Jamie opened his eyes but he was immediately blinded by the intensity of the white light around him, so he shut them tightly. With his face scrunched up to block the overwhelming brightness, he tried again, and slowly opened his left eye slightly, followed by his right. Once they had adjusted to the light, he relaxed his face and cautiously allowed his eyelids to open fully. Now that his vision was restored, he could look around him. Nothing was recognisable. A blank white wall in front of him, and behind, stretching far from left to right before following a tight corner. A white ceiling, hard to look at because of the light, and a white floor. All different shades of white – but white nonetheless. He was sitting on a grey metal chair. He looked in each direction again, and then he called out, “Hello?”
He heard footsteps in the distance. Definitely the sound of heels. They were getting louder, and they seemed to be coming from both sides. Jamie gripped the arms of his chair and tried to pinpoint which side the steps were coming from. Click-clack-click-clack. He listened intently until his head jolted to the left. They were coming from the left- he was certain. His eyes were fixed on the corner in anticipation of what was coming around. He waited, and wondered. Maybe someone who could tell him where he was? Suddenly the sound faded. No more steps. He leant forwards as though that would help him see beyond the corner. The silence was broken by a subdued cough, and Jamie immediately turned to the right to find a woman in a lab coat waiting for him. He looked up at her with fear and confusion.
“Jamie?” the woman asked, “Jamie Alexander?”
It took him a few seconds to find the correct response, “Yes.”
The woman smiled at him with glee and tilted her head back in approval, “That’s great!” She let out a sigh of relief, “I got a bit lost on my way here. So sorry for being late.” She paused to let Jamie reply.
“It’s okay.”
“Fantastic! Right…um…well first of all I’d like to say on behalf of the whole team, welcome! We’re really glad to have you visiting. My name is Katie and I’m here to help you with any questions you might have.” She paused again to let Jamie reply.
“Questions?”
“Yes, anything you want to know at all, just ask me. I’m here to show you around, tell you a bit about how we do things, stuff like that. Oh! I almost forgot,” she took a lanyard with an ID attached out of her lab coat pocket and handed it to Jamie, “Please put this on and keep it visible at all times.”
He looked at the ID. It was plain, except for a barcode with a blue rectangle beneath it. The ID hanging from Katie’s neck also had a barcode, but instead of a blue rectangle, hers had a green circle. He put the lanyard over his head and made sure the ID was facing the right way before looking back up at Katie, who was still standing next to him waiting.
“Brilliant! Now if you’d like to follow me.” She ushered him to follow her by stepping to the side and holding her arm out, pointing in the direction she came from. Jamie rose to his feet and began walking down the hallway. She remained close to him but followed a few paces behind. When they reached the end, he turned to her and she nodded, so he continued around the corner and was faced with a door.
“Do I open it?” Jamie asked earnestly.
“You sure do!” Katie replied enthusiastically.
“I don’t know if I want to.”
“Of course you want to! It’s just a door.”
“I’m not sure about this.”
“Well, if you want to continue, you’ll have to open the door.”
“I don’t know what’s on the other side.”
“Only one way to find out!”
“Can’t you open it and I’ll follow you?”
“I…I’m not sure if that’s allowed.”
“What do you mean allowed?”
“Hang on,” Katie pulled out a notebook from her inside pocket. She held it close to her face and flipped through the pages until she reached the section she was looking for, “Okay, it says here that you need to walk through the door first.”
“Does it say anything about who can open the door?”
She reread the pages, scanning them quickly. “No, it does not. I guess as long as you walk through it first, we’ll probably be fine!” Katie slid the notebook back into her pocket and proceeded to open the door. She turned the handle and with a satisfying click released it. “There you go Jamie, let’s continue!”
Once he stepped through the door, she quickly followed him and moved in front of him. The door shut behind them, and they were standing in a hallway just like the one they were in before. They continued down several more winding corridors; Jamie was impressed at her knowledge of the building as she effortlessly guided them left and right down various different paths and routes. Eventually they reached a section with windows on one side, and she stopped suddenly. She turned around to face Jamie.
