​Life’s After-Party

A trip to Chicago

As I climbed the stairs from the subway up to the cold, downtown Chicago evening, I was greeted by a much more lively atmosphere than I was used to back home. I was surrounded by buildings that stood over me at what seemed over one hundred times my height. Henna grasped my hand tightly, and when I looked over she was concentrated on her phone, trying to make sense of where we were supposed to go from here to get to my brother’s new apartment. She never trusted me with directions, not after we almost missed our own graduation because I had mixed up “5th” and “15th” street.

After glancing around the crowded street, I saw the street sign: ‘Michigan avenue’. Jerking my hand free from hers, I pointed to it. “There, that’s the street we need.”

Henna glanced up, with a confused look, and then back down at her phone, muttering “No… I don’t think so, Roy. Hold on, let me figure this out.”

I sighed. “Look, Josh said we needed to take Michigan Avenue, go north, and after we cross the bridge we’ll hit Lake Street, where we take a left, and his appartment is on the left.” After a few moments of no response, I then added “Stop using Apple Maps. It doesn’t work well, especially here.”

Henna looked up from her phone, giving me a pensive look, eventually putting her phone in her pocket and motioning for me to lead the way. It wasn’t her fault that she was clueless, when Apple Maps would give anyone directions, you would always get lost, and and arrive at least five minutes late.

Walking along the Chicago street, I paid close attention to the people I passed. All types of people: businessmen, geeks, young adults going out for the night, couples, families, and homeless. Everyone with their own stories, accomplishments, and life goals. Passing one girl who was violently cursing on her cell phone, it made me wonder what she was upset about, and what big life event she might - or might not - be going through. In all, I was intrigued by all of the interesting life around me, something I was definitely not used to in a sparsely populated rural area in Ohio.

After getting half-way over the Michigan Avenue Bridge, Henna grabbed my hand again and pulled her phone out. “Picture?” she asked. Looking across the water, I saw a beautiful array of colors as the sun neared its setting position at the end of the river, over Lake Michigan. Smiling, I agreed. She took one of me, then I took one of her, and then I took one of just the scenery. I was happy, it was sure to make a good Facebook profile picture later.

Proceeding past the bridge a few blocks, we finally came to East Lake Street, where we took a left and soon found MDA Apartments, where my brother lived. Going through the front door, I gave the doorman a friendly wave before proceeding to the elevators at the right, which were preceded by glass doors. Getting to the doors, I found them locked. “Uh, hey, can you let us in please?” I asked.

The doorman, who was an older woman working at a desk, didn’t look up at me before hitting a button under her desk, causing the door to unlock. Either she was having a bad day, or she hated her job and everyone she met due to it. Regardless, Henna and I proceeded through the doors and got on the elevator and pressed the button for floor 15.

“Some security,” Henna said. “Anyone can just walk inside if they ask ‘can you let me in’?”

“It’s more of a look test than anything else. If someone walks in with an AK-47, it’s going to be an issue.”

“Seems like a flawed system.”

“Everything in Chicago is a flawed system. Don’t get me started on the politics.”

The elevator emitted its eventful chime as we arrived at the floor, and I quickly scanned the appartments for his: 1512. Upon finding it, I shyly tapped on his door, irrationally afraid that it could be someone else’s and I would be disturbing them. Having known me long enough to presumably know why I had just done that, Henna reached around me and knocked more loudly on the door. We exchanged pleasant smiles before my brother opened the door.

Standing at a gargantuan five inches taller than me, he gave a smile and “hello”.  Henna and I reciprocated the greeting, and went inside. “So, you must be Henna. Roy has told me a lot about you.”

Henna gave me a smile before returning her focus to my brother, and slipping her hand into mine. “Has he, now?”

