My whole class workshop story: Edited Version:

 

Walter Ghose                                                                                                              

Thomas Maltman 

Fiction Writing 2113 10

Whole Class Workshop

16 November 2020

About 3857 words

Two weeks to Love

By Walter Ghose

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do any of you wish you had another chance? A chance to say you’re sorry for hurting someone. A chance to ride a massive roller coaster you were too afraid to ride. Or even a chance to talk to the most special person in your life.

These were my thoughts as I tried to wake up. But when I opened my eyes, the view around me was dim, as if I was falling into darkness.

Shock after shock came, but no reaction from me. As the doctors and the nurses looked at the monitor, I was pronounced dead.

Now I would never get the chance to talk to Tara.

It all started eight years ago, in the city of Monterey Bay, California where the waves swoop onto shore, like planes coming in for a landing and the mountains stand tall as towers. Here, I was a college student, and time was a valuable thing right now. I had plans to ask that pretty blonde hair girl with glasses, Tara Morris out on a date, for I had been telling myself that for five months now, and I have had a crush on her ever since I started the Public Health class with her this past January.

The moment I saw her, I wanted to know everything about her. What her hobbies were, what she did in her free time and where she was from! But it wasn’t that easy because talking to Tara was easier said than done. I had no clue how to start my conversation with her or even how to greet her at first. I was new when it came to interacting with women, and the only inspirations I had when speaking with them was from those romantic comedy movies about relationships. But those were bad influences since the characters in them were not shy like, so I had to find a different way.

With so much pressure, I couldn’t keep my mind on track. So I took a deep breath and told myself to, “talk to Tara during lunch time tomorrow and ask her if she has plans this weekend, and if she says no, ask her if she would like to study for the final health exam, then offer to take her out for ice cream. Simple as that!”

Feeling confident enough, I hopped back into my Lexus and drove towards the city of Monterey. While getting out of the campus parking lot, I began mumbling to myself, saying “Alright Robert, now’s your chance, you’re gonna walk up to Tara, see if she has plans this weekend, and ask her out. Simple as that.”

As I drove down General Jim Moore road, I pulled out my notes for a quick boost of confidence. Little did I know that I was focusing too much on the notes and not the road ahead. If I had been a smarter person, I probably would have been thinking about my safety first. But I wasn’t a smart person, I was an obdurate one.

As I drove further on the street, my car started shifting further to the left. Little did I realize I was driving on the wrong side of the road. As I got closer to Lightfighter Street, a semi-truck with a trailer came turning left, on a course straight towards me. Before I knew it, my Lexus collided with the truck.

What seemed like hours had passed, my eyes were flickering open from moment to moment, seeing just bright lights as my body was being rushed to the emergency room at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula.  I couldn’t feel anything, my vision was fading quickly and I felt my body seem to float toward the bright light. Inside the emergency room, the doctors and nurses gathered around me. I felt separated from my own body, like an abandoned toy.  I heard them shouting, and felt something cold touch my skin, but I was completely unafraid and not terribly interested in what was happening. Suddenly, a jolt of electricity! They were trying to restart my heart with an AED. Shock after shock came, but no reaction from me. Their eyes fixed on the monitor, showing a flat line. “Call it.”

With my body serving its purpose, my soul was free to exit it. High and high, I floated into the air, far above the Earth, where the afterlife awaited me. Somewhere far in the clouds, my soul touched the edge of a cloud and right in front of me stood a massive golden gate with a giant circle with a cloud and a lightning bolt in the middle, and right behind the gate stood a massive temple. Bigger than any temple I had visited in Egypt. Around the temple stood gardens filled with flowers and fruit trees. On both sides of the gate stood two 18 ft. tall statues resembling angels. Normally, I was not the type to feel out of the world, and in a different place, but right now, I was starting to believe the “I’m not in Kansas anymore,” saying, and I was too scared to guess where I landed.

Feeling tense as I was, I came right into an incredibly long line of people. All of whom were waiting to be checked in so they could join others to step through the gates of the afterlife long before them.

Here I spoke with the check-in clerk at the front desk and she directed me to the life background archivist. The archivist simply told me I was dead and how it happened. I did not want to believe him, but after showing those clips of me crashing into the truck on General Jim Moore road, I was convinced and grieved for myself. It was quite clear that I was dead. And now there was no hope. No more going to the beach, or hiking at Point Lobos or Big Sur, no more Ghiradelli ice cream, or Christmas with family. And especially no chance to tell Tara how I felt.   

