02. Soul Grade Blues

Throughout her work day, Meridian could not help but feel as if everyone could tell the quality of her soul just by looking at her. It was as if she had a big sign strung around her neck saying, “Medium-grade and declining,” and everyone was staring at it.

The two newly dead souls she met today did not get the best tour experience from her and she could tell by the way, Dan Anderson, a former waiter in his late twenties with rough features and sapphire blue eyes, kept saying, “Is this all?” to everything she showed him about what the afterlife had to offer that it’d be a miracle if she convinced him to stay at all. Jose Martin, an older gentleman in his early sixties, who died on his couch being yelled at by his wife, just smiled and nodded while tugging at his unkempt reddish-brown beard the entire tour.

Even when they returned back to the Limbo Building, where she turned them over to a Transition Steward to handle the paperwork for their entrance into the transitional program, Meridian could not get two things off of her mind: one, Commissioner Dotan was once in the Netherworld; and two, she was likely headed there in the next thirty days.

Meridian sunk into the seat of her desk, which was covered in crumpled Afterlife brochures and papers with the names of all the souls she’d converted in the last month. She let out a frustrated cry, sounding more like a choking gurgle than the justified anger she felt and banged her fist on the desk. The other souls in the office stopped their conversations to look at her before shrugging it off and carrying on with their own business. It wasn’t the first time Meridian was in a bad mood.

It just wasn’t fair, though. Meridian was a good soul. Sure, she wasn’t always on time and she lacked a bit of responsibility, but she cared and she loved fully. That had to count for something. She spent the last five hundred years loving Omar and, now, his everlasting memory of her, a promise he made on her deathbed, was the reason she’d have to leave her home, her friends. It was a raw deal, but even in this moment of distress, just the thought of Omar made her heart tingle.

“Care to explain your mood?” a disembodied voice asked from the other side of the wall of the cubicle.

“You got time? This could take awhile.”

Her cubicle neighbor and friend, Grace Burton, popped her head over the dividing wall and pursed her red painted lips. “Tomorrow is your death day and you have a ’tude. Something tells me you had your meeting with the commissioner already.” She folded her arms across the dividing wall and leaned in. “So tell me about it.”

“Grace, it’s worse than I ever imagined.”

Grace let out a little puff of air and waved dismissively. “You say this every year, and every year turns out just fine.”

“Not this time,” Meridian shook her head, trying her best to give Grace her ‘this is serious’ look. “I don’t have much time left.”

“What do you mean you don’t have much time left?”

“Keep your voice down, would you?”

Meridian took a look around the office to see most other souls still engaged in their own conversations. While it was no secret that Meridian had not reincarnated (it was weekly watercooler gossip), she didn’t want anyone else to know about her doomed fate. It was embarrassing. She embarrassed herself enough on her own, so she did not need the technicalities of soul improvement to make her impending eternity in hell the talk of the Limbo Building.

“My voice is as quiet as it’s going to get. What do you want me to do? Speak to you with my eyes?”

“Grace!”

“Okay, okay!” Grace held her hands up and lowered her voice an octave. “How about this? Low enough?”

“I’m going to the Netherworld, Grace.”

“Well, why the hell would you go and do that? No pun intended.”

“Well, why the hell would you go and do that?” Meridian mocked. “Oh, I don’t know. I just thought it’d be a great idea to celebrate my five hundred and first death day by floating up the Styx to chill with the good old pal, Satan! Grace, you’re not listening!”

“I’m trying to, but you’re kind of awful at explaining what’s wrong. Just tell me what the commissioner said. It can’t possibly be as bad as you’re making it seem.”

Meridian rolled her eyes. “He said my soul grade is declining and I have thirty days to get it into shape or I’m being shipped out to the Netherworld for the rest of my existence.”

Grace let out a low whistle. “Whoa.”

“You’re telling me. And, get this, there likely isn’t any way that I could improve my soul grade without reincarnating. It’s just not fair!”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

Meridian’s eyes widened at Grace’s apparent lack of loyalty. “Come again?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s unfair,” she adjusted her arms on the dividing wall. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Meridian. You’ve been giving tours to newly dead souls for years and you tell them about the soul rules, reincarnation, and everything. You knew. You’ve had five hundred years of a head start to figure this out. Any responsible adult would have been looking for ways to upgrade their soul ages ago.”

Leave it to Grace to be rational in Meridian’s time of despair. When not in a state of panic, it was one of the many reasons Meridian liked Grace so much, but sometimes Meridian just wanted someone to be dramatic with her.

“When have you ever known me to be a responsible adult?” It was a joke between them that Meridian was like Grace’s child at times. It wasn’t that Meridian was reckless, but she was a bit short sighted, much to the annoyance of Grace, who, even while complaining, would help Meridian out of any bind if it was within her power to do so.

“There was that time when you — oh wait, no. That was Marge. Well, how about the time — no, nevermind. That was Peter.” Meridian gave Grace a triumphant smirk before Grace continued, “point still stands, Meridian. You’ve had time.”

Annoyed, Meridian folded her arms across her chest and let out a huff of air. She was sure she looked like a child, but Meridian did not care. Did Grace not understand that the Netherworld was stalking Meridian and before either of them knew it, she’d be snatched up within its clutches, never to be seen again? She could not possibly understand, because if she did, she would have spared Meridian her very valid point.

