Short Live Careers-C.C.

1:
	Almost everywhere in the world you will find individuals discussing the philosophical question of what happens after you are dead. Whole tomes and schools of thought have been devoted to it, yet most people simply address it as gloomy gossiping that likely will never be answered, and not as the truly life altering question that has plagued the minds of millions for years past, present and future.
	Imagine this, if you knew exactly what happened after you died, don’t you think that you would change the way you’re living just the slightest? I certainly think I would. Imagine that you suddenly find you that once you are dead you turn into a ghost and can do everything you did in your human life, plus fly around, scare people, and go through walls, but you just can’t have sex. I for one would cut out many of the non-sexual activities from my daily diet and start focusing almost exclusively on sex. If, however, I found out that this was untrue after a few years of heavy investment into a life of sexual intercourse, that did not culminate in an afterlife of magical, sexless, ghost powers. I would feel greatly unfulfilled with the life that I had made for myself. And so this is why you must have balance in your life, just as you must have balance in your inevitable afterlife.

	The aforementioned philosophical ponderings were scratched out with a large blue X from Hare’s fountain pen. He crumpled the paper and chucked it towards the waste bin. Turtle walked into the room and narrowly avoided being hit by the shrapnel of deep thought.
	“Any updates on ghosties?”
	Hare did not care for the way in which his shelled companion referred to his studies of the life, loss, and death, by the trivial moniker of ghosties and mopies
	“Sadly nothing publishable”
	“I’m sure it’s not that bad-” said Turtle as he reached down, uncrumpled, and read the Hare’s work.
	“Ah” He said, after a number of minutes trying to decipher exactly what points Hare was trying to get across other than his sexual frustrations and fear of death.
	“You know” said Hare
	“Lots of authors didn’t even find an audience until after they’d passed. In fact, I heard that they just discovered some new fellow down in Yonkers who died in the seventies and wrote some awfully compelling works on the mundanity of society and the acceptance of life’s many pleasures as mere trivial fluff in the grand scheme of things. Now he’s the talk of the town! I think he’s a bit overrated in fact, but still, that sort of post mortem fame is really something to aspire to-”
	And so this went for minutes upon minutes; Hare’s relentless babbling on sad idealisms and dreams of preaching his gospel of gloom to the masses of the world.
	Turtle and Hare had met at the dam and bonded solely over their shared interest in the human language as a medium of expression, particularly in the form of the written word. Hare was a philosopher and told anybody who would listen of that fact. Turtle wanted to write for television.
	A friendship blossomed over this linguistic curiosity. They soon moved into a stump with one another to cut down on living costs and for ease of hibernation during the colder months.
	“...and for that matter none of the other animals have even the slightest shred of interest in Nietzsche or even Plato for that matter. So how could I even contemplate the thought that they would have the slightest shred of understanding for where I’m coming from if they don’t even appreciate the work of those beginner philosophical figures.”
	“Do you really think you can compare yourself to Plato.”
	“I didn’t compare myself to him Turtle. I merely said that if they did not understand the works of those rudimenta-”
	He didn’t let him finish.
	“Just stop this Hare, you’re just a rabbit. You’re not a philosopher, you have no appreciation for the bounties of life because you can’t fully experience them. You’re an animal. You’re not equal to Plato of Nietzsche. If you ever were to meet them you would soil yourself from fear and then they’d kill you for food.”
	Hare was speechless at the gall of his living mate.
	“Get out”
	“What?”
	“GET OUT OF MY HOME YOU BASTARD!”
	“Turtle slowly turned and started to walk out of the room”
“DON’T WALK AWAY FROM ME MOTHERFUCKER! LETS FIGHT RIGHT NOW YOU DILL BAG”
Turtle walked out of the study. He’d grown well accustomed to Hare’s unreasonable fits of rage.
Hare was in the midst of tearing up Turtle’s signed How I Met Your Mother Pilot screenplay when across town, in the human world, a cigarette was being lit that would change the lives of four siblings forever.

2:
	...Laaaaadies and gentleman, put your hands together for the latest smash hit in jazz. The hottest quartet since Brubeck! Theeeeeeee Bronson Brood Four!
	Elana Skins Bronson lit her cigarette by way of a lighter engraved with a picture of Max Roach. She probably didn’t even have time to enjoy it.