Josh nodded, and then appeared to study us closely before concluding out-loud “Yep, you two look like a good couple.” Never knowing how to respond to compliments such as these, I immediately brought up the necessity for us to help my brother move the remainder of his personal items from his old apartment today, as his lease ended tomorrow. As if sparking a brilliant idea from within him, he softly pointed his finger at me. “Right you are, I’ll go down and reserve the elevator now.”

Just after I understood what he said, I turned just as he was going out the door and question: “Why do you need to reserve the elevator? We’re only bringing up seven or eight boxes, it would only take two trips between the three of us.”

Josh grunted. “They’re very strict on the ‘you don’t move in or out unless if you reserve the elevator in advance’ rule. My neighbor got fined a hundred dollars for just bringing up a bunch of cases of beer.”

“Seems like a fucked up system,” I complained.

“Well, they also give you a cart to move the boxes with, so it’s not all bad. And there’s only one operational elevator at this point, so it does produce a difficulty.”

“Still a fucked up system,” said Henna. Josh smiled and closed the door behind him, leaving me and Henna in a peaceful silence, only interrupted by the cacophonous sound of the city outside of the open window. Henna sat down on my brother’s sofa. “He seems much more positive than you originally gave him credit for.”

Sitting down next to her, I pulled out my phone and started scrolling through my text message conversation with Josh. “He’s simply on his best behavior around you. Once you are around him more often, you’ll see this side of him.” I passed the phone to Henna, who stared, horrified, at the phone before quickly handing it back to me. “I’ve never seen him so well behaved before. It reminded me of when we were children, and he didn’t constantly complain about everyone around him being ‘recursively asinine fools who f**k everything up for everyone else.’ Honestly, I don’t know how he has any friends, he’s never said anything nice about the people at his work.”

Henna chuckled. “How were you two raised by the same parents? You seem polar opposites in respect to your outlooks on life.”

I paused, and thought for a moment. “I guess I just never wanted to be like my brother. Always judging other people, not knowing what they might be going through. It’s just not the life I wanted to lead.”

Henna pressed her hand on mine, interlocking our fingers. “Is that why you complained about the elevator thing?” she teased.

Pointing my other finger at her as if about to make a defensive statement, I simply stated: “Ok, I’ve hung around him too much. I’ll admit it.” I turned away, chortling at the irony that my brother and I had switched personalities during our conversation, when suddenly my pocket gave off the signal vibration.

It was my brother, simply telling me to pull his car around in front of the apartment building so we could get going as soon as he got the elevator reserved. “The keys are on my desk - see them?” Getting up from the sofa, I made my way over to his cluttered hodgepodge of a desk. Though, right on the edge were his keys. He told me that his car was in the garage to the left of his apartment, I couldn’t miss it if I walked in that direction.

Henna and I exited his apartment, and headed east. As promised, we quickly came to the parking garage. After following my brother's instructions - fourth floor, far back left of the floor, use the panic button on the keys when I get close - we eventually found his car: A grey saturn, or something. I wasn’t a big vehicle enthusiast, so I couldn’t care less the details of what it was; in my view, a car that runs is a good car to me.

After driving down the nerve-racking, windy ramp down to the street, I turned right onto the busy Chicago road. Just then, my phone vibrated from my pocket again. I reached inside and saw who was calling, my brother again, just before my thoughts were interrupted by a roaring horn. I jerked my head up just in time to see the truck before I collided with it.

* * * * *

I woke up gasping for air, yet unable to move my body. After a few moments of panic, I was able to sit up, coughing and wheezing furiously. Realizing that I was on a bed, I got off the bed, and tried to balance myself as I analyzed the room. I’m in a hospital, I thought. My thoughts became filled with Henna, whether she was ok or not. Frantic and delirious, I looked around me to gain a better sense of where I was: a plain room, with white walls, flooring, and ceiling. The room was very small, about the size of my bedroom. The only objects in the room were a grey bed in one corner, two strips of vertical metal in another, and next to it a desk with a computer and chair.

