He left me there...at the back of a dumpster...scoured with blood and a knife-punctured chest.

I was dead. Finished. ‘In a better place.’ HA! Just teasing...I AM dead, however I wasn’t in a better place; I’m still on Earth.

    But...I wasn’t in a shell, or in other words, a body. My departed soul was-or let me say: IS- lingering in that rat-s***-encrusted dumpster off the corner of 5th Avenue and Shirlington Road.

    I didn’t deserve to die. I truly didn’t. I was 18. I had goals. I had dreams. I had VERY devoted friends who would worship the ground I walk(ed) on. Heck, I even had an insanely supportive nuclear family. In other words...I had a LIFE. I didn’t deserve to become a corpse, of which, is currently being eaten away and disintegrated by shards of fungi, wasteful food products, and sloppy, overly-used diapers.

    All I did was pick-up my last-minute-dial-up of fried dumplings and aioli sauce at Mongolian Palace. And what did the universe grant me with? One failed Tinder date-of which was HIGHLY egotistical and mentally ill-who charged at me, a steak knife in hand, and slashed his way to my heart (LITERALLY!) again...and again...and again.

    My family and the NYPD have yet to discover my lifeless body-even though, at this very second, I’m glaring down at my pale-stricken face, my knife-tattered leather Prada jacket, and my opened rib cage. But as I inform you on my life (no, more like DEATH) story, I am P.I.S.S.E.D.

    As my detached soul stares down at my gashed arteries leading to my heart’s left valve, I feel nothing. Nothing...except one thing: I want something. I want action. I crave satisfaction. What I want is simple. Revenge. I want to drag that murderous son-of-a-gun straight down to hell.

    Perfect plan, am I right? One problem though...I don’t have a body.

    However, I DO have something else that would bring me sooooooooo much joy to my current predicament: I have a soul.

    Now, I’m quite aware that you’re alive; probably texting or sending Instagram DM’s to your friends as we speak. But for all of you fleshies, let me tell you a saying that has transformed itself into my personal motto: bodies can hurt other bodies, but only SOULS can destroy another’s soul.

    And that’s what I’m going to do. That’s EXACTLY what I’m going to do.

    *Chuckling vigorously* I guess there IS a plus side to being in purgatory: you can, how do you say, ‘haunt’ anyone of your desire.

    Do you want to know who I’m going to choose? Do you REALLY want to know who cut my life short?

    Jeb Whirlson (you know that ‘failed Tinder date’ that I mentioned earlier).

    Was my demise the price I had to pay for not playing hooky? Was it worth NOT fleeing to his house and giving him my virginity? Well...he must of thought so.

    *Tsk* *tsk* *tsk* Silly man. He should’ve been thinking with his head, not with his ‘down under’ region.‘Cause now he’s gonna pay. But, unlike the lamb chop dinner he bought me twenty-five minutes ago, not with money. No amount of money can compensate for the 100% pure, non-filter hatred I now hold for him.
    Have you ever heard of Hammurabi’s Code? An eye for an eye, an arm for an arm, and (my personal favorite) a death...for a DEATH.

    Another positive aspect of dwelling purgatory, of which I should mention, is that I’m not limited to the tiny quarters of this ricotta-and-vermin-infested trash bin. I can move anywhere and everywhere I desire. Heck, right now, I could even locate myself in Bora Bora-the one place I’ve ALWAYS wanted to go to. Oh...and I forgot to mention one teeny-tiny fact: I can use teleportation (oh, the splendid benefits for being deceased).
    If you’ve gathered these hints, then you must know the location that I have translated myself to.

    Disneyland!

    *hehehahehahe* Just kidding. Just kidding. Nah...I wish I could be there, but that wasn’t my destination; I went to Jeb’s dingy apartment. It's about less than a quarter of a mile away from where my mutilated carcass now descends upon a Febreze-scented bag of crumpled banana peels.

    Since his dwelling was on the floor-level section of the duplex, peering into his bedroom, living room, and dining room windows were a piece of cake. In fact, I had such a good view into his home that I can reciprocate the EXACT brands of used underwear and ‘stiff-as-a-board’ socks that he had scattered among the chip-piled cracks on his frumpy velvet couch. I saw him stir up a batch of stale ramen packages. I saw him watch VERY graphic shows (of which I will not name) on his 9-by-10 inch television set. I saw the way his beer gut hungover his hefty fake-leather belt. Heck, I even memorized his Social Security card number of which was drifting around the cluttered coffee table.   

About halfway through Cops, the ‘failed-tattoo-Milky Way’ commercial blimped up. The commercial wasn’t the only thing to pop up either. The slob-of-a-man regurgitated his moldy, residue-covered ramen onto the forefront of his Goodwill-bought blue jeans. Drenched in stomach acids and bits of chewed salad from his *mmhhuumm* OUR date, he shot up faster than a cat’s reaction to water being squirted at him.
    As soon as I saw him slam the curtains leading to his unwashed bathroom, I made my move; with the ogre’s absence from the room in effect, I was FINALLY able to glide his living room window ajar, crawl onto his tv stand, and plant my non-existent feet onto the stained-brown carpet.