	KASHOOOOOOW
	BLAMO
	WIZZZZZZZ
	SHHHHHHHHHHHHH
	SKILZZZZZZZURP


The quiet Jazz club that was once The Lemon Cat Lounge was now nothing more than a smoldering no man’s land. The inexplicable result of a gas explosion, which, mixed with the endless amount of booze that people who can sit through a twelve minute saxophone solo required at all times, which the L.C.L. was in no short supply of, was a recipe not just for disaster, but apocalypse...at least on a small scale.
It was, as written in a report in Quartet Quarterly, “The Worst thing to happen in the Jazz world since Kenny G’s X-Mas Album.”
The tongue in cheek reporting of the massacre was met with great criticism from the jazz community.
Anyway, as assumed, there were no survivors.
Well, there was the bass player…
Who was the fourth one that the quartet had hired, and was not in fact a Bronson by blood, nor surname. He was a distant cousin of the group, who actually played cello and had gotten mixed up in the whole jazz band business by playing a rare 1 and ¾ Cello, which was one of only three in the world. It was made during World War II as part of a covert operation to make captured Nazi soldiers believe they were shrinking by being put in a room one and three quarters larger than average, and then serenading them with trio of above, above-average sized cellists, whose size, and bassier instruments, would slowly drive the captured soldiers into a state of absolute insanity, as well as giving them scaring and lifelong feelings of inadequacy.
The cello played by Wilikin Bronson, who was born Dickran Kennedy, but bullied into changing both his first and last names by his cruel second cousins, was one of those aforementioned instruments of torture (I’m sorry).
He was a large man, he stood a foot above his cousins and outweighed them by about fifty stone, give or take. This mass had probably been his saving grace from the explosion, which just kinda pushed him out of the scene.
When Wilikin, Dickran, woke up after the explosion, he saw the once lively and livacious club to now be a very barren wasteland, with little to none of the prior absinthe and anti-abstinence attitude that it once had in its pre-gas leak glory days.

What the fuck just happened! Those mother fuckers finally tried to do me in! I knew they couldn't handle my sweet fucking basslines. Dumbasses.

Dickran was fine, in fact he was better than fine; the weight of acting as the human metronome to a group who put Kenny G right next to John Coltrane was lifted from his shoulders.
Then he noticed the bits of wood surrounding him, the cracked fingerboard, and the frayed catgut strings. His cello had cushioned him after being blown off the stage during the explosion. His bow had impaled a painting of Louis Armstrong on the wall. Dickran fainted.


3:


        	Back in the woodland home of Hare and Turtle. A pair of writers with widely different dreams and ambitions are still steeping in the anger they’d generated from the latest of their fights.
        	“Tuuuuuuuuurtllllleeeeeee I’m sorrrrrrrrrry”
        	Hare had drunken the dandelion wine that they kept in their stove for times like this, when they fought and needed to make up.
        	“Man, we need each other man, you don’t get it! They’re hating us because we got nice things, things in our house, but things in our mind too man! They don’t get it, you get it though man, we need each other for that shit. I’m sorry I fucked with your shit like that man, I shouldn’t have done that shit with the script I know that was wrong man and that you love that shit the people put on T.V. and I shouldn’t have done that. But we gotta put it behind us, that’s in the past man, we’re all good now right? We should be cause we neeeeeed each other’s energy man”
        	Turtle’s door swung open
        	“What in the fuck are you talking about? Fuck you.”
        	He tried to slam it shut but was stopped short Hare jamming his paw into the door. He yelped out in pain.
        	“Let me in, into your room and your mind-“He grinned at this and knew that he had finally broken Turtle down.
        	“fine…” With great hesitation
        	“Just don’t do anything weird and don’t talk about the fucking Myth of Sisyphus anymore”
        	Turtle rolled into the room, similarly to how Willie Wonka introduced himself in the original movie of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. Hare’s roll and tumble into the room was much more of the latter than the former, and he got half way around his 360-degree journey until he spilled out to the left and just collapsed on the floor.
        	“Thaaaaaaank youuuuuu!!!”
        	“What do you want”
        	“Okay, look, okay, here’s the idea…look, get ready for this, okay? So, okay, do you still have those pilots that you wrote?”
        	“How do you know about those?”
        	“Doesn’t matter, do you still have them?”
        	“Hare, where did you find those?”
        	“Fine, I was looking for that green coat in your sweater and I found a shoebox that I didn’t recognize so I opened it up and looked through it. Do you still have them?”
        	“Did you look at anything else in the box?”
        	“No just the scripts…”
        	“Oka-“
        	“…and the porn and your journal…”
        	“You Bastard! Why would I hide things with my porn stash if I wanted people to see them?”
        	“Look it doesn’t matter, we all beat our mea-“
        	“Retard.”
“LOOK DO YOU STILL HAVE THE SCRIPTS?”
        	“Yes, they’re still in the box last I checked. Unless you stole them when you were rooting around.”
        	“Do you remember that analytical essay I was writing on the stupidity of idol worship in modern society?
“The one where you compare the fall of Rome to the death of Nash The Slash?”
“The very same” Said Hare with a mischievous grin of a man with a plan.
“Tell me Turtle, when was the last time we tried to cross the highway?”
“No, No, NO! WE’RE NOT DOING IT!”
Hare collapsed on the ground in a giggling mound velvety fur, raspberries stained his paws, he had finally figured out his purpose in life.

