Two significant things happened when the front bumper of my 2012 Chevy Cruze crumpled into the pole of a vaguely racist billboard right off the side of I-95. One: My brain squeaked off one final, bleating human thought. Two: I died. Remembering it now, I feel like maybe I wasted that last split-second of my existence on something meaningless. I didn’t get to have any profound existential realization because I was too busy giggling at the very same vaguely racist billboard that killed me (“You never sausage a place! You’re always a wiener at Diego’s!”).

Five miles before death I passed one of those whacko religious billboards. It bellowed a simple message—Sinners Repent or Go To Hell!—at passersby in extra large font, just before an ad for Big Mike’s Pornography Warehouse. Not only was God up against Big Mike’s 15,000 square foot warehouse of DVDs, magazines, vintage tapes, and paraphernalia, He was pitting himself against Diego’s, which had (so I hear) clean rooms, good food, and plenty of gas at low prices. Diego’s and Big Mike knew how to offer a world-class tourist experience. I wasn’t so sure that God could compete.

Most people don’t think about how big those billboards are for drivers to ooh and aah at them from the highway. They just whizz by, some reading the messages but most never giving them any thought outside of a bored look. No matter how big you’re thinking, it feels a lot bigger when your face is in pieces all over the big metal column that holds it up. I was in limbo before you could say, “How is that billboard still up in this day and age? They can’t be for real, can they?”

Death was a big white space that didn’t end, a wide-open field of tall fluttering grasses and cloudless blue sky, a diner that smelled like cinnamon pancakes and coffee, an unlimited library, your mom and dad’s house on Christmas morning, a cat café, and it was also nothing like any of those things.

“Pick one,” someone said behind me.

“What?”

“Just pick one. Come on.”

“Pick one what?” The angel threw his head back and groaned. I, being very observant, noticed he looked a lot like an ordinary man wearing a wire halo, and I could see white backpack straps under his armpits. They used to call me Mister Observe-o. (No they didn’t. No one called me that. I was a woman.)

“Are those…from Spirit Halloween?” I asked. He tried to look over his shoulder at his back to look at his wings.

“No, no. These are totally real.”

“Okay. If you say so.”

“What? What do you mean ‘If I say so.’ I’m an angel. Are you, like, saying I’m lying?”

“No. I can just…see the straps.”

“Oh okay so you don’t believe me?” He bent his knees down and jumped a few inches off the ground. “See?”

“What was that?”

“I flew.” He put his hands on his hips and smiled, looking off into the distance triumphantly. “So, that’s settled. I’m totally an angel. Pick one.”

“What?” I asked again. The angel groaned again and dropped his arms.

“Pick a theme. For your afterlife?” he said.

“Oh, right. Sure, makes sense.”

“The sooner you pick, the sooner we can get to the rest of the tutorial.” He checked his watch then looked back at me, frowning. Before he could tell me to pick again, my stomach growled.

“Can I do the diner one?”

“Order up, my friend.” He snapped his fingers, which made a sound like a doorbell chime. But like, one of those old-fashioned ones that was an actual bell screwed in above the door. The diner was an instant warmth of coffee and pie and grease. Maybe there was something to this angel business.

“Table or booth?”

“Booth, I guess.”

“Right this way, hon.” The angel grabbed a large plastic menu and a bundle of wrapped silverware and led me to a booth against the wall. He put the menu and silverware down on one side.

“There you go, hon. I’ll be right back with a water.” I slid into the booth and contemplated my death. It looked like they had chili cheese fries, which sounded pretty good. Cholesterol probably didn’t matter here. The angel came back and set a red plastic cup down in front of me. He was chewing gum and smacked it wetly against his teeth.

“Out of the chili cheese fries, hon.” He left again, still chewing loudly. The water in front of me had no ice and felt just shy of hot. I sipped from the full glass, sloshing some of it onto the Formica tabletop and my shirt. Everything in the diner was brand spanking new: the vinyl seats were squeaky and smooth, the Formica wasn’t even chipped. I’d never seen a Formica tabletop that didn’t have a chip in it. There wasn’t even a wear pattern on the floor, no fingerprint smudges on the chrome napkin holder. The menu was bright and colorful, listing dozens of foods with little pictures next to some of the most popular items, mostly anything that could be made by frying or covering something in cheese, or by frying and covering something in cheese at the same time. No good diner looked this clean. The angel came back, now wearing a tall beehive wig under his halo and a pair of modest heels.

“Okay what can I get ya, sugar?”

“Is this like a Twilight Zone episode where I think I’m in heaven and then actually I’m not and the episode ends with my crushing realization that I’m doomed to an eternity of misery from all the things that seemed too good to be true?” I asked. The angel sat down across from me.

“Well, that’s an oddly specific guess. But yes, this is exactly like that.”      

“Fuck.”

“Tough luck, hon,” he said, popping a gum bubble with his tongue. He took off his halo and put it on the table. “Was it the chili cheese fries that gave it away? I keep telling them that it’s too obvious.”

“Yeah pretty much. Although I could also go for that Reuben, with a side of fries.”

“Out of those too. And before you ask, we’re probably out of whatever you’re thinking of next.”

“Fuck.”

“I know, hon. Tough break.”

“So now what? I hang out here in an empty diner that’s out of everything forever?”

“Yep.”

“That just kind of sounds boring.”

“Did you just call hell boring? I mean, are you serious? My friend, it’s literally hell. And before you starting kvetching, you saw the signs. You could have repented at, like, any time. That’s the whole shtick. But you didn’t, so now you’re here.”

“I mean, yeah. Like sure, it’s pretty annoying. I just thought it would be way worse. Pitchforks. Some brimstone, maybe.”

“I can’t believe you just called hell boring,” he said. I picked up the silverware and peeled at the napkin a little bit. In a few minutes it was a pile of shreds that I pushed around the wet table with the knife, making little indiscernible blobs and shapes.

“Is there, like, anything at all to eat or drink here?”

“We’re proud to serve a variety of Pepsi products. Also I think we probably have a salad with some really old lettuce and grilled chicken. If I ask the chef, we might be able to rustle up some week-old tuna salad on wheat,” he said.

“Is the chicken really dry or something?”

“It’s grilled. So yes.”

“Dressing?”

“We have a raspberry vinaigrette or oil and vinegar.”

“Those are the worst two options. Fine, I’ll take the salad. With a Pepsi.” The angel jumped out of the booth, beaming as he wrote out the ticket.

“Coming right up!” He wasn’t lying, and in a few minutes he brought out a big tray carrying a bowl of salad and the soft drink, still with no ice. The service alone was worth a 15% tip at least.

“Dig in!” he said, not moving away from the table.

“Are you going to watch me eat?” I asked.

“Do you see any other customers? You’re it, baby. I’m here for you.” I looked around the empty diner, then at the bowl in front of me. The lettuce was a lot like the Pepsi (warm and somehow also very wet), the chicken akin to cold, dry rubber. I choked it down, the sour dressing helping the chicken slide down into my stomach.

“Is there salt or anything?” I asked. The angel started to giggle, high-pitched and childish. “Salt?” he said, letting out a full-on cackle. “We’re fresh out!”

Erin Elizabeth Williams (she/her) is currently an editor at a non-profit, but she previously earned a degree in religion that she definitely does not use now. Back then, she studied things like reincarnation, parapsychology, and religion as world-building in dystopian literature and video games, which she likes to talk about at parties. Her work has been published in JAKE and The Occult Digest, among others. She can be found at http://erinelizabethwilliams.com.