As I walked out of the archivist’s office, he told me that there may be a way to live again “Really, how?” “If you attend as many as 100,000 churches and guide living being prayers each year for three years, the lord gives that spirit a chance to return to Earth in their physical form. But there is a catch!” Feeling eager to have a second chance, I asked, “Come on, what’s the catch? Tell me.” “The catch is you only get to be alive again for two weeks. After that, your spirit leaves your physical form and you return to Heaven, never to live on Earth again.”

            I knew now that this was an opportunity I couldn’t let pass. If there was another chance I could talk to the girl of my dreams, I had to take it. With that, I asked the archivist the steps to signing up for this life guidance system. And he gave me a map of where to go.

Viewing the map, I found my way to the spiritual gathering room inside the temple, where all the spirits gather for a meeting. The room was incredibly big. In fact, it was bigger than any conference room I had even sat in. Judging from how many souls have gone to heaven, I’d say the place was bigger than thirty orchestra pits put together. There were like two hundred rows per-column and the balcony levels went up as many as forty if I had to take a guess. Never had I been so amazed of such a massive room. The gathering room held the spirits of every single great person who made a difference in their life, including Professor Einstein, President Lincoln, Neil Armstrong, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and even Walter Cronkite. This truly was a confounding place. In some ways, I felt being dead wasn’t such a bad thing after all. 

With every spirit in the gathering room ready, the session was now in motion. Every soul sat in their spot as the tall hooded figure stepped onto the stand. With the shiny glowing clothes, he was wearing, it seemed safe to say it was God. No one could make out the image of his face, since it was hidden under that hood, but we could hear his mighty voice echo throughout the room. “Fellow Spirits, old and new. I have summoned you here, because yesterday, one among us became the Spirit of The Triannual. Now, it is time we restart the contest. Every single one of you will attend a church through the dimensional mirror and listen to each prayer from the living, using the broadcast praying transmitter, and who ever answers the highest amount of prayer’s within three years will become the next Spirit Of The Year Triannual, and he or she will have the opportunity to walk among the Earth again for two whole weeks. Now, to your own mirror stands, and may the best spirit win.”

This would be my chance to shine. To be the Spirit Of The Triannual, and to be alive again. All I had to do is stand in my private chamber four 10 hours a day, every day for three years, then I would win the prize and see Tara again.  

Standing in chamber with my head connected to the Broadcast Praying Transmitter felt tiring after only four hours, all I could say was I was grateful to be dead, because if I did this while I was alive, I probably would have gotten tired legs and collapse.

 

Through the broadcast praying transmitter, I could hear the voices of tens of thousands of beings from different churches, and I had to focus my attention on one at a time. Using the solo listener button, I drew all my attention on a woman at the St. Paul Lutheran church in Wyoming. Then I listened to a College student at the Hillsong church in L.A. praying that he could pass his physics exam. As I continued listening to all these people’s complaints and hopes, I felt annoyed hearing them all moaning about how tough life was for them. I just wanted to come right down to them and say “Oh, would you stop your bitching about how heavy things are?! At least you people are alive and can do what you want, unlike me. I’ve been dead for so long; I have forgotten what a grilled cheese sandwich tastes like.”

All through the day I listened and listened to a ton of prayers from people around the world. The sounds became so hard, I felt like quitting my listening for the day. I came close to shutting the broadcast praying transmitter when suddenly, I heard a familiar voice speaking. I looked at the monitor viewed where the precise coordinates were. Just my luck, the voice was coming from the San Carlos Cathedral church in Monterey. Knowing this, I thought to myself “could it be?”

I touched the viewing screen to see who it was. As my hopes suggested, it was indeed Tara Morris. She was at church on this day making a prayer of her own. Without delay, I touched the Cathedral on the screen and her name right after that. Then I hit the solo listener. Through the transmitter, I could hear her voice praying. “Dear Lord.” If you could hear me, I’d really like a favor. I know it would be hard. But I have lost someone I find unusually kind, and I would like help getting through the pain of losing this person. Please help me to get over my pain.”

 

The moment I heard her speak, I realized I had to win that Spirit Of The Triannual award or someone else would win her heart.  I was not about to let that happen. I would listen to five hundred prayers a day and guide those beings if I could win that award. I wouldn’t even care if my head ached or my eyes were red. I was goanna win that prize, whatever it took.

3 years later.

Three years had passed since I promised myself that I would attend all the church Prayers I could. And the moment where all the Spirits were attending the gathering room was approaching wearing excited faces. I walked up to the second balcony where I sat in row thirty-two.  The expression on everyone’s face was quite explicit. Even though none of their cheeks glowed red. I could tell as they sat on their spots of each bench, they were dying to find out who would be the winner of the Spirit Of The Triannual award.

