A story of Life and Death

         A Story of Life and Death
Bremner Smith
         There Dan stood, right in front of the proverbial fork in the road. Not one of those figurative forks in the road that are talked about when tough decisions are about to be faced, but in fact a literal split in the narrow dirt road in which Dan walked on. Dan had made it to this very special road in a most interesting way. First, Dan had been driving his black jeep down the highway, breaking the limit by only about 5 miles per hour. Then a large truck had come up from behind and hit his black jeep going about 25 miles per hour over the speed limit And finally Dan had found himself face first on a never before seen dirt road.Two signs rested on the tree that stood square in the center of the divide between the two roads. The sign pointing to the right read "To Life" and the sign pointing to the left read "To Death."
         Now to most people the decision to follow the road on the right would be the obvious and sensible decision. But it just turns out, Dan didn't really care much for life, and hey, maybe the church was right and this death thing was a better place after all. Not to mention if he took that life street, he was just going to have to go back to his wife and try to explain where he'd been all night, and life just really wasn't worth that kind of hassle. And it's not that Dan disliked his wife, or was in any sense of the word cheating her, it's just that last night Dan had killed a man, and thats awkward dinner conversation for just about anybody.
         Now, Dan was no killer, and Dan never would do such a thing out of spite, it was that when Dan had gotten in a car crash the night before he was not alone, and the man that was with him had died.
          Furthermore, Dan had that mans dead body at his side, and that would stink up his nice place a whole lot, and he worked just a little too hard on that house to let it smell like dead body for a week.
         Dan took a seat on a nearby stump at the fork and thought to himself for some time. The sun had set almost an hour ago, and dark gray clouds covered the moon causing the forest where the road was located to be almost pitch black. Animals scurried in the leaves and every so often Dan could have sworn he heard voices in the wind. It was then that Dan found out, that even when you're choosing to stare at the long dark road of death in the face, the prospect of being attacked is still uncontrollably frightening. That's why when the man dressed in the long black overcoat accompanied by all white pants and an all white undershirt popped out of seemingly know where, Dan got extremely startled and hid behind the dead body.
         "Stop hiding under the dead body." said the deepest voice that Dan had ever heard. Dan in all of the darkness of this forest could not see the mans face, and would furthermore have to identify him as, "that guy with the deep voice."
         "Who are you? What are you doing here?" said Dan to that guy with the deep voice.
         "My name is Richard. And I am the messenger of God."
         Now, most people may have trouble believing things such as messengers of god popping out of know where in the middle of the forest, but when its already been established that you're about to chose between two roads entitled life and death, and they'll actually bring you back to life, or towards you're death, such things become much easier to believe.
         "Oh yes?" Dan responded, "And what exactly does God want with me?"
         The dark clouds were pushed past the moon and light beamed down upon the self proclaimed messenger of god revealing a man with pitch black hair and boasting a thick beard and a merciless glare from his dark brown eyes. "God would like me to show you something. Follow me." Richard responded.
         As a quick disclaimer, I as the author would like to note to all children who may come in contact with this story that if a man comes up to you claiming to be the messenger of god and asks for you to follow him, for the love of christ run away.
         Richard walked deep into the forest and took Dan to an area where a large, dark, fire was brewing and a large black pillar of smoke that Dan had somehow failed to see before, billowed into the night sky.
         "Lay down." Richard instructed.
         In such circumstances when you're guaranteed to be dead within the next few hours, following simple instructions that otherwise might be questioned didn't really seem to matter, so Dan complied without question and lay flat on his back. Richard proceeded to place his hand upon Dans face and in a milli-second Dans whole life flashed before his eyes. Starting with last night when he had been in the devastating car wreck and ending with his birth from his loving mother. Dan saw his marvelous life and saw no problems what so ever. Dan never wanted anything more than what he had gotten in his life, but still he was never happy. A milli second later Richard showed him his future, in which he would continue to live his life and never face any serious form of discomfort or sadness or stress. But it was then more than ever that Dan knew that the road to Death was the road he had to take. He knew what happened in life and he knew that even in all the success he had achieved, every day he hated life more and more, and now he wanted; no needed, to know what happened in death.
         "I need to die." said Dan once he had gotten up from off the ground.
         "So be it." said Richard
         Richard and Dan walked out of the woods together and soon made it back to the fork in the road that read "Life" or "Death." Dan took a deep breath, and tried to clear his mind. This was it, the end of his life and the beginning of his death. Introspectively he knew that without sadness, happiness was hard to come by, and that was indeed the story of his life. So he began walking left as he prepared to face his death. As he was leaving, he took one look back to see Richard with a sly grin on his face, for Richard knew that Dan would soon come to find out that death was miserable and painful, and altogether death was just another life, except it had no end.