one under ‘Evil – go to hell’ on the whiteboard.

“Wait! I remember that!” Jordan motioned for the two to keep watching. 5 year old Jordan, with shovel and pail in grubby hands, was returning them to a younger boy who was crying. The younger boy smiled and happily received his stolen toys.

God grinned and tallied up one under ‘Good – eternal bliss awaits!’ on the whiteboard.

“Hm, okay, even so far. Next clip is… Age 13.”

The footage began rolling. It was a blistering hot summer’s day, and 13 year old Jordan was sweating profusely as he mowed the lawn. His father is standing smoking a pipe on the porch, and when Jordan finishes he approaches his dad and gets given his pocket money. God grins, and tallies up one for the ‘Good’ side. They watch on, and Jordan hurriedly runs down the street with his money in hand. He passes the grocery store, the pet shop, the café and the hardware store until he reaches the adult entertainment store. He disappears inside, and a burly man scowls at the camera and knocks it away. The footage cuts.

Satan and God are stunned.

“They let you in at 13?” Satan, bewildered, chalked up another for his side. The score was still even.

“Alright then… Err, next clip. Age 19.”

The trio proceeded to watch through all of Jordan’s life, and God and Satan battle out with tallying his good deeds against his bad. They observe as he frees a mouse caught in a trap, but only to put it into a co-workers desk as a prank. They watch as he cheats on one of his final school exams, intentionally gets caught and therefore enrolled into summer school to spend time with his then girlfriend, future wife. 15 years later, Jordan buys his wife an expensive all-day spa package for her birthday, only to invite his 23 year old secretary, Brittany, over while his wife is away being pampered.

As the DVD ended, God and Satan stood, stumped.

“Even. Exactly even. I don’t understand. This has never happened before!”

Satan started re-counting his tally with a pencil and calculator in hand as God paced, perplexed. Jordan felt guilty for being such a nuisance to the two deities, but was also slightly hungry from all the life reflection, and was preoccupied with the thought of a hot slice of pizza.

“Did we miss anything? Is there anything you’ve done in your life that you remember that we didn’t get on tape?”

Jordan thought for a moment.

“Well there is that time when I kidnapped that kid, I was surprised you didn’t show that bit.”

Satan’s eyes lit up.

“Ah ha! He’s evil, hell it is!”

“Yes,” Jordan piped up, “but I kidnapped him from his abusive parents, they made him eat dog food. It was on the news, actually. Surely one of you must have seen it? Channel 5 News, starts at half seven?”

Satan glared at Jordan and snapped the pencil he was holding in half.

“Well, here, fill in the form. We need some sort of tie breaker.” God gave Jordan back the survey and he and Satan decided it was definitely time for a cup of coffee. They make their way down the corridor towards the office kitchen, leaving Jordan to chew on the back of his pen as he attempted to evaluate his life on a scale of 1-10. Satan starts to brew a pot and God, still bewildered, hovered around him like a cautious bumblebee that didn’t have enough confidence to land anywhere. He fiddled with the end of his tie, warping the porcupine’s happy face into a stretched out expression of remorse.

“How can one man be so neutral? His whole life is a contradiction – he’ll do one thing, and then cancel it out by doing another. How did he die again?”

 “In his sleep. Didn’t you notice the pajamas? He rolled over and fell out of bed. According to Death, he landed in such a way that he broke his neck instantly.” Satan shuffled over to the fridge. “Whole or skim?”

“Skim for me thanks. See? Even his death is neutral, an accident. Blast! What do we do now? Flip a coin? Play rock paper scissors for a man’s soul?”

Satan shrugged, adding sugar lumps to the coffees.

“Well I definitely can’t take him. Hell is full enough as it is, I was actually going to call a meeting with the Powers that Be to try and organize an 8^th layer to be built to accommodate more people.”

God frowned.

“Well I can’t take him on false pretenses.”

“Well… You know what we could do?” Satan’s voice lowered, the sound of the teaspoon clinking against the mug creating tension as thick as the cling film covering microwavable meals.

“What?”

“We could just… leave him in there.”

“What, in the projector room?”

Satan handed God his Kermit the Frog mug.

“Well, yeah. I mean, no one uses that room except for us, right? We could just move the wizard dogs into the warehouse, and use their room for judgment. It could work.”

Satan sipped his coffee. God furrowed his brow.

“So we just… leave him there? Forever?”

“Why not?”

“It’s a bit rude, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but what else are we supposed to do? He’s neither good nor evil, and it’s not like we can send him back so 

 he unbalances himself to make it easier on us.”

The two thought for a moment, sipping their coffees and going over whether or not they were actually willing to lock a man in the projector room for the all eternity.

“Oh! Oh! And!” Satan, suddenly excited about his idea, to sloshed hot coffee onto the tiled floor. “If we ever encounter anyone else that happens to be indiscriminately not good, not evil, then we can put them in there with him! Problem solved! Right? Right?”

