Author’s note: Listen up, Internet: this idea is MINE.  I’m throwing an intellectual property claim on it right now.  If I find someone has started this bar and isn’t paying me any royalties, I will be furious.

There comes a time in every man’s life when he is confronted by a deep-seated and primal urge.  This desire usually sets in at some age between the late twenties and early forties; the timing is variable, but the strength of the desire is always overwhelmingly strong.

For me, that time came earlier than for most.  I was only just entering my twenty-sixth year of age when I pulled out my phone, dialed my best friend’s number, and spoke those fateful words:

“Dude, we should buy a bar.”

At first, the other end of the line was silent.  Then came: “Are you drunk right now?  Isn’t this a joke from that one show?”

I shook my head, forgetting that he couldn’t see me.  “No, I’m sober!  And serious!  Wouldn’t it be great to have a bar?”

“We don’t know anything about running a bar, though!  And we don’t have a liquor license.  Screw that, we don’t even have a building!”

“Yeah, but I’ve got the best concept for it!” I insisted.  “Listen to this.  We’re going to get one of those big LED stock tickers and run it all the way around the bar, up on the top, okay?”

“Okay . . .”

“The stock ticker will scroll around, showing the prices of drinks.  But we’ll change the prices of drinks up or down every half hour, and the ticker will adjust to show the new prices, and will show them in green or red, with arrows to show whether the price is going down or up.”

There was silence on the phone for a moment.  “Okay, I have to admit that it’s a pretty cool idea,” my friend said.  “But it’s just a gimmick, and it will make things confusing for the staff.”

“Not at all!” I protested.  “First off, we’ll pick the changes for the drink prices ahead of time, and we’ll program them all into the computer at the bar so that it automatically adjusts and always charges the correct price.  And we’ll have the whole thing be themed like the stock market!  Half the TVs will be showing finance channels, we’ll cater to the upscale MBA crowd, and maybe have a competition where people guess at which stocks will show the highest gains the next day, and if they’re right, they get a free drink!”

“You’ve put some thought into this, haven’t you?” my friend asked wryly.

I grinned.  I knew that I had him hooked.  Now to reel him in.  “You haven’t heard the name of the bar yet.”

“Ugh, I’m going to hate myself for asking.  What’s the name of the bar?”

I waited a moment, savoring the words in my mouth.  “The Exchange.”

My friend didn’t say a word.  I knew better than to keep talking, and simply smiled and held my tongue.  “Damn, that’s cool,” he said finally.  “All right, I’m in.  What next?”

Part II coming soon; stay tuned!

“Ready, and, begin!” the teacher intones from the front of the room.

I stare down at the blank paper, pencil in hand.  Ugh!  What sort of person decides that a creative fiction class should have an in-class final?

Okay, I know this.  All we have to do is write a piece of flash fiction.  And we’ve been studying it all semester.  Let’s see here . . .

First, we need to establish setting.  Or maybe characters.  Every author does it differently.  Oh man, that clock is going fast, and I’ve only got a half hour for this test!

Wait a second.  I remember that one strategy is to start in the middle, in the action.  Well, I’m here, panicking, as I’m trying to make it through the spring of my sophomore year.  Summer’s only a few days around the corner, and this final is one of the dwindling number of barriers between me and sweet, balmy, outdoor freedom.

All right, my initial premise is settled – time to add some description to the setting.  Sparing a quick glance up from my paper, I can gaze out across the sea of bent heads.  The halogen lights, hung high above the stadium seats of the cavernous lecture hall, can’t compete with the bright sunlight streaming in through the tiny windows in back.  Now, more than ever, that sunlight calls out to me with a siren song, tempting me from this paper.  But I resist.

I’m sitting about halfway up in the large hall, at what I have deemed the optimal distance from our professor. I’m too far back to be called on for questions, and high enough so that he can’t see whether I’m taking notes or doodling pictures of that pretty girl that sits off to my right.  I’m still close enough to the front, however, to be recognizable as a face in the crowd, to pick up those ever-helpful attendance and participation points.  The know-it-alls sit in front of me, the slackers behind me.

Oh my god, fifteen minutes have gone by already!?  This test is half over already!  I know I have a problem sometimes with time management, but this is ridiculous!

Okay.  Need to write.  Now that I’ve got a setting, some description, I need to add a plot.  Something has to happen.  Or maybe something has already happened, and I fill it in with flashbacks or backstory.  I gaze off, everything blurs, and I see the past as if I’m in a cheesy TV drama.

No, I can’t waste valuable time daydreaming right now!  That pretty girl over on my right is writing really fast.  She’s always got a good idea of what’s going on.  Heather, her name is.  I’ve been working up the courage all semester to go over and say hi, but I haven’t made a move yet.  And I’ve tried, believe me.  So many times I’ve headed for her as soon as the professor calls it a day.  But I always freeze up – I have no witty opener, no million-watt smile to flash.  And what would she, with her curly blonde hair, her sorority shirt, her drawstring bag, see in a guy like me?

Crap.  Seven minutes left.  All right, I’m going to ask out Heather after this test.  I’m going to go up, give her a smile, ask her how it went.  I’ll listen to everything she says, and she’ll see that I really am giving her my full attention.  Coffee will turn into dinner, which will turn into drinks, and I’ll walk her all the way back to her house even though it’s across campus.  I’ll shyly ask for her number, and send her a text saying good night.  She’ll agree to go out again, and I’ll work to plan out the perfect evening.

