Chapter One

The candescent lights were on at the grocery store. It was night and the night shift workers were about to start their work.

But Lance Bottoms a 15 year old with brown-curly hair and beige skin was not going to be a part of it.

The manager had called on him earlier, saying it was an important meeting.

Lance hoped it wouldn't affect his night shift. He needed the extra cash, now more than ever.

He walked up to the old steel door of Mr Drew's office and knocked.

"Come in" A voice said from inside.

Lance opened the door, the hinges creaking, and he walked inside. "Mr. Drew?"

Mr. Drew was a middle aged man and grey hairs had started to make their first appearances on his head.

He also wore a square rimmed spectacle, and he looked up. "Lance, yes."

He dropped the magazine he was reviewing, and took a deep breath. "Look, I understand what you've been through. With the death of your mom and everything. A boy your age ain't supposed to go through that. And truly, I sympathize with you. But we've given you enough time to work yourself together, especially since your sales have been depleting and your productivity slacking, and you've been skipping days. It has cost us more than we can bear to manage. So I'm deeply sorry, but we'd have to lay you off" His voice took on a stern tone. "So that means no night-shift for today as well."

Lance's breath caught. He couldn't believe his ears. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach, like a black hole had opened and was pulling his gut into it.

He was being sacked? But he had no where else to go or work, and no one else since the death of his mom.

He had to provide for himself now, and he was already being sacked.

He felt an odd patch in his throat. "Mr Drew... I.. I'm sorry I slacked. I promise I'll pull myself together and redouble my efforts. I don't have any other Job you see"

"I'm sorry Lance, but there's nothing I can do. You can come back when you're better and if there's a vacancy here, you'll be re-employed."

Lance's head slunk, feeling weightless with the blankness of his thoughts as he retracted out of the room.

What was he going to do now?

There was nothing left.

He took his worn-out black back pack and headed for the front door of the grocery store.

His colleagues surveyed him with questioning stares.

He had told them earlier the Manager wanted to have a meeting with him.

But there was no need for them to know the outcome now, specially from him.

"Lance? Where to?" One of them asked.

But he didn't turn or respond.

He walked out into the cold of the night, his back pack slung on his shoulder.

The chilly air greeted him and he hated it.

The night was bustling with the hoot of passing vehicles, pedestrians chittering along the sidewalk, or crossing the street.

The tall buildings and shops were still lit and busy.

It was as if everything and everyone was upstaging on his despair.

The heavy patch in his throat began to rise. It was already a familiar feeling, and it'd lead to something he did almost all the time now.

Crying.

His eyes had already started to cloud and the first tear escaped his eyelid.

But there was something in the atmosphere.

His hazy cloud of tears had morphed into something a distance far away.

Purple clouds, dome-like buildings, spiked cathedrals, and pine trees. A different misty world, hanging in the air.

He laughed at himself. He was now seeing things. Maybe this was what going crazy felt like.

A speeding car appeared from an inner road and unto the intersection he made to cross.

The car's headlights bathed him in bright, fiery yellow and white lights, almost before the collision, horning and hooting crazily.

Lance wished the lights would bring him relief and bliss from his grief,

just like the emblems in the fire-hearth,

beside which his mother would sit and cuddle him with stories, in his younger years.

And when the car hit him, throwing him into the cold air, that bliss came, numbing the hot,

searing pain that came and the metallic liquid that trickled with it.

Because something had shifted, there was a change in the air,

and he was now drifting on purple clouds--what heaven felt like?-- before the darkness claimed him.

****

"Lance, wake up" a boy prodded him , shaking him.

The boy had black hair and beige skin and wore a white robe with a purple strip-fabric wound round his waist like a belt.

It was the same clothing everyone else was wearing, and they had begun to gather around the bed.

"What's going on?" Someone asked.

"Why won't he wake?" Another asked.

Lance was awake, and could hear them , but he couldn't move, and maybe he was saying something, but he couldn't hear himself.

Then as if something was lifted off of him, he sprang upright on his bed.

"Finally!" The boy exclaimed, elated. "I was starting to get worried."

The others had clustered around him, peering to see what was going on.

But his throat felt patched, he needed space, he needed to breathe, his head felt warped and turned inside out. "I need air" He said dryly.

And water.

"Alright guys, off you go. He's ok now " The boy shoved at the others, shooing them away.

The shock and confusion hit him as he took in his environment, it hammered away in his head.

Where was he?

No. He knew where he was, but he didn't understand any of it.

Few minutes ago he had been sacked by his boss, and then killed in an accident.

He had been dead. He'd lost everyone and everything, and now even his life.

He recalled everything, but it all felt like a dream now.

Was this heaven perhaps?