    “Mmmmmm,” [taking a big gulp of air in]. “ What a perfectly grotesque place to die.”

    Hearing him flirt with a bottle of aspirin, I had to rush. I know that I’m dead and all, but...apparently humans have a six sense: the ability to sort out that something’s off. I know that isn’t very descriptive, but with being a member of the deceased community, you can pick up little notes FAST. I don’t want that mongrel to be awry and leave due to some invisible oddity knocking over a case of beers from the top of his past-due electric bill pileup on his couch’s side table (hint: even when I was alive, I was VERY clumsy).

    I was searching-scouring-everywhere to find something I can use. Something...that can bring me revenge. I checked his bedroom. Nothing. I checked his closets. Nothing. I even checked the kitchen. Nothing! Not even a knife! I was running out of options, out of time, and out of my ghostly mind.
That’s when I saw it.

Glistening from the fractured, artificially fluorescent light bulb hanging overhead, I fan-girled over the ONLY thing that can cut that man’s life short: an axe.

As I picked up the sharp-headed lumber tool, I heard Jeb finish up his vomiting-sess. To hide the ‘oh-so-I’m-floating-now’ axe, I snuck between the couch and the wall. Jeb-without even noticing that the axe that just hung right above the apartment’s threshold was gone-resumed to his active evening of chomping away at burnt-to-a-crisp pizza bagels and hit the ‘play’ button on his remote to see if officer John caught the culprit to the jewelry heist (geeeeesssshhhh...I wonder where he got the idea to be an online-date-murderer). Tossing and turning to the rhythm of the on-screen car chase, I felt his 350-pound body pressing against the board of the couch  (a.k.a. where I was).

    I slid my fingers crossed the grease-driven blade edge. I wanted to do it. I dreamed of doing it. I WILL do it. These were the thoughts of which were on my mind’s repeat playlist.

    “Awwww...come on!!! He should've gotten away!” Jeb screeched at his tv set.

    As the episode concluded, I ran out of anticipation. From a crawling position behind the couch to a broad stance behind the man’s head-axe in hand-I whipped the blade and went through his neck seamlessly. Off with their heads...I recited to myself. Off with their heads, off with their heads, off with their heads. After a maniac-like laughing fest, I rounded the couch corner and saw that his head was still on; it dangled from one centimeter of skin and was still attached the showing neck vertebrates of which were now out in the open. He’s still alive. I see him gasping for air.

    He’s trying to talk. He’s REALLY trying...and I’m REALLY laughing. I mean, like, HE was the one who killed ME; I’m only doing the same in return. As blood splatters out of his gashed neck and pouring from his mouth, I saw the pupils of his eyes dilate over, like, 356 times within one very second.

    He was going to join me, you know, in the world of the undead. But I didn’t necessarily know when. He was still wasting oxygen.

    “Oh...don’t worry babe. It’s not gonna take long,” I giggle as his corneas, wide in horror, slowly rotate towards my faint silhouette.

    I waited for over a minute-a MINUTE!-and he still had a heartbeat. I couldn’t wait any longer.
I decided against the use of an axe for the second run and opted for the market grocery bag courtesy of the cabinet under the kitchen sink’s stockpile of extra goodies.

    “Shhhh.Shh.Shhhhhhhh,” calmly stroking Jeb’s messy man-bun.”It’ll ALL be over soon.”

    In a sudden gust of momentum I stuff his blood palette-stained face into the bottom of the bag, tied it up underneath his departed chin, and sat next to him-gliding my hand along his Persian cat’s mane-and was willing to let nature take its course.

    The vapor droplets alongside the edge of the plastic bag-as results from his laboring breaths-and the sounds of his muffled screams were even more of a gift to me compared to the Bentley-450 I got for my graduation gift a couple weeks ago.

    But you wanna know what the REAL icing on the cake was for me? Seeing the life DRAIN from his body. I felt his pulse abruptly stop.  I heard his last squeak. I even saw his eyes become glassy.
    I now sat there alone. Alone in a stranger’s apartment. Alone in the world (well, besides the purring feline that was beside me). Alone...in my murderer’s dwelling.

    To be completely honest, I felt free.

    That is...until I saw something that made me reel back in astonishment. Mind you, I was not looking out the window, I was still on the frumpy velvet couch. What I saw was truly evil. Something that made the Devil look like a saint. What I saw was one thing: Jeb Whirlson.

    He was dead. Of course he was! I checked his heartbeat!

    But little did I realize that he would be my eternal companion in the afterworld. I couldn’t wait to get rid of him before. But now...I’m stuck with him. F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

    I don’t think I’m in purgatory anymore.I think I’m somewhere else. I think...I’m in hell.