The Day After You Die Read online

  The Day After You Die

  By Dan Kolbet

  The Day After You Die

  Copyright 2021by Dan Kolbet

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Books by Dan Kolbet

  Mr. Z’s Toy Store Romance Series

  Don’t Wait For Me (Book 1, Christmas)

  Better Not Love Me (Book 2, Summer)

  An Easel For Avery (Book 3, Prequel Novella)

  Off The Grid, a thriller

  You Only Get So Much, a family saga

  An Agreement We Made (free preview at the end of this book)

  Stay in touch

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  Chapter One

  Harold Emery is dead. Nothing that happens in this story is going to change it. People die. It’s natural, and it wasn’t a surprise that Harold died. At 74, Harold’s body finally gave in. He was raking maple leaves in the backyard of his modest brick rancher, half a mile from Lake Michigan, on a bitter November afternoon.

  It was his heart, coupled with the fact that he lived alone so there was no one around to call for medical assistance. He lay in a sticky pile of autumn hues until the boy next door spotted him from the window of his treehouse. The boy called for his parents, but by the time they rounded the house and found Harold, it was far too late.

  Harold of course, didn’t know he died or that he would get a chance to live again, which made what happened next all the more remarkable.

  #

  Harold stood in a white room. Behind him was an oak door with a brass handle that was nearly identical to that of his boyhood room, right down to the partially torn 1963 Beach Boys concert poster and a dent on the bottom caused by a wayward skateboard.

  The room was oval or maybe a circle. It was difficult to tell. There didn’t seem to be any right angles at the floor or ceiling. The walls just curved up like a giant cloudy marble. The floor was flat, so he took a step forward only to notice a gray desk appear in the center of the odd room. The desk was metal, but painted gray. Chips and scratches adorned the front, along with a picture of a kitten. “Hang in there,” was printed across the top. This was the desk from the principal’s office at Wallace T. Hopkins Elementary school in Spokane, Washington, where Harold had attended.

  Behind the desk was a man Harold didn’t recognize. His dirty blonde hair was cut short, but somehow still looked messy. He wore a yellow tank-top with a picture of a sun on the front. There was a rip in the tank top, to the left of the sun. He was definitely not a school principal.

  The man’s expression was impatient, and Harold got the impression that he was inconveniencing this man.

  “Harold, you’re dead, man,” he said.

  Harold clutched his chest at the news and a flood of memories rushed over him like a waterfall. His knees went weak and his body tingled.

  The backyard and the leaves. The pain in his chest causing him to collapse to the ground and then unceremoniously roll into a pile of crunchy leaves.

  Harold wondered why he didn’t recognize his own death until the man mentioned it and was puzzled why he had been involuntarily overwhelmed with the memory.

  “Is this heaven?” Harold asked. His voice sounded higher than usual, not the gravelly baritone that caused him to repeat his order to the supermarket butcher every Wednesday.

  “Does this look like heaven?” the man replied. “No. You’re not in heaven.”

  Harold sighed deeply, wondering where his life turned so terribly wrong that he somehow ended up in the other place.

  “No, Harold. We’re not there either,” the man said.

  “You can read my mind?” Harold asked. Again, his voice sounded unfamiliar, younger.

  “No. That’s not how this works,” the man said. “When someone says you’re dead and you’re not in heaven, it’s not a gigantic leap to wonder if you ended up in the lower levels.”

  “Who are you?”

  “No one important,” he said. “I’m just here to give you a message and help you along your path.”

  “I’m confused,” Harold said.

  “That is reasonable. Let me clarify a few things.”

  The man stood up from behind the desk, revealing cut-off jean shorts, frayed at the cuffs. There was something familiar about the man, but Harold couldn’t place it. He walked over to a chalkboard, that definitely wasn’t there a moment ago.

  “OK, here’s what you need to know,” he said. “You’re dead,” he said.

  The start of a bulleted list appeared on the chalkboard as he spoke.

  #1. You’re dead

  “Yes, you’ve said that a few times,” Harold said, wondering what sort of place would just blurt out this news without even saying, sorry about your death?

  “Well, it’s sort of big news for you,” the man said. “Alright, let me get to the good part.”

  #2 You have a choice

  “Harold, when we die, we come here. It looks different for everyone. When I died, it didn’t look like a giant cotton candy snow globe like this one. I can’t explain this, but it’s your doing, not mine. I’m only here to give you the briefing.”

  “You’re dead, too?”

  “Again, you’re focused on the wrong thing. Yes, I am also no longer among the living. And if you let me get on with the briefing, I can move along and enjoy my death like everyone else. Let’s make a new rule. No more questions.”

  #3 No questions

  “I feel like that wasn’t supposed to be on the list,” Harold said.

  “It wasn’t, but I’m running the briefing and now it’s on the list.”

  “What about the second one? What choice do I get to make?”

  “No questions,” the man repeated.

  Harold threw his hands up in the air.