After a few minutes of speaking to each other, God slammed his staff to the ground several times to bring the room to order. Then he spoke, “Good day spirits of all good beings. Today is the day we select the winner of the Spirit Of The Triannual. So cross your fingers and pray that spirit is you.” After a moment of waiting, a couple of white shiny birds came souring through the clouds, carrying an envelope with the winner’s name.

The birds gave God the envelope, where he started to open it up. “And the winner for the Spirit Of The Triannual is…” He said while viewing the name. “Robert Green.” Immediately after hearing, a shock of gratitude was in my face, and at the same Spirits in each level and column applauded for me. Never had I felt so proud of myself. It was a moment I had only dreamed about for three years and thought “why would I be selected?”

The thought of getting the chance to live again was too good to be true. I would be able to finally talk to Tara again get some ice cream and do all the things I’d hope of doing once more. 

What a pleasure. As the crowds of Spirits continued applauding for me, I stepped out of my spot on the bench and walked down the columns from the second balcony. As I walked down the stairs, I over stepped one of the stairs and went tumbling down the rest of them. When I finally reached the ground, I cried “Ouch, My Spine.” Causing alarm and confusion to the spirits. “Just kidding. I’m a spirit, I don’t have a spine.” A little laugh came from the audience since they felt fooled, and I continued my way to the stand on stage where God was waiting for me. I marched straight up to the stand to receive his award medal for the Spirit Of The Triannual. As God shook my hand, he gave me a warning. “Now listen carefully son,” he said in my ear. “You may get away with those types of pranks here in afterlife, but not in your former life. Keep that in mind when you return. I nodded and took my medal as the spirits applauded more for me.

    Filled with excitement, I then asked God in an electrified voice “How does this work? How do I return to my body? Tell me, tell me!” “Alright, alright, take it easy. I’ll show you the process. Just give a moment to get your corpse out of the grave.” After getting my body out of the dirt, from the Carmel mission cemetery, God gave me one more warning before my departure. “Now remember Robert, you only have two weeks to be alive. Understand, just two weeks.” I then replied, “I understand sir.” With that, God gave me the instructions. “Alright, now to do this. First, close your eyes. Second, grab my hands. And the final step to return to your body, think about the main reason you want to return.” Closing my eyes, I thought about everything in the land of the living I found pleasurable. But the one thought that stayed firmly in my head was Tara Morris. Just by thinking about that girl put me in a comforting mood. Her incredible smile. Her pure white teeth. And her pleasant laugh. I thought deeply of all those aspects of her and hoped it was enough to get me back home.

For a while, I could see only the universe, stars within galaxies, and I zoomed towards a black hole. Was it only an illusion, I couldn’t tell? But I felt myself moving closer and closer to that big dark space and could not stop myself. It was as if history was repeating itself with the accident that brought me to heaven in the first place. I went right through the black hole and saw nothing but darkness. What was going to happen to me now?

 

I blinked my eyes several times to see the ceiling right above me and on my right, was my AC/DC poster I left hanging on the wall next to the window. On the other side of the window stood my desk with my laptop and pencils. I thought to myself “Could it be, am I truly alive again.” There were only a few ways to find out. I rushed into my bathroom and grabbed a glass and filled in up with water. Then I took a big sip of the water and sure enough, I was able to swallow it down my throat. I then banged my head on the wall, only for my brain to feel sore. It was at this point; I was convinced I was alive again.

Another thing occurred to me. Since I was alive again, I rushed out of my dorm room and down the stairs to the School Cafeteria. I ordered everything I could get my hands on. Pancakes, Bacon, Scrambled eggs, a banana, and a couple of cookies. Basically, I didn’t care about the price of the food or the calories. Being alive again made it worth stuffing my mouth until my cheeks puffed up big. I brought my tray of food over to a table and scarfed it down fast. Just by eating one bite of Scrambled eggs made me want more of them. The same went for the pancakes and the bacon. I just munched every bit of the food like a Tigger cub with meat. The quicker I ate my meal, the more attention I drew from the other students. None of them had ever seen a man eat so much food in a matter of minutes. They only thought of such odd things, like I was an animal, or I was trapped on an island for so long. Whatever the students thought, I did not care. I was determined live my two weeks to the fullest, and find Tara Morris and spend those weeks with her.

As soon as my food was done, I rushed over to Counseling center building on campus. I knew that if anyone knew which class any college student would take, it would be them. Out of the cafeteria, I ran across the campus courtyard to the Counseling center. The courtyard looked a little different from the last time I walked in it. The wooden benches near the center sphere were now metallic, the trees that stood near the westside building were replaced with garden of poppy flowers. I thought to myself, it really had been a while since I died, because things were changing fast. I could only hope that Tara did not transfer to a different college.