4:

Dickran came too in the hospital. His favorite Duke Ellington record played out of a portable phonograph in the corner. His aunt sat next to him, crying.
“Oh my boy sweet nephew, oh what cruel fate stole you from me, what cruel spin of Fortuna’s wheel took you from me! Curses you angels of death and despair for robbing me of this gem of a boy. Curses for robbing me of his mother, his father, and my husband in that tragic accident. And now him! Curses and hexes to you all you foul curators of fate!”
The old woman in the stiletto heels and Vineyard Vines sweatshirt wrung her hands skyward and shouted out in tongues. Dickran was conscious for the majority of this ludicrous display but had no intention of interfering with it. He knew that when his aunt launched into these fits of religious exuberance there was no stopping her.
“Oh dear heavens and lords above us, please send my sis’ boy back to me and let him play his devil’s music. I won't complain I swear. Take me in his place! Please lord please!”
The heebie jeebies, brought on by this mumbo jumbo, began taking their tole on Dickran quite soon after. He did not want to die in this hospital. Not with aunt moaning away over him while he did so; especially not with the last time he heard Jimmy Blanton being on such subpar stereo equipment.
Dickrain swallowed what was left of his pride and played into his aunt’s shrieks. He shot up with a jolt. She jumped back.
“Oh good lord about us what has happened to my blessed body. What...what…what cruel twist of Fortuna’s wheel put me here! Dear aunty let us leave this minute!”
Aunty Helen, ecstatic, agreed. He leapt from bed, grabbed his records and they fled down the hall. His hospital gown flowing open behind him, mooning the custodial staff who could not deny being the slightest bit happy about the vacancy that had now opened up in Dickran’s room, occupied by him and his aunt for the past twenty five years.

5:


