After Life

I think I died today. Struck by a white Toyota, I surged into shock before I realized my bad luck. This is it. My mother cooks me pancakes for my first day of school. I wrap myself behind my father’s leg and hide from the world. I walk my first crush home after band practice, and I skip all the way home. I am engulfed in memories that disappear as fast as they come. I am carried off to sea.

Whack! My cheek absorbs an assault and screams in surprise. Deep in daze, I flail upon the thin mattress in search of cover, and finding none, assume the fetal position. What the hell? I peer though my sleepy eye lids and I make out a tall silhouette.

“Dude, fuck you, not chill!”

Whack!

“Cut it out!” I roll over and barricade my face into my forearms.

Whack! Whack! Whack! The assault commences on my rear. The audacity. I jump up and find myself in my childhood bedroom, with an ancient Chinese warrior towering over me. I would have admired him as a wax statue if I had not been assaulted seconds ago. He is more peacock than man in his colorful steel and leather suit of armor and his hair is tied up in ribbons better suited to a Christmas present. If it were not for his concrete stare and stoney eyes, I would have laughed out loud. I need not question why he, or I for that sake, is in the home of my childhood. I must first address the elephant in the room. 

I am in no dream. My senses are dialed, and I think linearly. A coma, or the afterlife? Too straight for a coma, and the afterlife is for suckers. I lock eyes with my nemesis and see certain power. Fight or flight would be no good, I must abide. He knows I know. He clamps his thick leather glove around my arm and leads me out outside. Like a small business owner emptying his till at gun point, I know I am along for the ride. While the businessman avoids an initial beating, the robber has murder on his mind. I step outside and my heart doubles into a drop. The fear of my captor becomes a drop in the water cycle when I see the Chinese army in formation outside, like a cornfield of death. I have seen this before, they are the Terracotta soldiers.