"That's not funny."
"I'm serious."
Shannie kept her eyes on the road - her hands on the wheel. "That's bullshit. How do you know we just don't end up in a hole."
"I don't want to talk about it."
"You brought it up. What makes you so cocksure there's an afterlife?"
"What makes you so sure there ain't?" I replied.
"Didn't say there wasn't, but I'm not betting there is. It doesn't make any sense. It's not like there's a heaven out there. It's not like you make a right turn at Pluto and there are gates. I don't think it's a place, it's like it's a state of being. When your dead how can you be?"
"You can be dead."
"Yeah you can, but that's it - you're dead. Dead means dead."
"What about your soul? It has to go somewhere."
"Soul-smole. Who says there's a soul?" Shannie answered.
"There has to be. How do you explain, like, the light at the end of the tunnel stuff?
Shannie shrugged. "If that does happen, it's the body's way of tricking us. Kinda like the ultimate survival instinct, you know, it tricks us, makes us think we're going to survive when we're dying."
"That's fucked up," I said.
"No more fucked up than believing a higher being cares about your every thought."
"I don't like to think that Count is just in a hole, that Stan is scattered over Squaw Valley. It's fucking cold - hopeless."
"I hear you." Shannie slowed as she approached the next toll plaza.
***
"You want me to do what?". I was sitting between Shannie and Genise on the Seawall overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway.
"You heard us," Shannie answered.
"It ain't no big deal," Genise said. "We need another set of eyes. You need to hold the money. " Genise was friendly. I've should have known she had an ulterior motive.
"Let me think about it."
"What's there to think about?" Shannie asked.
"Yeah, but," I hesitated.
"It's like you're our stage manager. Nothing to it," Shannie said.
"You'll witness history in the making," Genise chimed.
"I doubt that." Behind us Ellie tugged on her leash. Kids rode past on their bikes. I looked from Shannie to Genise. "I guess I don't have a choice."
"You got a choice, you can sleep on the couch or on the street." Genise said.