All that separated the modestly sized village of anthropomorphic animals from the prying eyes of humans was about six miles of dense forest. For any animal this was nothing, well not nothing, it wasn’t much more than a few hours for Turtle and probably mere minutes for Hare. The only real issue for any beast trying to make their way into the human world was a highway; a six lane monstrosity that separated the forest from a glorious truck stop. Many animals had told tales of crossing the highway, some even claiming to have made it into the truck stop but refused to say exactly what it was that lay inside.
To Hare, who was very curious about very many things, convinced himself death was unavoidable and nothing to be afraid of, who needed a way out of his town, who was now about to cross the road with the unwilling turtle trailing behind him; their communal typewriter and enough seed to last two, maybe three, winter, in a wheelbarrow.
Cars sped by, really fucking fast.
This was not a road, this was a highway. It was where humans passed through to get to in-law’s houses and animals came to stare down certain, violent, death by the caravan of mass commuters.
“We’re going to scurry to that little island, then we’re going to wait until the coast is clear and scurry to that next little island, then we just have to pass two more lanes and we’re good to go!”
Turtle was not swayed by his pessimistic companion’s optimism.
The pair exchanged glances. They knew this may be the last time they did so.
“Alright buddy, let's do this. Fame here we come!”
They charged across the first lane and were struck down by an oncoming semi before they even reached the first isle; keys of the typewriter littered the throughway, never to be noticed again except for the passing glance of a booster seat riding infant who would suddenly grasp the concept of death upon seeing the two unfortunately ambitious creatures who attempted to cross the great road.
And so, with Hare and Turtle dying before they had even the slightest glimpse of fame, or even, mostly in Hare’s case as there tends to be somewhat cliched life lessons on sitcoms, of influencing anyone other the scarred child; Hare’s only post mortem follower.
A great Hare once said:
...if you knew exactly what happened after you died, don’t you think that you would change the way you’re living just the slightest?
And to this he posed:
....This is why you must have balance in your life, just as you must have balance in your inevitable afterlife.
And now, this philosopher born too soon and to the wrong species entirely, who was presently floating towards the upward direction of heaven, following in the pokey trail of his house mate the turtle. As they ascended their final resting place, miles and miles above the heads of the man, beast, and tree, the question of why they were here crossed both of their equally walnut sized brains.
“Turtle!” shouted hair,
“Why do you think we’re here? I mean, I know why we’re, because we’re dead. But why are we here, en route to heaven? I don’t really think we did anything that great when we were alive to permit us this blessing.”
Turtle just screamed and enjoyed momentary bliss of flight.
“Turts? What if all of this is just a big ruuuse? And they don’t really want us to go to heaven but are just torturing us like man has done for ages? What if they’re just bringing us up for hunting or food? Or maybe we are really going to heaven and god, who if he or she is listening to me right now I apologize for all of my comments about you being dead and nonexistent, so please don’t change your mind, because really I think that my companion and I could be valuable resources to your humane judgment department and maybe even, if you saw it fit, we could be outfitted with wings and halos, maybe taking up work as guardian angels to some out of veterinarian who really just needs to see the light to not kill themselves and turn their lives around and…”
As Hare rambled on, as he did in life, and apparently in death as well, to nausea. Turtle took this time to collect and try to imagine what his own spin on heaven would be like. While he told anyone, especially Hare, for fear impromptu and unwelcome psychoanalysis, Turtle had always wanted to be a human. He wanted to be a human, with a human job, a human house that was not built into a stump, and, a source of great shame to him, a human wife. He had, for as long as he could remember, had always had a very great affinity to the human women; beautiful, smooth skin, lack of a shell or fur, often times only walking on two legs. What a dream indeed, an impossible dream at that as the sorts of women who choose to create relationships with turtles (or any animal for that matter) aren't exactly the type that Turtle had his fantasies about.  What he wanted, the woman, was a Rachel, from Friends. He didn’t exactly remember what it was that made him so obsessed with the woman, or how he even saw her for the first time, but it was probably just because she was the first human, a fact which likely lead to his great infatuation with her for the past few years.
So as the two beasts flew through, one speaking to a god who may not exist, and the other fantasizing over a fictional character played Jennifer Aniston; a car a good five miles away by now, driven by and angrily religious woman and her nephew were in the midst of an argument that erupted by the driver’s complete lack of evasion tactics when confronted by a pair animals that the bandaged man, recovering from a massive head wound, swore were pulling a wagon. The driver struck and killed the tortoise and rabbit, smashing the wagon which likely did not exist, and racking up the total, uncounted for, mortality count via oncoming traffic, by two.

6:

