Chapter 1
Harold groaned as he lifted his lumbering frame from his stair lift and groaned his way towards his bed. ‘I’m getting too old for this shit’ he thought to himself as he lazily kicked off his slippers and removed his dressing gown, revealing his naked saggy body beneath. He sat on the edge of the bed and removed his dentures with his wrinkly, liver spotted hands. Harold was right, he was getting too old for this shit, and that’s why god chose exactly that moment to give Harold a fatal heart attack. Harold was a miserable man, the kind of man that alienated anyone he spoke to, and on the odd occasion that someone found his grumpy persona to be likeable and charming, he made sure to try doubly hard to insult them. His wife Maud had passed fifteen years ago and he had been alone almost all of that time. He had very briefly had a couple of nurses, but his crude comments and physical groping had got the better of all of them,. That was why, whilst Harold’s decrepit old body flailed miserably on the floor like a washing machine on a trampoline, no one was around to help. Or to care.
Harold opened his eyes, immediately assuming his default position of, pissed off. ‘Where the fuck am i’ he thought as he strained his eyes to see through the blinding whiteness that seemed to be emanating from every direction, ‘turn the bleeding lights down would ya? Can’t see a fucking thing here’ Harold shouted as his eyes adjusted. When at last his vision had returned Harold was surprised to see that he was standing on what appeared to be a cloud, in front of what appeared to be a set of giant pearly gates. Standing in the centre of the gateway was undeniably an angel, she was dressed in a flowing white toga, bearing a sticker above her right breast that read: hello my name is; Gabriel.
‘Hello Harold’ she sang in the most beautiful voice Harold had ever heard.
Harold cautiously took a step towards Gabriel, clearly mistrustful of this rather peculiar turn of events.
‘Do not fear Harold, you have been granted entry into the gates of heaven, come i shall take you to your wife’
At the mention of Maud, Harold’s stone heart melted, his eyes filled with tears at the mere prospect that he would be reunited with his beloved for the rest of eternity. Harold quickly stepped towards the angel Gabriel, and then promptly vanished.
‘Well that wasn’t supposed to happen’ Gabriel stated, to no one in particular.
Harold had quite frankly grown bored of opening his eyes and discovering he was somewhere new, he hadn’t minded it the first time as he’d awoken in heaven, however this time he appeared to have awoken in the middle of a western movie, and was most definitely not inside his own body. In fact Harold had awoken in the small town of Amherst, situated within the state of Texas, which was in turn situated within the country of northern america. As to the body, a cursory glance at his hands had revealed he was in fact now black, and judging by the two growths on his chest, he had his suspicions that he was also a woman. Harold had briefly considered putting his hand down his trousers in order to confirm his theory, but having never been resurrected before he wasn’t entirely sure of the polite social conventions, and couldn’t decide whether or not that constituted a gross invasion of privacy.
‘How has this happened’ Harold grumbled to himself, entirely overlooking the miraculous chance to start over he had been granted. ‘Not only am i back on this wretched planet, but i’m a fucking subspecies’ Harold racistly remarked to himself because Harold was, in case you hadn't noticed by now, an absolute cunt.
I would now like to take a moment to explain exactly what kind of story this is. Most books feature a passive narrator who will dutifully describe in very biased detail exactly what is happening. This is not that kind of story, and i am not that kind of a narrator. Instead i am the kind of who has no reservations about telling the truth, which is why i feel comfortable calling the man, who is unfortunately our protagonist, a cunt. I also harbour no issues with elaborating on that description and describing Harold as a grotesque piece of human shit who serves as nothing more than a stunning example of why abortions should be legalised. Now that we are all on the same page so to speak, i think we should continue with our story.
