Morning.

Where did that come from? The last thing he remembered, a talking woodchuck was lecturing him on the inevitability of sleep, and now here he was. In a graveyard.

All around him. Graves. It was a bit depressing. He thought of his father.

'Hermit,' they called him, or 'recluse.' What did they know, anyway.

Good question.


* *

He couldn't even remember his name. He needed a smoke really bad. That always used to be his breakfast, 3 cigarettes, 2 mugs of coffee. Now he had nothing.

Nothing except that goddamn woodchuck/gopher/groundhog.

"Good morning! I do say, it is nice and bright!"

"We're in a fucking graveyard."

"I know! Don't you want to know, too?"

"Know what?"

"Exactly!" The woodchuck twitched his nose.

He had no time for this critter. "Ok, yeah, I do want to know. I want to know why I woke up in a frickin' graveyard."

"Because you died."

**

Pastor Derald Tutmouse stood smiling at his congregation. Funerals were always his favorite time to lecture his sheep (as he affectionately called them) on the impermanence of life and the necessity to dedicate whatever meager resources each had to the building of the Church.

Women were weeping. Children were crying. The men stood stoically outside, ushering in the Red Men.

to be continued...

     James stepped out of the portal.

     Into Hell.

     It took him a while to get used to the change in scenery. When he had first found the magic tunnel, he wasn't sure if it was wise to go through. But the further along he went, the more excited he got. And now that he had come out on the other side, well, he faced what he had never expected: Hell was boring.

     Nothing to do, nowhere to go--and no-one to be with. That was probably the hardest part. In Hell, you are alone. Illusions of other people are there, true, but they're all really yourself.

     So he sat down and cried. Or at least tried to.

     "Now what?" he half-whispered to himself. Immediately, as if by command, a yellow legal pad appeared before him. A blue pen lay beside it.

     "Write your destiny." The voice--so strange, so alluring--came out of nowhere. James turned and looked around. A small groundhog sat to his left. Furry, brown--a normal looking groundhog, but for his flaming, white-hot eyes.

     "Go for it," the groundhog said. At least James was not alone in Hell anymore. But a groundhog? Seriously?