And just like that, successful businessman Blake Walters died, just a moment ago. Blake was certain he was done for. He knew it! He didn't know when, but knew without a doubt that cancer would take he and his large ego out. But life has a funny way of working itself out doesn't it? To his and a ballroom full of his peers' surprise Blake, mid-toast chokes, on a peppermint, and dies. Here one moment, gone the next. That's how life works out, right? No. Not this time. Not Blake's seventh time.

The 7th Time

By J. Codes

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 J. Codes
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4670-5284-9

Chapter One

THE SIXTH TIME

I-at-the-time, "Blake Walters," had died, just a moment ago. It wasn't my first time dying. But it was Blake's. Blake Walters had finally been taken out at the ripe age of 43. It may seem peculiar that I am referring to myself, Blake Walters, in the third person, but, I assure you, everything will all make sense to you soon. I am trying to make sense of it all myself, since it just happened a moment ago, I believe. They say that there's no sense of time here in any case, so I actually don't know for sure how long I've been so dreadfully confused. But I will tell you what little I can from what I can surmise about all of this. Supposedly, none of us mortals (ha! mortals) are supposed to be aware let alone know of any of this—at all.

Like I said, I, Blake Walters, had just died. I died while attending yet another benefit gala I was sponsoring. I didn't even know what the benefit was. I didn't care. I just signed checks; I paid other people to care. So there I was, giving my toast, the one I like to make at parties, about prosperity and securing wealth and all that other bullocks I half-heartedly believe. You know, the usual, the crowd-pleaser.

But anyhow, there I am with everyone's attention hanging on my each and every word. As I held my glass outstretched toward the crowd, I looked out, thinking about how often I had delivered the same as always bloody speech and fumbled through the same words and how everyone would just gobble it up. The same shit. I was always too lazy to fix things that weren't broken; what's the point in that?

Perhaps it was cockiness that killed me. I'd always been an arrogant lad. But why did I have to go out this way—of all the fucking ways to die, why did this have to be mine?

Although initially I had a problem with the idea, I became comfortable with going out to cancer-it was an acceptable way to pass. In fact, I was almost sure that the cancer diagnosis had done me in. But no, I couldn't go to cancer. No. Instead, God decides to allow a peppermint—yes, a tiny red and white peppermint—to take down the Blake Walters. I'm sure all of my enemies and friends, got a real kick out of that one.

I was in cutlery—the number-one distributor in the U.K. and abroad. I had a wife (my second) and three children. Two girls and a bastardly faggot, I dare not say "son." I myself was a blue-eyed Jew who had made his way into London at a young age. I always felt rather bad in not claiming my mother's heritage. But I was better off for it; my father told me so. My father was a British man.

My circumstances became privileged at a young age. There were a few years when my family (my mother, father, my brother "Leroy", and my older sister) experienced considerable hardship. When we attempted to escape Poland and somehow pilgrimage back to my father's home isle, my mother, along with my sister, was seized and raped or murdered (I'm not sure). My brother Leroy also died along the way during our way back to Britain. To say the least, it wasn't a good trip. I've tried to forget about it, but the memories haunted me till my very last day.

My father and I relocated to London, where I remember my father being rich and successful. That's where life began for me. Success was all that ever mattered. I was now an only child, with no mother, and although I supposedly had had "brothers and sisters" it didn't feel like it. The only things I possessed of my dead mother, my sister, and Leroy were my memories, which I attempted to block—they were just too painful for such a young lad to weather. After a while, I began not to miss them—anymore. I guess my rudimentary effort at repression worked, because I soon began to forget them and their faces.

In time, I could only remember that I always used to look up to my brother Leroy, and that's why I named the eldest and only male of my offspring "Leroy Jr."—or Leroy for short. When we were settling on Leroy's name his mother initially objected the addition of the suffix 'Jr.', since he in fact was not a 'Jr.' by definition. It was unorthodox, but I kept the Jr. to his name to pay a unique homage to my brother. I'm actually not quite sure if Leroy was my brother's actual name—I'm not sure about my own name for that matter. I recall a faint memory of my brother and I being called by different names in our youth, perhaps in Yiddish? I believe my father gave us new names during our fatal escape. I couldn't remember any other names, not my mother or sister's, so Leroy and Blake had to suffice. The short-lived name of 'Leroy' was all I had left to connect me to a cloudy past I was happy to let go of.

Leroy Jr., who himself turned out to be a faggot, is off at reform school—until he can get that fixed. I sent him there so my brother's name wouldn't be defiled—or let alone my own. Don't get me wrong: I wasn't raised in the most perfect of environments myself, and I have seen some pretty perverse things in my day, but my father would never have stood for having a faggot for a son, and I shan't either.