God paused for a moment.

“You realize this means we are going to have to buy a new projector.”

Satan grinned and hi-fived him. They both slurped up the rest of their coffee. God emptied Jordan’s intended coffee down the sink, rinsed the mug out, and he and Satan went to look up projector prices.

The Birds of Willowvale.

The ferry docked with force, wrenching me from my daze as the last shreds of sunlight flirted across the horizon. The other passengers hurriedly scooped up their luggage and teetered towards the gangplank. It was almost dark now, the inky water lazily lapping beneath my feet. I gathered my bags and followed suit. 

Willowvale was perfect, except for the screaming birds.

The sea front was deserted, as it usually was. The other passengers had fanned towards cars and disappeared almost immediately. A portly man in a charcoal newsboy cap much too small for his head was puffing the last of a cigarette. Harry Bennett, my usual driver.

“Mr. Lewis!”

I recoiled slightly at the volume of his boisterous voice.

“Harry! Sorry mate, Missed the earlier ferry. Hope the missus won’t get too cross with you.”

He guffawed, slapped me across the shoulder with such force it almost knocked me off my feet. He was a good head shorter than I, but almost twice the width. His unkempt moustache twitched as he laughed.

I followed him to his Vauxhall the colour of a tea stain. As we walked we were bathed in the sound of wings overhead. Large flock of birds swooped into the trees away from the shoreline, screeching and wailing. They were about the size of magpies, their feathers a shimmering oil slick colour – dashes of violet and navy throughout the black.

“They been bad this week?” I asked as my eyes followed the birds across the dim sky.

“Not so. Think we’ve got a nest building in the tree near ours, though.” Harry muttered, fumbling with car keys.

My bearings were still lightly off kilter from the boat, I managed to hold my balance long enough to collapse into the back seat as Harry loaded my luggage into the trunk. He grunted and shuffled into the driver’s seat. The sound of the sea and the birds was sliced off as the door slammed shut. The headlights flickered on and the Vauxhall groaned into motion. Not ten minutes later, we had pulled up outside my tidy cottage which had been my residence for almost half a year today.

 “Ah! Here we go. Home sweet home for ya, ay?”

It was a simple home. Just the one level, the small bedroom around the back as to catch the morning light through the window. Harry had helped himself to a cup of tea in the kitchen, and drank it in a shot. He glanced at his watch and hastily announced his leave.

“Gotta get back to the missus, mate. I’ll be ‘round Monday morning ay?”

I bid Harry farewell and watched him drive off. The cottage was surrounded in trees, a beautiful silence entombing me as I stood on the steps sipping tea. A silence that wouldn’t last very long.

You see, the birds here. They scream, they scream like humans. It’s quite a shock when you first arrive; heaven knows it took me quite some time to get adjusted. No one knows why. We just get used to it. It’s worth it, you see. Willowvale is an amazing town. Everyone is friendly and well kept. The neighbors are never irritating, the post is never late. The houses are immaculate, the streets are clean. It’s a small colony just off the Scottish coast, and I had expatriated here six months ago from Central London as Head of the Educational Development plan. An Australian that worked for us temporarily said that screaming birds were not unheard of in his part of the world, and that helped many of the locals accept that it was just an obscure coincidence of nature that these birds sounded like people. Not every single bird screams, mind. We have sparrows and jays and pigeons and they are all somewhat quiet. Just the oil slick ones. But not all the time, either. It’s a piercing scream, when they do, though. The kind of sound that that rattles your mind until it aches. But after two days or so, it melts into the atmosphere. 

On my bedside table was a small alarm clock, and glass jar of cotton wool, for the morning. I placed my spectacles next to them, and cocooned in the duvet, sleep took me.

I awoke to the screams. As usual.

After getting the windows sealed last week, they weren’t as loud in the house. I yawned as I shoved fingerfuls of cotton wool into my ears. As I had just returned from a visit to the mainland my pantry was less than well stocked, so a breakfast at the pub not only sounded delicious, but was my only option, save for doing groceries.

A quarter hour stroll from my cottage brought me to the town centre. A path had been cleared through a thicket of trees, many of which held nested birds. Through the cotton I could hear a soft wailing, the sound of a woman crying with passionate abandon. It was curious, how these bird calls sounded so similar to the human voice. Zoologists that have visited Willowvale have started studies on them, but supposedly it is not an uncommon thing. When I visited home for the first time I spoke to my father about them.

“Humans are too self centered.” He muttered, chewing on the butt end of a soggy cigar. His eyebrows would knit together as he spoke, a sourly disappointed look so intense he seemed as if studying his own upper lip.

“We think that everything in nature is about us, or related to us. When a cat rubs itself against your leg, you assume it’s trying to show affection, to show love. It is an animal! Animals do not know love. It is simply marking its territory. It’s nature.”