“Okay! Let’s do a little turnaround here bec…”
“Hang on,” Jamie said, trying to see past her, “what’s in there?”
“We really aren’t meant to be here so I think it would be best for us to just -”
Jamie sidestepped past her and crept up to the window. He peeked through the bottom corner and felt Katie tugging at his arm.
“It’s a meeting room.” Jamie said.
She was curious, and moved her head next to his. “Yes, okay I see that, let’s go before anyone sees us.”
Jamie looked around the room. The walls were covered in wooden panels, and the floor was carpeted with a dark green material. In the middle was a long metal table with four office chairs on each side. There were some upside-down glasses, pens, and notepads placed at one end with a whiteboard at the other. He could barely make out the writing on the board, but he could clearly see the sketches of body parts. He heard voices, and Katie pulled him to the ground with her.
“Shh! Don’t say anything, we really need to go.”
He saw the seriousness in her eyes and nodded but before they could crawl far enough away, people had entered the meeting room and started to talk. Jamie continued to follow her on the floor but he was curious about what was being discussed in the room, so he tried to listen.
“Honestly Mark I just don’t see how this is the right move. Edward, back me up on this?”
“I have to agree with Jenny. I get where you’re coming from and look, it’s been untested so for all we know it could be great, but we just can’t take another risk like that again.”
The rest of their words became quiet mumbles as Jamie had crawled too far away from the meeting room to hear them clearly. Katie stood up and gestured at Jamie to do the same. She beckoned him to follow her, and the two started quickly walking. At each turning, Katie seemed more and more confused. He heard her muttering to herself under her breath, whispering angrily at herself. After a few more turns they arrived at a door again. She placed her hand on the handle and swung it open.
Whatever she had expected to see, it certainly was not dozens of people sitting at tables eating lunch. She had accidentally opened the door to the cafeteria, and everyone turned to face her. She immediately closed the door and stood with her back to it to stop anyone coming through the other side. She panicked but the shock was halted by a loud knock at the door. She turned Jamie’s ID around and opened the door with a smile.
“Howdy!”
“Hello there,” the man looked at her ID, “Katie! You must be new here; we don’t come in through these doors anymore.”
“Oh yes right. I did know that but it’s all a bit confusing. It’s my first day you see.”
“Not to worry, you can come through this time but from now on you must use the correct door. Is your friend new too?”
Katie quickly looked back at Jamie, “Oh him? Yes, he’s also on his first day. We’re trying to learn how it all works around here. We’ll let you get back to your lunch though, the two of us are absolutely famished! Running around the hallways really takes it out of you.”
The man chuckled and held the door open for them both. Jamie followed Katie to a table near the back and they sat down together.
“I cannot believe that just happened. How did we get away with it!” There was a hint of excitement in Katie’s voice.
“So, what’s the deal with the doors anyway?”
Katie showed Jamie her ID, “These cards let us move around the building. I’m a green, green gives me access to most of the rooms. You’re a blue, which means you can only get into the first door and, well, the last door.”
“And it really is your first day huh?”
“Yes, and you are my first ever client. I’m sure they’ll fire me for this.”
“What business is this exactly? What is your job here?”
“Technically it’s not a job, it’s a free service, like pro bono work for charity.”
“Right, but what is the work?”
“I think it’ll be best for me to tell you that later on, when you’ve gone through the door.”
“Am I dead?”
Katie’s eyes started darting around the room nervously, “Dead, whatever do you mean dead?”
“Oh god I am dead,” Jamie said a little too loudly.
“Shh. Okay yes, you are. But don’t ask me how, I can’t tell you that because I don’t know. No, we aren’t in heaven, and we certainly aren’t in hell. This is like the afterlife, or more like a processing centre before the afterlife. It’s the before-afterlife.”
“And you’re an angel?”
“That’s very sweet of you but I’m not, I just work here. Sort of. I was supposed to bring you through the door. This whole thing is a giant mess and I’m going to be in so much trouble.”
“What’s the plan then?”
“There is no plan, we need to leave as soon as possible but let’s eat something first and just blend in.”