Anyhow, enough of that bollocks. As a young lad I was always taken care of. I got what I wanted, and I didn't have to share since I had neither brothers nor sisters. But I wasn't lonely, since all the other children in the neighborhood wanted to play with my toys and trinkets, all of which were so far superior to those of my peers. In sum, I was always popular and well-liked.

My father was never around much, but it was fine, as I remained satisfied; I rather enjoyed being so well provided for. We believed ours was a healthy distance. Money was no doubt a mutually recognized buffer between our having an actually substantial father-son relationship, but like I said: I rather enjoyed being so well provided for.

Throughout my adolescence I saw less and less of Father. I saw more of him from the occasional sighting of some random fox wearing one of his dress shirts and some undergarments, always in some odd location, like rummaging through our pantry and asking me if we had any pickles or the like. Seeing his clothes, I would think of him, but I probably wouldn't see him in the flesh for a few days more. Looking back, I believe my dad would like to find sex before he went off on business trips. As a traveling businessman myself, I can understand that. Or I rather, I could understand it, then.

(Apologies. I'm just getting used to speaking of myself in past tense.)

When my father would return from his travels, it would always be a joyous occasion. We would do a day or so of bonding, which normally involved me returning home weighed down with gadgets and gizmos. The scheduled visits, the gifts—no matter how much or how little of a surprise they were, how simple or how lavish, or supposedly sentimental (I'm sure a majority of my birthday gifts were purchased by his assistant) were nice, but unnecessary. As I grew older I realized how routine spending time with my father had become: after a while, there was no heart behind our time together. A hand-drawn smiley face on a blank check would have felt warmer. Even our once-coveted father-son relationship became 'just business' to my father, like everything else in his life. When he passed, I inherited his business.

I was most definitely blessed in the inheritance of my father's successful business, and, above all, in not having to share it. But as much of a blessing as the business was, I took it to new heights, all of my own accord! An example: initially all we produced and distributed was cutlery, but now we also produce kitchenware! Yes! An impressive feat indeed! So much success, and more than enough to show for it in such a short time! Damn. I just wonder where I could have gone, what I could have reached, if it hadn't have been for that blasted peppermint.

So there I am, mindlessly delivering my speech to all of those bloody people (over half of them there only to kiss my pale hairy ass) and I forgot about the bloody peppermint in the back of my mouth. Suddenly, I began to choke mid-sentence. I believe my last words were something regarding 'success' (at least, I hope they were—I always envisioned my last words being something striking). I began to wheeze. Oh my, I must've sounded like such a ninny.

What actually vexed me a bit was the sloth of my peers' response to my choking. I mean, how much more of a fucking confirmation you need by way of signal that 'Yes you bloody idiot! The reddish-burple colour in me face means I am choking!' in order to get a move on and save a lad's life?! What were they thinking—that I was choking on my cancer?! I was always surrounded by idiots—the event of my death merely confirmed it. Or did they wait for me to die? Those buggers! The bloody traitors! And my wife! Right there beside me! Oh! I always knew that I couldn't fully trust that woman. Always nagging and filling our little girls' heads with ideas and sorts! Bollocks! But I suppose I can't blame her—I cheated on the girl a few times (that is, times she wasn't aware of). But I've repented for it all, and never sinned those same sins again. Well, now that I'm dead, I suppose I won't get the chance to ...

All right now, you are pretty much caught up in the story, because, as I told you, this all just happened a moment ago, I believe. So pay close attention.

After a moment or two of struggling, I realized (I'm not exactly sure how) that I was indeed going to die. The best way I can describe the sensation would be the urgency you feel when you've had to whizz for a long time and just remembered that you had to go or you would wet yourself, publicly. (Well, at least, that's the feeling I felt. It is odd, but I feel like I've felt that odd sensation before.)

Then the most peculiar thing happened, or rather several things did, actually. However, nothing I had really expected in dying happened. Instead, I began, from my foetal position on the floor, to witness myself dying. It was so odd! (I don't believe I can stress enough how 'odd' may be the only word I can conjure up to describe the experience. I would be interested to hear how others would describe it—given the chance to come back and report.) There I was, a dying spectator watching the poor excuse of a collective rescue effort—my own—one very messy debacle indeed. I could read their mouths:

"Call the doctor"

"Check his pulse!"

"Has he croaked?"

"BLIMEY!"

"Is that Mr. Walters?"

It was utter disarray—in silence. Everyone was surrounding my soon-to-be corpse, not really doing anything substantive, rather just poking their noses in. I wasn't seeing much action. And I literally was seeing! The experience was rather like watching live television, but with no sound. NO sound, that is, until I heard their voices discussing my fate and lifetime. So: the next voices we will hear, together, are the voices of two angelic/demonic creatures, or spirits ... oh, hell, I don't know ... I told you! This all just happened.

