Death Knocked on My Door to Open Another One
I laughed hysterically, in a quiet way though—ironic, it may sound dear readers, to quietly laugh hysterically, but there is no other way to express how it felt to rob gold bars from the another branch of the same company, again!. I reached for the back door, which is expected to open to a narrow alley, and I opened it.
“There’s no running away from it this time, V, we had been anticipating your presence here. Oh! It feels so good to finally get the notorious robber who has successfully broke into my company consecutive times.”
Lots of armed men wearing black suits and sunglasses were poised with their weapons aiming at my head ready to pull the trigger the moment I’d take a step further or backward—I felt like I was being filmed by the director of MIB, what is this MIB 5. In front of them stood a man, it was the owner of the pawnshop I always rob, his smirk made him look like a Xerox copy of Grinch.
What the hell is going on in here!? Impossible! I’ve been outsmarted!? How?
“Oh, look at the look on your face, you must be wondering how the mouse voluntarily walked into a mouse trap. Well it’s simple, think as if you’re a mother mouse, and your children are starving for cheese, they’re crying, ′Mommy cheese... Mommy cheese please!’. And out of your pity, you blindly volunteered to walk straight into a mousetrap to get the cheese, not knowing that I already fed them. It’s just that simple, boy. Who would’ve thought that the robber could be this young, what are you 16? That disqualifies you for the audition at the prison, but that’s okay, ’cuz since the beginning, I had no plans of putting you in prison.”
There’s got to be a hole in this plan, everything has a hole!everything! I glided my eyeballs from side to side.
“Oh, don’t even think about escaping, everything’s been planned well, if we’d let you walk from your back other armed men would still be waiting for you.” The boss let out a goddamn scary laugh. My whole body felt numb, I couldn’t feel my feet. This is it, no doubt about it. The boss stopped laughing,
“Kill him and leave the body, I’ll just control the media to say that the robber was robbed by another robber and killed. Well, of course the robbers already know that we took matters into our own hands, that’ll teach them a lesson.”
“This is Cebu News, citizens near the Sto. Niño church found a dead body of a young boy in the alley beside the Gold Prince pawnshop. The young boy’s body was severely damaged with a lot of bullet shots. Up until now there is still no confirmation as to who this boy is and who his parents are, but rumors say that he is the notorious thief who’s been robbing other branches of the Gold Prince. Here is Raymund T. Ng, the owner of Gold Prince, ′Gold Prince grieves the death of this young boy, despite what rumors say, he does not deserve a death like this, he had a whole future ahead of him. The Gold Prince will sponsor the boy’s funeral plan.′ There we go, Mr. Raymund is indeed quite the good samaritan... This is John Dave E. Villaflor reporting.”
How did it come to this? It must’ve been him, he must be the mouseling Raymund was referring to. Well, I forgive him, maybe he really needed the cheese. He must’ve thought that money matters more than my life, well come to think of it, everyone does. Well, I guess my absence won’t even bother them, cause my presence never actually mattered.
A strong light pierced through my closed eyelids.
What’s this? Am I in heaven? I’m supposed to be in hell, I already booked a room there.
I opened my eyes only to see that I was alive in some place else, it was not heaven for certain, nor was it hell. There were a lot of people sleeping in this place and we were all naked. Oh shit! Someone’s coming. I gotta hide or at the very least hide my hanging son.
A man wearing a fancy glowing white robe, and slippers with wings on both of his feet came hovering towards me—don’t tell me he’s Hermes.
“There’s no need to be thrilled, young boy, I’m Flinch, and I’m here to guide you to the Divine Counsel. But first let’s get you something to wear so you won’t have your hands around there for the whole time.”
Then in a blink of an eye or maybe in just a shake of a lamb’s tail or maybe in the time light covers a meter, I was already all dressed up.
“Umm... Thanks for that. Do you mind if I ask where I am?”
“Oh, you’ll know, kid. Once we get to the Divine Counsel, Rey will infuse you with Divine Knowledge, which, in turn, will automatically give you the answers to all of your questions.”
I nodded, to make him think that I understood what he said, but the truth is, everything he said was Chinese to me. What I did understand was that I just had to wait.
“Umm... Am I dead?” I asked the man, who seemed to be the right person to ask first.
“Do you think you are?”
Which idiot would answer a question with another question. Maybe he’s just getting into something.
“Of course, I do. I mean, a dozen men emptied the magazines of their SMGs just for me. Who would’ve survived that.”
“Well that sure is a not-so-good-way to die, isn’t it? Well, to answer your question, you didn’t die, it’s just that your dream stopped to continue as your life ended on your dream. To put it in simple terms, you were just dreaming and now you are awake in the real world. Funny the real life works, isn’t it?”
It’s just as if Death knocked at my door to open another one. Grim Reaper just had a new job description.