“You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I am on your side, but what is it that you’re expecting me to say?”

Meridian turned her head so that Grace was no longer in her line of vision. She didn’t want to see Grace’s face when she said what was on her mind. “You’ve already had your final judgment. What worries do you have?”

“That’s not fair,” Grace whispered.

It was as if the entire room became filled with Meridian’s guilt. She knew she shouldn’t have said it and the traces of hurt in Grace’s voice confirmed it. Meridian already went down that road though and in her anger (or was this envy), she could not stop the next words that tumbled out of her lips.

“Now you’re worried about what’s fair? I live every day of my life here, remembering a love I can never have again, which hurts every fiber of my being, while simultaneously being told that because of this love I’m going to hell. You just wouldn’t understand.”

“It’s not all kicks and giggles on this side either, you know? Being reincarnated, I mean."

"Oh sure. How awful it must be to have the opportunity to improve your soul so you're not in danger of being sent to the Netherworld. My mistake."

Grace let out a frustrated sigh. " We’re born again in a new body with all the memories of our old lives, but as that new body grows those memories begin to fade until the soul we once were no longer exists. When we die again and come here, we’re here every day remembering the people we left behind, knowing that once we reincarnate again, we’ll eventually forget them. It’s not even like they’re a memory. They just simply don’t exist to us. So yes, I’ve had my final judgment, but did I ever tell you how I died the last time?”

Meridian shook her head, remaining silent. She had never asked Grace how she died, and she felt slightly guilty for never thinking about it before. She'd been so consumed in her own issues, she never considered that Grace may have her own burdens she was holding onto. Meridian wasn't about to admit that out loud though.

“I died during childbirth, Meridian. I will never hold my baby and my baby will never know me. That is the death I will remember since reincarnation and judgment are no longer factors for me. I’ll be living my own personal hell right here for eternity.”

“Grace, I —”

“No Meridian, don’t. You’re upset and I know you didn’t mean it. You’re right. I don’t know what this is like and I have no idea what the Netherworld is like. I don’t imagine anyone here does.”

Meridian perked up at this and a conspiratorial smile grew upon her lips. “I didn’t even tell you the craziest part about this.”

“I can’t even imagine how this could get any crazier.”

“Commissioner Dotan was in the underworld before.”

“What?!”

“Shhh! Keep your voice down!”

“Sorry, but what?!”

Grace’s normally cool features were marred by what Meridian could only assume to be confliction. It was no secret to Meridian that Grace admired the commissioner and this bit of gossip had to shock her. If Meridian were being honest with herself, it almost made her feel a bit better to knock the commissioner down a peg in Grace’s eyes.

“He told me himself.”

“But that’s great news!”

It was Meridian’s turn to be surprised. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Don’t you see Meridian? If the commissioner was able to redeem himself, so can you! And he gave us this information with thirty days to figure it out! So maybe you won’t be going to the Netherworld after all.”

“Okay, first of all, he wouldn’t have said anything if I didn’t ask him, so the praise should go to me. And second of all, what do you mean ‘us’?”

“You didn’t think I was going to leave you to figure this out on your own, did you?”

“I just thought after I said those things, you’d …” Meridian trailed off and looked at her hands balled up in her lap.

“Oh, don’t be stupid. You need me.”

“You’re right. I do.” Meridian looked back at Grace and smiled gratefully. Only Grace could easily forgive Meridian after she made a royal idiot of herself, and only Grace could make Meridian’s problems her own. Bless her soul, literally. “Where would we even begin?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Where is the one place we can go and get any type of information we need on souls? The only place that could even possibly help us upgrade your soul?”

Meridian drummed her fingers on her desk. There was a place she was thinking of, but she couldn’t imagine Grace would be that bold. Although, this was a desperate time. Pushing rationality to the far corners of her mind, Meridian called out, “the Soul Bank!” just as Grace impatiently said, “the library!”

“What?!” Grace whisper yelled. She reached across the barrier to lightly slap Meridian’s arm. “How could you even think I would mean that?”

“I’m thinking I need a higher soul grade and what better place to upgrade than a bank?”

“This is a bad idea,” Grace’s voice had that tone she took whenever she was at her wit’s end with Meridian.

“Are you helping me or not?”

“Of course, I’m going to help you, but I’m not promising to not complain along the way.”

“Fair enough. What time are you off today?”

“You want to go today? We haven’t planned what you’re going to say or do when we get there. We don’t even know what exactly we’re looking for. I heard Hafeeza Crow is particularly cunning. You must be prepared.”

“She can’t be that bad. She’s here in the afterlife.”

“So are you.”

“Et tu, Grace?”

“You’ve been talking to Julius again, haven’t you? He never gets tired of telling that story.”

“Stop changing the subject, Grace.”

Grace nibbled on her lip and ran her fingers through her wavy, black hair. Tugging on her sleeve, she conceded. “Tomorrow, and I’m not budging on that.”

“Fine. Tomorrow. Oh, and Grace?”

Sounding mildly irritated, Grace responded, “What?”

“Thanks!”

Meridian flashed her a smile and Grace returned it before plunking back down in her seat, disappearing behind the wall that separated their cubicles. It was souls like Grace that made living in the afterlife worth it. Not having Omar was tough, but knowing that she still had the ability to remember him made her just a bit thankful, even if she could possibly be going to hell.