And that is where my seventh time begins. We'll start here.

Chapter Two

HELVEN

"Who we got this time?" asked the first of the two, the one called "Kennington". Kennington got directly in front of my face and inspected me up and down.

"This time ... looks to be ... a Blake Walters. He choked—but he had cancer, too," offered the one called "Sable".

"Oh! I always hate when they choke," Kennington said, looking back at Sable. Or rather, I assume he was looking back at Sable (can I assume 'it' is a 'he'?) somewhere in the distance—I couldn't see Sable from my vantage point splayed out on the floor with dozens of people around me running about like chickens with their heads cut off. Kennington seemed rather like a ghost, floating directly over me as people maneuvered about through him much as they would through a ghost or something similar. "I hope he doesn't choke his next time, it's such a pitiful way to go, you know?" he said.

"What do you mean, my next time?!" I blurted. I don't know how I got anything out, as I wasn't really speaking—it's more like I thought the words out loud. It felt like stereophonic sound buzzing in between my ears—if that makes sense. Nothing was making much sense at the moment.

Kennington snapped his attention back toward me.

"Oh no! He can hear us! SABLE! He can hear us!"

"You cannot be serious! What gloves are you using?" Sable demanded.

Kennington looked at me and then turned around to inspect the gloves he was wearing beyond my field of vision. "I can see you, too!" I shouted.

"Ah! Sable! He can see us too!" Kennington hollered.

"That's besides our troubles now. Pull him up," Sable ordered.

"Holy Shit!" I exclaimed in a high-pitched noise as Kennington suddenly shoved his gloved forearm down my throat. All of a sudden I could see from where I had been witnessing the events unfold as I dodged side-to-side to avoid capture.

"Oh, you resilient little soul!" Kennington bellowed as he attempted to fix me in his grasp; "me" being a soft glow of light—a little ball of incandescence. I was swift, like hot fuzz. "Come here, you little bugger!" Kennington exclaimed, victorious at last as he squeezed me into his mercy.

"Hey there! Ease up, a bit, would ya?' I shouted.

"Oh, hush. I know you feel no pain," dismissed Kennington.

I paused. "You're ... right. I actually don't feel anything."

"Precisely, you don't feel anything here," Kennington said, in a rather menacing tone, seemed menacing—to me at least.

"Are you who they call 'The Grim Reaper'?" I asked in a way that made me feel as though my non-existent eyebrows were raised. He/she, whatever it might have been, brought me directly in front of his/her/its face and let out a slow laugh. (I still was not sure whether or not Kennington was a he? Maybe he's actually an 'its'?)

"No. We are daemons. And who's 'they'? Do you know someone that has died and come back to tell you about it? Do you actually know anyone like that?" Kennington asked me directly, pulling me close to his (we'll say 'his', for the sake of not being equipped with a better guess, I am going to make Kennington a 'him') piercing eyes.

"Uh, no. No, I do not," I said with a tremble in my stereophonic sound.

"Phew!" he sighed with relief, wiping away imaginary sweat beads from his forehead. "I was hoping we hadn't fumbled on another one—it would have just meant another ruined soul, another ruined life. But let's get this a-going, so you won't end up as one of them, shall we?"

"Is he ready?" asked Sable, blandly.

"Are you ready, Blake?" Kennington asked me, piercing me with an urgent stare.

"Ready for what?" I asked.

"For your next lifetime," stated Kennington matter-of-factly.

"My next lifetime? What do you mean, my next lifetime?" I asked, utterly bewildered.

"Well, Blake, you've died before. This is your sixth—" Kennington said quickly.

"Kennington!" shouted Sable angrily.

"Oh my, I've done it again, haven't I?" said Kennington disappointedly, his forehead resting on his palm in shame.

"Yes, yes you have. This has happened one time too many, Kennington," chided Sable. "Blake, please pay attention to me. Release him, Kennington." Kennington released his grip on my senseless soul. As Sable approached me, we all began to rise upwards at a hasty pace, leaving the traumatic scene behind below.

As we rose, I got a better glimpse of my new companions. Kennington and Sable were indescribably featureless, an androgynous duo of sorts; I wasn't totally sure which (or who) was what. They were difficult to make sense of—I wasn't sure what in the world to think or feel about them—since they were nothing like anything from my world. To me, they both seemed to have a grim aurora about themselves, yet I didn't totally fear them, but was in fact somewhat attracted to both. Perhaps this was because they were the only things I had to communicate with and help me sort all this bollocks out. Frankly, I didn't know whether to be more or less distrusting of either of the two. I couldn't tell if they were angels or demons, as they each had angelic and demonic qualities about them.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The 7th Timeby J. Codes Copyright © 2012 by J. Codes. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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