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| Alarmingly Strange Stories |
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The Resurrection Machine |
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| . At the reincarnation center, Brandy sat in a seat sewing as reincarnaters reincarnated. Beside her, on a walnut end table, lay a laminated card with a number stenciled on it, nearby was a pretty brass lamp. She sat in her regular chair. That is, the one she always sat in when she came here. Her last memory before death (this time) was going to Home Depot for a hammer and nails, then getting squashed by a Greyhound bus. She needed the nails to hang banners and party favors; she needed the hammer because Lance took the hammer in the divorce. She needed the bus running her over like she needed a hole in her head. Damn that thing was noisy as hell. Now, sitting in a soft room awaiting service, Brandy sewed. She was quilting a spread for the couch. Well, her couch in her former life, but she needed something to do while waiting. These damn angels were so slow. "Number 8, Janis Leed Brallford," a loudspeaker called. A short woman with blue hair, sweat pants, and one shoe missing trembled her way along towards the processing area. Brandy asked the woman earlier about her missing shoe and was told, "Car hit me. Knocked me clear over the sidewalk it did." Too much information Brandy thought. It must have been horrible. Of course her own death wasn't all that glamorous either. What with the bus's grill sand papering its way over her face and the bumper pushing her ribcage closed like a steel trap. But at least she still wore all her clothes. And as her life flashed before her eyes then, her death flashes its gruesome events now. She recalled the last moment before impact, seeing the bus driver's terrified face as he tried to avoid her car, seeing that big shiny dog emblem on the grill roll her over and crush her into a Burger King building, seeing herself die. And then, although it was New Years Eve and very cold, smelling rotten hamburger. As she walked away from the mangled mess she saw a multicolored automobile accident; a red brick Burger King wall with a big green trash dumpster and a mid-sized red Toyota compressed together by an enormous silver bus. What a sight that was. Her, the car, and the dumpster leaked fluids onto the well lit concrete. Blood and spinal fluid, day old chocolate milk and back washed soft drinks, oil and gasoline; all mixing on the tarmac like a new salad dressing from hell. . |
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