Bombs are teleportation devices

"Life sucks, and then you die." I wonder who said that? Well whoever that is, he or she is a real smart ass. Also, that person was short sighted. What happens after you die?

That was my thought when I woke up in the middle of a desert. After rubbing sand off my eyes, I got onto my feet and looked around. All I saw was pretty much: desert, desert, and desert. No, not that creamy cake your mom claims to be homemade, but the sandy wasteland that seems to stretch on forever.

I felt ripped off. Where is the freaking garden? Where are the chubby angels that sing horrible carols every day? If heaven had a lawyer, I think I'd sue for false claims. Also, I was filthy! There was sand all over my body, and I was sure there was sand in my hair. It had already dried by now, knotted and crusted with sand. I thought heaven was supposed to be all pristine and beautiful, not some nasty desert!

Ok, I was being a bit melodramatic, but I HATE heat and the sweat beads already forming on my forehead are not extremely elating. It didn't help my mood that my body was caked in sand.

Well, the desert had its own beauty, I'd give it that. However, I was hot and dirty. The two combinations didn't allow me to appreciate it at all.

After all, wasn't heaven supposed to be in some sort of paradise? I'm dead... right? But how did I die? feeling disoriented, I tried to dredge up my latest memory...

flashback:

The rain fell onto me like an unending sheet of water. If it weren't for my raincoat, I'd probably be freezing from hypothermia right now. Not that it apparently mattered to my parents. I bit off a curse as I thought of them. After all, who cares for the middle child?

Maybe being the second born child gave me the magical powers of camouflaging, since my parents often seem to not notice me. Or maybe is it some sort of "second child curse" that my siblings always overshadowed me. my parents would always pay attention to my talented older sister, with her awards and degrees, or my troublesome kid brother. Though it sometimes annoyed me, I never really gave it a second thought, after all, it's not my siblings fault that they shine more than I do... Until today that is.

Being pelted with rain, I have already gone over my tolerance limit. I mean, what type parents would forget their own daughter's birthday? Apparently, my brother was running a high fever and my sister had another award ceremony. I get it; they don't have time for me. However, couldn't they have at least said happy birthday? Or, maybe they could give me a ride home after school!

I looked up at the rainy skies in disdain. It seems like even God or whatever deity was against me today. What a great sixteenth birthday! I didn't remember being such a bitter person, but being rained on when it's your sweet sixteen isn't exactly sweet. Being forgotten wasn't all that good either. to top all this off, my chemistry lab that will be due tomorrow, is probably soaking in my backpack.

I felt a hot pang of anger as I remembered my Chemistry teacher. She was a terrible harpy of a woman who's sole purpose of life was to drag me to Hades. It seemed her eyes would light up whenever I did bad on a test, or answer a question wrong.

My mind conjured up a pleasant image of my teacher bleeding to death, preferably a slow painful death, possibly involving a bullet to the stomach, with her stomach acid slowly killing her from the inside out...

As I happily absorbed myself into my morbid thoughts, a car rolled by, and a giant wave of water splashed on me. what did I possibly do to deserve this!?

"Fuck you!" I yelled at the car as it drove away. Unfortunately, cars aren't sound proof and the driver heard me.

He stopped the car, rolled down the windows and responded to my cuss with a rude gesture that my grandmother would faint at. From what I could see, he was a big burly man with a face mean enough to scare the nastiest pit-bull you know. I wasn't stupid, even a child would know not to mess with this man. So like the coward I am, I quickly mumbled a half-assed apology and ran off.

I pondered to myself as my flashback ended. Did that nasty man chase after me and kill me? No, I don't think so... I furrowed my brows in concentration, what happened to get me here anyways? I wracked my brain for more information. Finally, my stubborn mind provided me another scene...

Flashback:

I continued my wet trek home, muttering curses, and glaring at inanimate objects.

As I neared a corner, I noticed something brown, and quivering in the wind and rain.

I couldn't see well in the rain, so I didn't recognize what it was. However, it was something. Pity welled up in my heart when I considered it being an abandoned animal. It probably felt just like how I felt now. I approached it carefully, just in case it tried to attack me.

Finally when I got to the animal, I realized it wasn't an animal after all, in fact, it wasn't even alive. It was a brown paper bag.

I couldn't help it, I laughed. After all, if the closest thing I've ever felt connected to is a paper bag, how does that reflect on me?