I didn’t usually agree with my father, particularly about the fact that animals cannot or do not love. I was certain that Butterscotch, my bulldog back home, certainly loved me, to the point where she would groom me with her fat tongue as she would her own pups. But I suppose he had merit in his opinion – some things cannot be explained, regardless of how peculiar.

Not many people were about town today, being a Sunday, but the pub still had a good sprinkling of friendly faces. The barmaid, Milly, greeted me with a grin so wide it took over most of her face.

“Morning, Morgan! Back already?”

“You expect me to survive that long without seeing your pretty face?”

Her cheeks flushed pink. I was always fond of Milly, and I appreciated her fondness for me. I ordered a plate of the pubs finest and settled in near the window to read the paper. It was filled with photos of the locals, the football club, the community centre being built, the updated ferry timetable. Even an interest article about a little girl that lived near the church that was able to juggle five oranges at once. Her mother must be so proud. There was hardly ever any bad news in the paper; it was a new colony after all. My father would say that good news does not make for good reading. But we hardly had a cemetery, let alone an obituary. Thankfully, nothing that bad ever happened in Willowvale.

It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. After my breakfast and a bout of shopping, I decided to make the most of the sunlight and go for a walk down on the waterfront. The birds were quieter closer to the water, as they didn’t usually nest in exposed trees.

As I came round a bend in the path, my mind wandering, I noticed a flash of orange and white. It was a fox sniffing at something at the base of a tree. Curiousity overcame me and I slowly approached. Despite my efforts to be as inconspicuous as possible, the fox locked eyes with me for a moment before disappearing into the thicket. There was a small rustling where its concentration had one lay. A small nest, with a motionless baby bird curled up inside.

I could hear my father’s voice warning about disease, but my compassion got the better of me and I gently scooped up the nest. The entwined twigs started to fall apart in my hands, the chick quietly still. There was no sign of any parental birds in the tree. In fact, it was surprisingly quiet for this time of day.

Back at my cottage, I put the kettle on for myself and had managed to makeshift a temporary home for the bird that I couldn’t tell was living or dead. I had boiled some stones I had collected from the garden, wrapping them in a tea towel and placing that in the bottom of a biscuit tin, with the remains of the nest and the baby bird on top. I did not have seed, but I did have the crust of a custard tart, which I crumbled just in front of the chick’s tiny beak, if it should still be living.

There wasn’t much else I could do, save for disturbing the zoologist on a Sunday evening. I helped myself to my own custard tart, and with a cup of tea sat in my armchair, putting the biscuit tin on the coffee table. I had a twenty page report to finish reading before the board meeting in the morning, and due to my vacations back in England I hadn’t the time to start. The air in my lungs escaped through my lips as I sank deeper into the cushions and held the report up to my eyes. Just as I had managed to absorb the first few words, the telephone rang.

“Hello? Oh, Hullo Harry. No, it’s no problem, don’t worry. Nine o’clock will be fine, sure. I’m just finishing the report now. Cheers mate, see you tomorrow.”

 

The report taunted me as I put the phone down. I enjoyed my job, I truly did, however the paperwork was always a chore. The bureaucratic establishment of a new educational system was a painfully arduous task to implement, but the salary was handsome and after it would be put in place I would be assuming the duties as board director of all schools in the colony, and that was a position sought after by many.

Regardless of my efforts to concentrate on the report, I was gratefully distracted when I heard a rustling coming from the biscuit tin. A smile crept across my face involuntarily as I watched the chick fumble about in the tea towel, its squinting eyes open, inspecting new surroundings.

“You had me worried, you know.”

I observed with an embarrassingly maternal gaze as the chick slowly nudged the tart crumbs with the top of its beak. Its feathers were a charcoal grey, not quite black yet, I assume the colour intensifies as they age. It had a small amount of violet and blue running through the down on its back. I wondered if it was abandoned, or taken from its mother. Did the wind from the sea knock the nest to the ground? Perhaps the fox was just an opportunist, and I some accidental savior.

Content that my new guest was alive, I returned to the report. When I finally managed to turn the last page over, my tea had gone cold and it was dark. My eyelids were falling shut and my legs were heavy. I drowsily tidied, and retired to bed.

The telephone awoke me from my slumber.

I fumbled for my spectacles. Was it morning already? Was I late? No, no. It was still dark out. Hardly two hours after I had gone to bed. Anyone telephoning me at this time of night, it must be an emergency. Perhaps a call from home? I worried after my father’s health. I flicked on the light switch and my eyes burned from the brightness. I stumbled to the living area, the phones shrill ring beating into my temples. I snatched up the receiver.

“Hello? Hello?”

The dial tone hummed monotonously in my ear.

I paused for a moment, still half asleep. The ringing had not stopped. I put the receiver down, yet it continued to ring. The noise was not coming from this telephone, and I had only one in the cottage. The ringing was piercing. Was I dreaming? Where was the noise coming from if not the telephone?

In my drowsy stupor, my gaze fell on the biscuit tin.

I felt as if I had been bathed in ice water.