It was then that I realized that there were no doors in the room. Am I in a prison? Did someone die? My thoughts returned to Henna, and I prayed that she was ok and that I did not harm her.

As I walked over to the desk in the room, I glanced down at the ground and noticed that I did not have a shadow. Looking up and all around me, in fact, I couldn’t find a single light source. There were no lamps on the walls or in the ceiling, nor was there one of those glowing sticks in each of the corners. Befuddled as to how light could possibly get into the room, I sat down at the desk and powered the computer on.

Despite looking like an old computer from the 90’s, it loaded the operating system immediately, presenting me with some kind of control panel. The first option I saw was “Search persons”, which I clicked on, and typed in “Henna Grace Brown” in the search field. A table of one result was shown next, with a picture of Henna clarifying that I had the correct person. My heart sank when I read a field containing bold, green text: “Dead - Retrieved”.

My heart pounded painfully against my chest as I read that phrase over and over again. What the f**k does that mean? Retrieved? I almost got up from the computer to vomit when I found a big, blue button labeled “invite to present location” at the far right of Henna’s search listing. After hesitating for a brief moment, I clicked it, with the foolish prayer of somehow becoming reunited with Henna.

The screen transformed into a skype call-like interface, where it appeared that I was waiting for someone to accept my request. After a few moments, the words “accepted” popped up on the screen, and the area between the two strips of metal at my right became faded in with a dark blue color, which faded into a picture of Henna. Only, this picture moved, at me. As she stepped through what appeared to be some kind of portal, I ran to her and hugged her tightly. Part of me thought this had to be a dream, but here she was, alive and tangible. “I thought you were dead…” I began to explain.

“Me too,” she replied. She hugged me back and kissed me.

After we got over the fact that we were both alive, we began trying to figure out what was going on. “So a computer system has us both listed as dead, neither of us cast shadows, and we appear to be surrounded by both incredibly advanced and incredibly old technology,” I recapped. “So… aliens?”

“Or time travel,” Henna suggested. “Did you ever see that one Millenium movie where the people from the future had gone back in time to collect people right before they died so they could continue to live in a different civilization?”

Pandering for a few moments, I went back to the computer, and returned to the control panel, at  which I was only confronted with two other options: “Observer,” and “Help”. Wanting to maintain my long-standing tradition of never using an in-program help page, I clicked on “Observer,” when a jet of bright blue cylindrical light shined up from the floor to the ceiling. Upon further inspection, I found some remote suspended in the center - and grabbed it. It had only four buttons, ‘stop’, ‘pause’, ‘forward’, and ‘backward’.

Just then, just as before when Henna had entered the room, blue light shined between the two strips of metal, which faded into the streets of a city. Walking through it with Henna, I immediately recognized it as the location we had the audience - though everything around us was paused. People were frozen in mid-step, and cars did not move.

Surveying the streets, I found the car that we were in, pulling out of the garage. As I pressed ‘forward’ on the remote, the world around me seamlessly started into motion. After my car pulled out, it swerved to the left and collided with a truck a few moments later, at which point the truck appeared to be completely unaffected by the incident, while my brother’s poor car was completely obliterated. Pressing the pause button again, the world stopped as if the hand of God reached in and told me to look at what I had done.

As I approached the smoking vehicle with Henna, I peered inside to be able to just barely see two bloody bodies. I stepped back, finally taking in what I had done, and pressed the ‘stop’ button.

My surroundings, except Henna, melted away until it was gradually replaced with the original room I started in. Henna and I stood, horrified, in silence until I finally forced myself to speak: “I’m so sorry.”

She walked over, hugged me, and whispered in my ear, “People make mistakes, others have done far worse. Don’t beat yourself up.” Henna paused, then added: “It’s not like I’m really dead anyways, we don’t even know what has happened to us. Any new ideas?”

Knocking myself out of my shock, I focused for few moments, then gave up. “No f****n’ clue. My vote is for a computer program made by aliens.”