Though it was just a paper bag, it was soaked, and abandoned, just like me. I bent down, and scooped it up, not caring that my the wet paper bag felt terrible and cold in my hands. It was a lot heavier than I anticipated, and ticked sweetly in my hands, like an affectionate animal… wait a minute… tick?

I opened the bag and inside, was the glinting of metal. Intrigued, I took the thing out of the bag. It appeared to be a metal ball with a little display screen on it. The screen flashed numbers, like a digital clock would, but the difference was that it wasn't showing the time; instead, it was counting down.

36,35,34,33,32…

I instantly recognized it thanks to all those spy movies I'd watched… it was a bomb, and it was about to detonate. Now confronted with a bomb, I did what any other sane person would do: I dropped the bomb and ran.

As I was running, I felt a sense of deep irony. After all, how often does a person find a bomb on their way home? Not that often. Now, how often is this that a person finds a bomb on the way home, in the rain, and on their birthday? Even less often. I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. Am I just the most unlucky person or what?

Suddenly, I remembered something from the news I saw recently, there had been a bombing in the city. I didn't mind it much, as I thought it was just some pissed off chemist. I mean, I live in Toronto, crazy things happen, but nothing really dangerous ever really just appears. Seriously, even if it IS Toronto. Canada, is still the forgotten peaceful dove of a country.

If this was a movie, the people would be demanding a refund. No one just FINDS a bomb in Canada. If I lived in the States, it might have just been a trashy bomb movie, but since this is CANADA, it's a trashy Canadian bomb movie! That's just absurd! I mean, how many times do you see the word bomb and Canada together?

Maybe I was being ignorant; but I just never really thought that I'd be unlucky enough to pick up a bomb on my way home. Perhaps it was karma, since I was thinking about too many morbid and violent thoughts in a day. however if it is karma, I think this is a bit over the top. After all, how fair is it to bomb me for being a whinny and violent brat? I'm sure there are whinier and more violent brats out there!

Little did I know, I had just made a big mistake. I had been thinking as I was fleeing and as everyone knows, when you think, you slow down, and when you slow down when running away from a bomb, that's bad news.

However, I wasn't in the position to be thinking rationally then, as I was busy trying to escape a bomb. It was a bad case of stage fright… or bomb fright in my case.

I heard the bomb before I saw the light that emitted from it, and...

Aha! so I was blown to bits by a bomb! so that's how I died!

However, it didn't seem to add up. After all, if I blew up into little pieces, why would I end up in a desert? The only time I've ever seen people suddenly travel to some other place, when they're supposed to die is...

I was suddenly struck with the idea that… maybe… I might not be dead after all! I mean, I've seen astral projection movies, and Sci-Fi's about parallel universes. So… maybe the bomb sent me here through some wormhole or something? At this point, you might call me crazy, I probably was, but I would rather believe that the bomb teleported me to an alternate reality, than to believe that I got blasted to bits, and heaven is a desert.

That's right; I'd rather believe that bombs are teleportation devices.

Well, since this isn't heaven, it occurred to me that I might die a second time from dehydration, or starvation. I tried to shake off as much sand as I could off my clothes.

From what I've seen in movies, apparently you should wait until the sun sets before searching for food or water, but since I might freeze to death at night, I decided I'd take my chances with the heat.

I took off my raincoat and backpack; I didn't exactly think I'd need it anymore. Then I started my quest to look for shade. After all, I didn't plan to stay in the desert that long now did I?

My search for shade wasn't exactly easy, and it was extremely long. So, I will skip the tedious details. Basically, I wandered around in the desert, sweating my butt off for quite a while, and then finally stumbled across a forest.

In case you were wondering, no, I wasn't starting to see things, there was actually a forest… however I do admit I saw a walking cactus… it was probably a mirage from the desert. Fine! I might be a bit dehydrated, but still, the coolness of the forest was no lie!

Okay, you probably expect me to suddenly be overwhelmed by the beauty of the lush forest like a good girl and start exploring the forest right? Well, hell no! I'm tired, filthy, and I ache all over from walking all that much. Not to mention, I got blasted into the place by a bomb! So, what do you think I'm going to do now?

Well, what would you do?

The answer is obvious, you would find a big tree, sit down, and sleep…

And that's exactly what I did.

um, hi anyone that reads my story ^_^ well, my story has been around for quite a while with me being a lazy poop, not writing anything, and I sort of changed this chapter up a bit, I hope no one minds. This is my first story, so constructive criticism is always welcome. I don't mind insults either, as long as they are useful, and witty. well... um enjoy :D

- Snow