  “All I have are questions,” Harold said.

  “OK, how about this?”

  #3a Save your questions until the end

  “Fine.”

  “Harold, when we die, we come to this place and get to make a choice. You can walk through the oak door behind you, or walk past me and into that door.”

  The far wall of white split apart, and a silver door appeared.

  “The silver door will take you to your next step. I can’t tell you where it will lead you, so don’t ask.”

  Harold raises his hand like a child asking permission to go potty. The man just shakes his head and points to rule #3a.

  The man continues.

  “If you choose to go into the oak door… and this is where it gets interesting, you get to relive one day of your life. I don’t know what day you’ll get. It might be a good day or a bad day. Nobody knows until they walk through the door. The day will start when you woke up, when you were alive, and end sometime before midnight. At which point you’ll be returned here.”

  #4 You can relive one day of your life

  “You really expect me to not ask any questions?” Harold asked.

  “Apparently you can’t help yourself. Go ahead.”

  “What do you mean, relive a day?” Harold asked. “Like watch it happen?”

  “Sorry, I forgot that part. No, not watch. You get to be your old self. You will be yourself again at whatever age you were, until the clock strikes midnight.”

  “Like Cinderella?”

  “Well, not entirely, but if pretending you’re a princess helps you pro
cess all this, then yes. At around midnight the pumpkin carriage disappears, and you’ll be right back here. But I am not your fairy godmother in this scenario.”

  “What am I supposed to do there?” Harold asked. “Why do I get to go back for a day?”

  “I don’t know, man. I don’t make the rules.”

  “You are literally making the rules on the chalkboard,” Harold pointed to the board.

  “That was for illustrative purposes only. And you’re not following rules #3 or #3a, so now we’re even.”

  “So, let me get this straight. When everyone dies, they come here?”

  Harold motioned to the white room around them.

  “Well, not everyone. Not everyone needs to… nope. That’s not something you need to hear yet. Just know that you, Harold, get a choice.”

  “So, there’s something you’re not telling me?”

  “There’s a lot I’m not telling you,” the man says with a coy twinkle in his eye.

  “So, if I go back through my old bedroom door, I will get to be myself, but at some younger age for one day? And if I go through the silver door, I move along to some unknown place that you can’t or won’t tell me about.”

  “I can’t tell you about something I haven’t done, or some place I haven’t gone,” he said. “But you’ve pretty much got the gist of your choices. Oak door or silver door? What’s it gonna be?”

  “Well, I really don’t see this as a hard choice at all. I’ll take the oak door.”

  With a whoosh, the silver door disappeared.

  “Great. One more thing before you head back,” he said. “Any changes you make to the way this one day in your life actually happened, may alter everything that comes after it.”

  “Whoa, hold on a minute. That sort of disclaimer seems like something you should have put on the chalkboard.”

  A final phrase appears on the chalkboard.

  #5 If you change anything, it stays changed and you may alter future events

  “It’s your life and you can do whatever you want on your one day re-do, but your actions may have consequences that you won’t be able to predict.”

  “Like Back to the Future?”

  “This isn’t exactly time travel. But again, if that helps you process, then yes, you can be a time traveler.”

  Harold had lived for 74 years, which meant by walking through the oak door he could step into at least 27,010 different days. He could be given a day when he was a child and could visit his parents. Or maybe he’d return to his wedding day. He could see Ruth again. He missed her so much. He could even get a day that allowed him to see his sister Gail, who died when they were kids. Might he get stuck with a mind-numbing day at work at the Ford factory?

  Harold contemplated his decision. He ran the numbers in his head, trying to calculate the chances of him getting a good day, or bad day. And also the probability of him changing something he’d have to live with forever. Which sparked a question.

  “I’m already dead. If I change something, why do I care?” Harold asked. “What’s done is done.”

  “Not exactly. Today, and when you go back, you have a lifetime full of memories inside your head. If you go back and change something, those deleted or altered memories are gone forever because they never happened. Let me give you an example. Do you remember being at game 5 of the 1984 World Series, when the Detroit Tigers won?”

  “I know they won, but I wasn’t there. I was at home in the den.”

  The man winked.

  A torrent of memories washed over Harold. His knees went weak and his body tingled. He buys a ticket at the last minute. He’s at the stadium. He spills his stale beer on the man in front of him as he jumps to his feet to cheer, as the winning run crosses the plate of game 5 of the World Series. The big screen flashes, “Tigers Win! Tigers Win!” He hugs Ruth, who is sitting in the stands next to him.

  “How did you do that? That never happened.”

  “It’s just an example, I gave you a new memory of deciding to go to the game. The rest happened on its own. That was a simple memory, and no other events in your life were altered by attending the game. That tingling feeling you felt means something changed. You’ll feel it each time, if you make a change. It’s like an early warning system.”

  “So, I didn’t go to the World Series?” Harold asked.