Of course, you’ll never know if I follow through or not.  That’s the downside to flash fiction; sometimes the resolution at the end is imperfect, whether due to running out of words, not having a fully developed story, or in my case, running out of time.

One minute left.  Heather’s standing up to hand in her paper now.  Looks like I’m done, too.  I know it’s cliche, but I think stories should always end the same way – at least the happy stories.  And I hope this turns out to be a happy story.

The End.

I sat up in my hospital bed as the new visitor entered.  I could tell right away that he was different from the usual bevy of nurses, relatives, doctors, and interns who made their way through my room.  For one thing, I suspected that most people weren’t allowed to bring a seven-foot scythe through an emergency ward.

“That’s not especially subtle,” I remarked, gesturing at the bladed instrument as the figure closed the door behind him.  I noted that I was no longer faint of breath, and reached up to remove the oxygen mask.  Of course, I had left it behind when I parted ways with my body.

Death looked up at his scythe.  “It doesn’t get much use,” he said in a thoughtful tone.  “Sign of the office, though.  Have to have it.”

“You can’t complain?  Maybe get a pocket model?” I suggested.

The dark figure cocked his head at me.  “One downside to being a celestial force is that there isn’t much of a command structure,” he said.  “I’ve basically got the rules to stick to, and nobody’s around to argue with.”

I nodded, but my thoughts returned to more pressing matters.  “So, I’m dead,” I commented.

“Yep.”

“What’s next?”  I asked.  “Heaven?  Hell?  Reabsorbed into the bright light at the end of the tunnel?  Do I wander the earth for the rest of time as a ghost?  Is Jesus waiting outside for you to finish up in here?”  I honestly wasn’t sure if I was joking or not.

Death simply shrugged at me.  “Up to you, really,” he said.  “What do you think should happen?”

It was up to me?  I felt slightly cheated, as though I was finding out that the whole afterlife was a scam.  “Well, maybe I should get a palace in the skies with my 72 virgins,” I retorted.  “I don’t know!  I thought I wasn’t supposed to worry about this stuff, focus on living!”

Before answering, Death carefully leaned the scythe against the wall, settling into the visitor’s chair in the suite with a sigh.  “Look, the main goal is to be happy,” he began, his fingers coming together in a steeple.  “Think of it like this.  Before you died, most of your energy was spent keeping your body in check.  It had to do what you asked of it, not talk back, obey commands – that’s a lot of work.  That takes constant focus to manage so many different tasks and keep them in sync.”

“I wasn’t doing so well at it towards the end, though,” I remarked sardonically.  I knew it probably wasn’t a good idea to use sarcasm on Death, but I just couldn’t hold back the words.

Death didn’t seem perturbed by my outburst.  “It’s always hard,” he said simply.  “But now, you’re free from all of that, and you now have no outlet for your complete and total focus.  When you were alive, you used your focus to control your body around you, to keep it how you wanted.  But now, you can apply that focus to your surroundings.  You can make your existence however you want.”

I paused to contemplate this.  “So, if I wanted to be surrounded by all my loved ones . . .” I began.

“Then you can make it so,” he said simply.

I thought some more.  “So once I make a decision, am I stuck with it forever?”

“If you eat cereal for breakfast each morning, and one day you want pancakes, are you forbidden from consuming them?” he retorted.

“I suppose not,” I replied.  “So I’m really this free?  I can do whatever I want?  Am I going to be bumping into all sorts of other ghosts?”

Death sighed slightly, raising his eyes to transfix me in his gaze.  “Once again, only if you want to,” he said.  “Some people seek out companionship.  Some need adversity, challenges to overcome.  Some want nothing but to relax.  Whatever it is, you can have it now.”

“Okay, but,” I protested.  “Let’s say that I want to have a talk with Albert Einstein.  I’m sure that some other dead person wants to do so, too!  Who gets Einstein?  Or are we both there with him?  And what if he doesn’t want to talk with either of us?”

The man waved his hand in response.  “If you want to talk to Einstein, you will speak to him,” he said.  “If somebody else wants to, they will speak with him, too.  And Einstein will do whatever he wants, which right now is to explore the Andromeda galaxy.  All of this can happen at the same time.  Your Einstein is Einstein, same as the other person’s, same as the one currently in deep space.”

The implications were staggering, almost beyond my grasp.  I sat back slightly onto the bed.  A nurse had stepped into the room, and was currently shouting for a crash cart in the hallway, but she was beneath my notice now.  “How long do I have to decide?” I asked.

Death rose to his feet, picking up his staff of office.  He slid the window open, gazing outside.  “As long as you want,” he replied, over his shoulder.

“And can I ask you if I have more questions?”

At this, Death paused.  “I’m sure you will figure it out,” he said finally, and leapt from the window.

I ran to look outside, but of course he had vanished.  I tried willing him back, but nothing happened.  So instead, I leaned back, thinking light thoughts, watching as I rose up through the ceiling to settle on the roof.  The sun felt warm against my skin; the hospital gown was replaced by a comfortable shirt and jeans.  I gazed out across the rooftops, watching the possibilities unfold.