The two of them continued to chat about the before-afterlife. Jamie asked some basic questions; Katie ran through a few pages of the handbook with him. Once the cafeteria had emptied, they decided to make their move. She found the correct exit and the two of them hurried out. As they walked towards the door, Jamie spotted an ID on the floor. It had a red triangle, and without hesitation he picked it up and slid it over his. He didn’t want to distract Katie further, so he didn’t mention it, and the two of them continued walking. It wasn’t long before the hallway started flashing red. Then a loud siren went off. Jamie knew this was not good.
“This is not good! Come on we need to go,” Katie grabbed Jamie’s hand and they sprinted through the hallways. Loud marching followed them, the sound of boots running against the floor echoed throughout. Jamie spotted a door and opened it, pulling Katie in with him. He slammed it shut, and they stood near it as the boots hurried past. Katie rested her head on the door, not noticing the room they were in. Jamie turned around to see wooden panels like the meeting room before, this time with a dark red carpet, and a single table with an old computer on it.
“Katie, where are we now?”
She looked around the room with shock. “Oh no. Oh no this is bad. We shouldn’t be in here. How did this happen?”
Jamie held up the pilfered ID with the red triangle.
“Jamie! How did you get this?”
“It was on the floor; someone must have dropped it. What is this place?”
“This is the archive, and this machine is not for us, we should leave immediately.”
“Hold on, we’ve come this far. What does this machine do?”
“It lets management see what you’re all up to, they use it for evidence gathering mostly.”
“Evidence for what? Wait, can we use it?”
“I don’t know, it’s not even in the handbook.”
“Can I find people with it? Can I see how my family are doing? I want to see Lori.”
“We can’t, come on let’s go.” Katie walked over to the door; Jamie walked to the computer.
“Help me find her?”
“No.”
“I want to see my girlfriend. I have a right to know! Help me use this thing.”
“Jamie, stop! You have no right.”
“But she’s my girlfriend!”
“Jamie seriously, stop this.”
“I’m not leaving until you help me.”
“You’ve already seen far more than you should have, and you’ve seen more than most of us here ever will too. You want to see if she’s moved on? If she still misses you? What good does that do you now, what benefit could it possibly serve?
“Where’s all this coming from? I thought you were here to help me?”
“I am Jamie but I cannot force you to follow me. I know everything about you. I know everything you did from the day you were born until the day you died. I know that the final thing you thought of before you went to sleep that night was Lori. Do you know how long it’s been since you passed? Four years. You have been stuck for four years Jamie. We can only bring people here when they are ready, and it took you four years. Why are you still holding on?”
“Because she’s mine.”
“No, she’s not, she never was. You can’t own people. What is it with you humans? You are an individual, you make your own decisions, your own choices. You’ve seen behind the scenes here; you think we map out your life from start to end? These clowns can barely train new staff – look at how well I’ve done on my first day.”
She walked over to the machine and turned it off.
“You died Jamie. Of course, she misses you. There are nights when she cries, and there are nights when she parties with her friends. She will not forget you but she has learned to live with it. There have been new partners, she has moved on.”
Jamie’s silence said more than his words could. He looked down at the floor and began to cry softly. Katie walked over and hugged him.
“It’s okay to not be okay. Love like this is not something we have the honour of experiencing, but I know if your feelings were strong enough to get you this far then they will get you to where you need to be, because standing in our archive room is not your final destination.”
Jamie took a deep breath. He thought about his time with Lori. Flashbacks in his mind from their chance meeting at the café near his office, how he nervously asked her on a date, his sweaty hands when they first held each other, his anxiety at telling her how he truly felt, all the places they’d been, and all the places they never got to see together. He could still recall every inch of her body, her face. He smelled her in the air.
“It’s hard to hear. I know it’s over but I don’t want it to be.”
“No one wants it to be over.”
“I loved my life.”
“You can continue to love it, and everything you ever did love. Just because it is the end, doesn’t mean it’s over. The things you felt will follow you everywhere,” Katie squeezed his hand and released it slowly. She gently removed the lanyard with the red triangle, and placed her hand on his back.
“All you’ve got to do is open the door.”