  The man snapped his fingers and Harold again felt his body tingle and a weakness behind his knees. The memory turned gray and washed away.

  “That was cruel,” Harold said. “Seeing Ruth like that, then taking her away.”

  “Sorry, I know. I just needed you to know what it would feel like. In about a minute you won’t recall having that memory at all. Remember, if you change something, it’s gone for good. You’ll forget it even happened, because it didn’t. You won’t be burdened with carrying two sets of memories conflicting in your head.”

  A bead of sweat trickled down Harold’s back as he grasped the doorknob. Excitement, anticipation, and a hint of fear welled up inside him. He didn’t want to be in this room any longer. He wanted to live again.

  “I’m ready,” he said, as he stepped through the door and back in time 55 years.

  Chapter Two

  Harold had died before, briefly. In 1961 he was 15 and enjoying a warm summer day with friends at the lake. The rope, that had swung him and his friends countless times into the waters of Loon Lake, slipped out of his hand a little early. Had his head hit the rock first, he would have certainly died on impact, never to recover, but it was his shoulder that took the blow. His limp body rolled into the water. He floated, face first, until the oldest boy in the group pulled him to shore. The boy, Steven Beckman, was the older brother of a friend who wasn’t supposed to be on the summer outing. Steven was on leave from the United States Army, where he had just recently learned a new life-saving technique.

  At first, when Steven placed his mouth over Harold’s mouth, the group of friends giggled. When he forced his palms into Harold’s chest and compressed, the friends were shocked at such a strange act. But when Harold coughed and was put onto his side to spit out the water, Steven was hailed as a hero who could bring back the dead. Harold lived.

  #

  Harold Emery was born in Spokane, Washington in 1946, and he died on November 24, 2020. He did not live a remarkable life. He did not cure cancer or find a clean renewable energy source. He had no children and left no legacy on the world whatsoever. Scant members of his church and a handful of retirees attended his funeral in South Haven, Michigan.

  After not dying in 1961, Harold went on to run track and play basketball in high school. His father was a high school math teacher. His mother was a homemaker, as was typical at the time, but she still did the accounting books for a local mechanic’s shop.

  His sister Gail died when she was just nine. Harold was 19. Her fourth-grade class was on a field trip to a Christmas tree farm for a sleigh ride in the snow and some hot chocolate on the last day of school before winter break. The bus was not prepared for the icy mountain roads and slid down an embankment, rolling several times. Eight children, including Gail, died that day and many more were injured.

  Harold was home on winter break from college. He went with his parents to the hospital after hearing from a neighbor about the school bus accident. They grieved and cried with the other families when they learned the news. Their Gail was gone.

  By happenstance, Harold met his future wife at the hospital that same day. Ruth Bouchard was a young nurse at the hospital. Her shift had ended hours earlier that day, but with so many students injured in the bus crash, they asked her to stay and help.

  Their relationship was born from tragedy, but lasted 44 years. Ruth and Harold dated from a distance for the next several years. Harold was away at school and Ruth stayed in Spokane. She wanted to join the Peace Corps until Harold was done with school, but Harold couldn’t stand to be without her, even if it was only during breaks in school.

  The couple married in 1968,
the week after Harold earned his degree in mechanical engineering. Harold, rattled by the accident that killed his sister, focused his efforts on commercial braking systems for buses and cars. Early, but unreliable versions of anti-lock brakes were just appearing in vehicles, after first being used in the early 1960s in a few airplane models.

  Harold and Ruth moved to Michigan in 1970, where Harold worked at Ford Motor Company. He didn’t invent any new products, nor hone any innovative technology. He became a quality control engineer, inspecting cars and trucks before they were released to dealerships and the public. He took pride in his work and felt like he was honoring his sister’s legacy. His work was mundane and didn’t bring Harold any particular pleasure.

  Every evening Harold would come home to Ruth. A dinner of meat and potatoes would be on the table for him. On the weekends, Harold would cook for her, so she could take a few days off. He told her it was only fair.

  Their love was strong, such that when it became clear that they could not have children of their own, they refocused their energy on each other and were still happy. They talked of adopting, but Ruth didn’t have the heart for it. So they traveled instead. They took trips to India, Australia and England. Harold thought the travel could make up for what Ruth missed by never joining the Peace Corps. He also believed that he was the reason they couldn’t have children, so he owed her, and attempted to make it up to her every day.

  They joined social clubs and volunteered for toy donation drives. They had a large circle of acquaintances from Ford and got together often with friends.

  When Harold retired after 32 years, Ford gave him a plaque thanking him for his years of service to safety and customers. It was the first time anyone saw Harold cry at work. The couple moved from the Detroit suburbs and bought a brick rancher in South Haven. They couldn’t afford a home on the shore of Lake Michigan, but Ruth loved the neighborhood and the large trees in the backyard that dropped a glorious number of leaves to rake. Besides, they could walk to the beach in less than ten minutes.