The After Life by R.S. Hill
	Upon the realization that he was dead, Herzog’s new eyes opened. At first he couldn’t see a thing, then came fleeting images from his first life. Gina was bitching about his drinking. Then he was getting fired from another job. Fat fuck Carlo was complaining about his share of the blow and farting something fierce when someone came up to the window. Bam! Bam! It was over. In time there was a blue light. It reminded Herzog of too many smoky nights at the Ledo Lounge where he’d drank Gina’s life savings and her love away. Now the blue light was spread out underneath him. His new eyes tried to focus. They burned. All at once he began to seize, convulse. As regurgitated feces choked up from deep within his high-speed stomach, he cried out to God. Two spiked arms, four powerful legs, a hard shell over his neck, and no pecker between his legs pushed Herzog into shock. An annoying kink in his back needed a crack. He squirmed, struggled and winced until something finally popped. Rank fluid rained over his head and neck. Something sinewy spread over his back then stretched beyond his shoulders and over his legs. He tried to look behind him to see what they were, but those new eyes were spotty like rain drops on smooth lenses. Then the images returned. Gina bitching. He got fired again. Fat fuck Carlito. Killer at the window. Bam! Bam!   Just as he thought he saw the killer’s reflection in Carlito’s window, an excruciating pain overwhelmed him. Every pore was set ablaze like alcohol festering in a gaping wound. Something long and sharp punched through his skull and ripped through the front of his head. It stretched forward then swept back behind him. When another one came out the other side he could see antennae. Now a familiar smell lingered below him. He heard voices but couldn’t understand them. The urge to run came suddenly. It was the most intense sensation he’d ever felt in his miserable and pathetic life. Herzog wondered, as the smell of garbage made every fiber of his new body stand at attention, if anyone would attend his funeral or if Gina missed him. Then that garbage smell infiltrated his instincts and he was off and running. Those powerful arms and legs didn’t seem to touch the ground as Herzog cruised across the flat blue surface he once thought was light. When he leaped toward a slender metal post, that sinewy something spread over his back and stretched beyond his shoulders. He glided gracefully until he touched down on a smooth post. Rotten eggs and sour tuna fish, roaring laughter and the smell of refer and cocaine shook the entire post upon which he was stealthily perched. The images came again. As they raced away- Gina, the job, Carlito- the killer did something familiar. Before he had pulled the trigger, he laughed. It was a familiar laugh. The same laugh he was hearing below. And so he strained to maintain what was left of Herzog until finally his old eyes burst open for the last time. He saw Carlito lying in Gina’s waterbed buck naked and farting. Gina was lying next to him smoking weed; her feet propped up on three pounds of Peruvian. When she laughed, he knew who his killer was. Then the stench of garbage in the kitchen made every fiber of his new body stand at attention. That was when they noticed him. “Oh my God,” Carlito hissed. “Look at that.” Gina’s face turned a ghastly pink. She was going to scream.   “I can’t believe you brought a cockroach into my fucking house!” “He’s an ugly one, ain’t he?” “Don’t just lay there, kill it!” When Carlito rolled up a magazine and waddled toward the lamp, the roach and all that he once was scattered.
	Copyright © 2005 R.S. Hill