When I finally reached the Counseling center building, I had to catch my breath. After I drank from the water fountain, I went over to one of the counseling advisors. The lady who spoke with me looked about in her mid-fifties, and some grayness from her long dark hair was visible. As I sat down across the table from her, she asked me “What can I do for you young man?” “Hi, I am looking for a student by the name of Tara Morris. Does she still go to the university?” The lady paused for a second, then answered, “Well, I would have to look up her name in the E-service booklet. Do you have any clue what her Star or Student i.d. is?” It had just occurred to me I remembered her student email address, which means I could just reach her that way. I then said to the counselor, “You know, it actually came to me that I remember her email, I’ll just reach her that way. Thank you for your time, ma’am.”

I then walked outside to the courtyard where I entered Tara’s student email into my phone. Just as I began typing words, I bumped into another student. As I helped the student pick up her work, I stared right at her face, it was if I remembered her from somewhere. I said to her, while trying to keep a positive face, “Um, sorry about that Miss. I was just texting someone!” “Oh really, and who might I ask would that be?” “Someone I took a Public Health class with three years ago. Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know a student by the name of Tara Morris, would you?” The girl paused for a sec, as if a big shock came through her head. “You’re looking for Tara Morris?” I answered, “Yeah, you know her?” “Know her. I happen to be her.” The minute I heard that, I fainted to the ground, to which the girl stood over me. “Hey buddy, are you okay.” I swiftly returned to my feet and answered, “Yeah, in fact I have never been happier.” “Oh, what a relief. Now who are you, and how do you know my name?” “I’m Robert Green.” “Robert Who.” “Well, you probably don’t remember me, but I was in that Health class with you three years ago.” For a second, Tara felt lost in memory, for she had no recollection of a boy with dark smooth hair and freckles on my face. But then, she recalled going to the San Carlos Cathedral a few years earlier and asking the lord to help her get over her loss of a man, who happened to be me. Once that came to mind, she asked me in an extremely surprised voice, “Wait. Robert Green, as in the Robert Green, who was in that car crash near campus three years ago?!” I nodded yes and she immediately raised her voice. “But the witnesses said you died in that accident. How are you still here.” 

Normally, I felt inclined to telling the truth, but if I tried here, she would probably think I’m nuts, so a lie seemed like the best way to go. “Because I was only as dead as far as they knew. See, what happened was, after the crash, the truck driver came out furiously with a crowbar and threatened to break my bones. With just barely enough time to escape, I went to the corn fields on the passenger’s side. Feeling terrible of what I’d done, I walked away from the life I once knew. Keeping distance from Monterey and keeping people convinced I was dead felt like the best excuse.” Though Tara thought my story was some made up bogus, she bought it and moved on from the topic. “Well, I’m glad the rumors of your absence were false and now that you’re back, what do you want to do?” I replied “Well, now that you mentioned it, I was thinking, if you’re… if you’re not busy tonight would you…would you like to have some Ghirardelli ice cream with me tonight?”

Tara Answered, “Well, I actually have  a date with my boyfriend Lewis tonight.” At that point, I was stunned. “Your boyfriend?!” “Yeah. I met him two years ago. About a year after I made that prayer to God to get over my loss, I was studying in the library on campus when I met this boy who was pretty smart, so I asked him for help with my physics work. And in return, I bought him breakfast at Brugger’s Bagels. Not long after that, we became quite close, and after finding out we had several things in common, we were a couple.”

For a moment, I felt still. Like I couldn’t tell what happened when I was in heaven and what was the purpose of my return? Did God or some other spirit guide this Lewis person to her somehow? Did God send me back down here to look for the thing I found most special only to have me realize I didn’t need that special thing and show me what being alive felt like? Whatever the case was, I felt really down. I had attended all those prayers to get back to the land of the living only to find out I did not get what I had most hoped for.

After a few moments passed, Tara heard her lover Lewis call out to her, telling her “It’s study time.” To which she said, “Okay babe, coming.” Then she turned her head back to me and said, “Well, Mr. Green, now that you’re back, I wish you the best of luck, and hope that you enjoy being here. After all, life is short, so treasure it.”

As Tara walked down to the library building, I found a bench and sat down with a long face. I could not understand what my purpose of being alive was. Everything I had worked hard for was just squandered down. I looked back up in the sky and asked, “Well God, you sent me here and yet, I still don’t have the girl, why? Why did you send me back down here? WHYYYYYY?” I shouted.

 

For twenty minutes I sat on that bench, but not one answer came. Then I thought back to what Tara told me. “you only have a certain amount of time on the Earth, so treasure it.” I think I now know what she was saying. You must look for what makes living worth while. Even if you don’t have the things you most treasure, you must accept what you do have, because those are the things you’ll never want to lose.