	Helen Dupront’s Volvo pulled into the community parking garage on the ground floor and sub basement of the apartment she shared with her nephew. She was growing n/antsier by the minute because she knew that this whole ordeal of picking up her nephew from the hospital had already infringe on her daily routine --Which began at 5 AM (to the chagrin of her nephew on the pull out couch) with a solid ten minutes of hand wringing and chanting before a picture of an unspecified saint or god or something of undeniable catholic meaning, led to a bout of pacing in her huge, pediatric, rubber clogs, breakfast of, champions, instant breakfast milkshake, walking downstairs to get the newspaper, flirting with one of the four doormen, then coming back upstairs, putting the T.V. on to whatever game show was being aired, live, at the 5:30-6 AM time slot, just in case her nephew had not yet fully woken up, or had, somehow, fallen back asleep during his aunt’s only real encounter with the outside world-- and was contemplating skipping lunch entirely to get her mid-day prayer in on time, or maybe just not skipping lunch and doing the prayer right here in the fucking parking lot if her goddamn nephew didn’t hurry the slightest fuck up and be just the teensiest bit consideate for anyone other than himself and his cello.
	Helen’s inner blitzkrieg was completely unnoticed by Dickran, who was still flying high off his prescription pain killers for what doctors had medically labeled the loss of a “melon ballers worth of brain” and probably would remain in this state of mental stupor indefinitely.
	Dickran was still reeling from this weird thing he’d had, prior to waking up from what he had just been informed to be a coma --in the dream he got out of bed, the very same record was playing as when he actually woke up, just as his aunt was in the same seat and position as she really would turn out to be in when he would really be awake. So in this dream, he was floating around under this large dome and speaking a language that had yet to be invented; didn’t mean anything to Dickran, whose name in this lucid encounter was actually Hole Lord. Who, after being given some subconscious sign by an unseen being, broke through the dome in a flurry of fists and Hole Lords.
As Dickran (Hole Lord) began to, not quite fly but more fall in manner perpendicular to the ground at breakneck speeds, he started to pick up on the language that he was speaking yet did not understand.
Shwee Shon, Mag’Nuff, Blesh, yo Blesh, hu Blesh e Blesh. Bjien.
All of it made sense to him now
At some point in our lives we meet a person who speaks what we cannot. Weird to think about but they also have thoughts that they do not speak, yet likewise they will meet someone who speaks what they think without fear, and them have too that personified inner voice….
Unintelligible
...and so the worst of all mankind speaks without being afraid of judgment and speaks the mind of the people, who speak for those who speak for those who speak for you who speak for you.
Some part of it was lost in translation but he understands the gist of it. He understood Blesh, but could not for the life of him explain its meaning to anyone who did not have this cosmic dreamscape of broken domes and purple skies as a reference point.
Do you now know what that is that you must do know that is know what it is that you must do?
Shwoo? Vishil mash matackchu?
“No, that doesn't make any sense”
Do not know that does not it not done?
Screeeeeeeee!
Translates roughly to; “Screeeeeeeee” In English.
Dickran repeated himself, shouting “Screeeeeeeee”
Don’t run into that one thing with no further thought into repercussions of devotion to reproduction in fear if ot being a left out after life seduction.
All of this being spoken in plain, articulate, English, while Dickran still babbled on his alien tongue --which made perfect sense to him but he feared, logically, that the unseen figure could not understand a word he was saying, and he feared that because these odd words such great sense to him that maybe he was losing the ability to speak English, as that disembodied voice spoke far too sophisticated to be an idiot. So he decided he was losing his use of the English language, or that this fellow he had yet to meet face to face was verbally dyslexic.
Do not run from what is faster on wind and may pass by walls yet not touch and may not do what is done to continue the doing of all that is done.
And at this he was awake. To the sound of Duke Ellington in the corner, to his aunt chanting over him.
 He felt as if he were still dreaming, no, not still dreaming actually, dreaming for the
first time; as if he had never dreamt not slept before and had never slept before. He felt warmth washing over him and that shudder you get when you’re about to cry, a weird feeling, but he did not cry, he just stood up and responded to his aunt,
	Dickran?
	Three time she said it, maybe more. It took him a while to recognize the name, because in his head he was asleep, and in his head he was still Hole Lord.

	7:

	Turtle and Hare stood in a vast room with nothing in it spare a picnic table. From behind them a man in a turtleneck, suede running shoes, a corduroy blazer, blue, ironed jeans, and argyle socks. He was middle aged, alright posture with a bit of a gut, all of his hair, and a strong jaw line. He was presumably a very handsome man and struck Turtle as such.
	“Hello!”
	Speechless
	“How are you two...guys doing?”
	Hare could not muster the strength to move his jaw. He was face to face with a man who was, arguably, god, and --much to the chagrin of Hare and his forefathers in philosophy-- not dead.
	Turtle took to the floor and spoke for his speak for his furry compatriots.
	“Yes. Hello, hi! How are you Mr...God, if it’s okay that I call you that?”
	God chuckled and said yes they could call him god, but drop the honorific thing because “We like to keep it casual up here”
Turtle nor hare responded to that. God chuckled.
“So you two are dead.’ -With a look at Hare- “Ironic isn’t it? That you and you pal over here are garbanzo, kicked the pucked, donzo, etc, but I’m very much still alive and living vicariously as a software engineer in El Segundo?’
God was angered. Hare scared of some punishment worse than death. Turtle  lapsed into a verse of the Tribe song set in God’s stomping grounds.
	What happened next isn’t entirely clear. God makes the animals more uncomfortable, they sit in hard plastic chairs, and then he tells them something about the cycle of life, the realities of rebirth, and the fact that they are going to be get a second chance.
	“...I don’t know really, I think it’s good. I always like to think that you guys haven't really sinned because you haven’t been able to, just as you haven't really done anything to grant you access to heaven. So we do this thing where we put you back onto Earth in the body of somebody who has a near death experience and you get to ride it out until they kick the actual bucket.’
	God wiggled his finger at Turtle to come closer,
“Between you and your friend over there looks like he could really do with some sinning, make him less tense”
They both turned to Hare.
“Don’t tell my son I said that.”
God laughed, winked at turtle, and was gone.
POP
They were gone too.
A black man in a sear sucker suit popped in to tidy up after God and his guests.
Even heaven was still a little bit racist.