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14_lyrics. Bleach. On the more charming aspects of the afterlife. I guess it could also be a happy birthday fic. Although it's sort of the wrong character for it.
If nothing else, years of erratic schooling and work on the corporate side of things taught him something about standing in lines.
There are no crying babies, for which he is grateful, but the woman a little ahead of him has died of a piano dropping on her and is having a hard time accepting that. An elderly lady who went peacefully in her sleep has a vice-like grip on the girl’s shoulder, and is currently lecturing her on acceptance of the natural order of things. He feels vaguely uncomfortable listening to this, but behind him is a man who died in a gunfight; a man who seems to be scoping around for someone to tell the story behind this gunfight. He doesn’t think he’d be a very good listener, so he keeps his eyes straight ahead and—occasionally—down to look at his hands as he flexes them. He remembers when he didn’t have them, a little while ago. Then the queue moves and they all file forward.
Occasionally someone in black paces up their ranks, looking rushed and annoyed. Occasionally they’re stopped by a particularly stressed and disoriented person in line. The official protocol to this seems to be to detach oneself as quickly and as harmlessly as possible and move on. Once or twice though, he’s witnessed a gentle, if confused, pat on the head. A promise that ‘it’s not as long as it looks.' It is vastly outnumbered by the swelling of red cheeks and the brusque ‘I am not here to answer questions!’ though. For the most part, he just watches them come and go. The people in black make him tense, as though they could tell he feels his chest and his face itch as they walk by.
The man behind him taps him on the back of his shoulder. “So how did you…?”
The woman in front of him is crying: “And who dies from having a piano fall on them?! That only happens in cartoons!”
The older woman is comforting her with: “…well obviously you watched too many of them.”
…it is a very, very long wait.
“So, I’m hoping to kill him in the afterlife,” the man behind him is just finishing in a conversational tone, when suddenly all the people in front of him are gone and there is instead a familiar sight. A desk. A woman at this desk, with a pen and diabolical looking machine sitting next to her humming formidably. She looks like every single overworked clerk he never had the time to ask out. She is also dressed like a samurai, which somewhat ruins the comparison.
“You would think that the shinigami part would tip them off that they’re a little less than…” Her finger traces the lines on a screen that blips to life in the face of the machine next to her. She looks up at him. “Huh. You were a good looking one. Twenty-seven? Car accident?”
His wince seems to be answer enough to her, because she turns attention back to the monitor. It fzzts once. She gives it a crack on the side. “They can afford new mobiles for the Divisions but they can’t. bother. To give me. A new-- …oh, three years ago. You’re a late one aren’t you?”
This makes him strangely self-conscious. “Er. Yeah-”
The machine spits out a strip of paper. She tears it off, examines it, and then pounds it with a skull-shaped stamp. She slides it across to him. He fumbles with it and then realizes, with some shock, that it’s a ticket he’s just been issued.
“What—“
“Platform six. That’s to the left, walk don’t run, don’t shove, don’t breakdown and contemplate your life here,” she says. “Although Inoue Sora, age twenty-seven, car accident might want to walk a little fast. You’re probably the last person on this line today. And they’re probably waiting for you.”
Finding himself bustled off past the desk in favor of the man behind him, let loose along the strip that does resemble a railway station; Inoue Sora indeed takes the advice doled out to him. He adopts a brisk pace, he doesn’t push anybody and, only peacefully, does he wish the living the best, however far away they may be.
14_lyrics. Bleach. On the more charming aspects of the afterlife. I guess it could also be a happy birthday fic. Although it's sort of the wrong character for it.If nothing else, years of erratic schooling and work on the corporate side of things taught him something about standing in lines.
There are no crying babies, for which he is grateful, but the woman a little ahead of him has died of a piano dropping on her and is having a hard time accepting that. An elderly lady who went peacefully in her sleep has a vice-like grip on the girl’s shoulder, and is currently lecturing her on acceptance of the natural order of things. He feels vaguely uncomfortable listening to this, but behind him is a man who died in a gunfight; a man who seems to be scoping around for someone to tell the story behind this gunfight. He doesn’t think he’d be a very good listener, so he keeps his eyes straight ahead and—occasionally—down to look at his hands as he flexes them. He remembers when he didn’t have them, a little while ago. Then the queue moves and they all file forward.
Occasionally someone in black paces up their ranks, looking rushed and annoyed. Occasionally they’re stopped by a particularly stressed and disoriented person in line. The official protocol to this seems to be to detach oneself as quickly and as harmlessly as possible and move on. Once or twice though, he’s witnessed a gentle, if confused, pat on the head. A promise that ‘it’s not as long as it looks.' It is vastly outnumbered by the swelling of red cheeks and the brusque ‘I am not here to answer questions!’ though. For the most part, he just watches them come and go. The people in black make him tense, as though they could tell he feels his chest and his face itch as they walk by.
The man behind him taps him on the back of his shoulder. “So how did you…?”
The woman in front of him is crying: “And who dies from having a piano fall on them?! That only happens in cartoons!”
The older woman is comforting her with: “…well obviously you watched too many of them.”
…it is a very, very long wait.
“So, I’m hoping to kill him in the afterlife,” the man behind him is just finishing in a conversational tone, when suddenly all the people in front of him are gone and there is instead a familiar sight. A desk. A woman at this desk, with a pen and diabolical looking machine sitting next to her humming formidably. She looks like every single overworked clerk he never had the time to ask out. She is also dressed like a samurai, which somewhat ruins the comparison.
“You would think that the shinigami part would tip them off that they’re a little less than…” Her finger traces the lines on a screen that blips to life in the face of the machine next to her. She looks up at him. “Huh. You were a good looking one. Twenty-seven? Car accident?”
His wince seems to be answer enough to her, because she turns attention back to the monitor. It fzzts once. She gives it a crack on the side. “They can afford new mobiles for the Divisions but they can’t. bother. To give me. A new-- …oh, three years ago. You’re a late one aren’t you?”
This makes him strangely self-conscious. “Er. Yeah-”
The machine spits out a strip of paper. She tears it off, examines it, and then pounds it with a skull-shaped stamp. She slides it across to him. He fumbles with it and then realizes, with some shock, that it’s a ticket he’s just been issued.
“What—“
“Platform six. That’s to the left, walk don’t run, don’t shove, don’t breakdown and contemplate your life here,” she says. “Although Inoue Sora, age twenty-seven, car accident might want to walk a little fast. You’re probably the last person on this line today. And they’re probably waiting for you.”
Finding himself bustled off past the desk in favor of the man behind him, let loose along the strip that does resemble a railway station; Inoue Sora indeed takes the advice doled out to him. He adopts a brisk pace, he doesn’t push anybody and, only peacefully, does he wish the living the best, however far away they may be.
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this is so creative and original and ohwowowow i love looks at the afterlife like this! i mean, it'd be a bit of a blinker, though, innit? first you arrive in a line for a rather modern-looking train station-type thing being supervised by people dressed like 18th century samurai's and then being dropped off in a rural area filled with straw/thatch villages and a very feudal class system populated by largely unpleasant people.
but sora is a trooper, he's an inoue!oh yes he is~ this was excellent, and ACE. ♠! :DD
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I really liked this. I know I say this every time, but I did! I love slightly wacky representations of the afterlife, and this -- with the bureaucracy and the queueing up and the "I'm hoping to kill him in the afterlife" -- is both funny and poignant, considering the backstory. <3
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And Awwwwwwwwww.
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I like.
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