PRL Serials

They were together when they died. They died almost simultaneously, and they became aware in the afterlife at the exact same time.

“What is happening?” Gustavo asked in the rough way that he talked.

“We were in bed,” Andre said, “that’s the last thing I remember.”

“Where are we?” Gustavo asked, looking around them with his brow furrowed and his face twisted into a scowl.

Their surroundings were eerie, like the distance was filled with thick, bluish-grey smoke, and there were patterns of circles, like dotted lines, swirling and zipping past their field of view, sometimes glittering like stars and in various colors. The two floated there, side by side.

“It’s weird, I don’t really feel anything,” Andre said. “I don’t understand what’s happening.

Calm yourselves, a voice said to them. The voice didn’t seem to come from any particular direction, but it completely surrounded them. It was a feminine voice of authority.

“What the fuck!” Gustavo yelled. “I can’t even move, can you move, Dre?”

“I can’t either,” Andre said. “Did you hear that voice?”

“I did!” Gustavo said. “That’s why I was hoping we could run or something.”

Calm yourselves, please! the voice came again, very sternly. I am able to explain your current predicament, if you both will calm down and listen to me. 

“Ahh, fuck…” Gustavo said. 

“Let her talk,” Andre said. “Please, whoever you are, can you tell us what is happening?”

The two of you have died and your souls were headed to the afterlife, but the Fates have been made aware of the cause and circumstance of your deaths and have decided to intervene on your behalf.

“Dead?” Gustavo said, and his anger seemed to be subsiding to flaccid like a balloon losing air.

Andre didn’t question it. Everything about the present was strange to him and the news of his death made a lot of things make sense. He thought about the hour or so before he and Gustavo went to bed. 

Gustavo’s lawyer had called about the ongoing case against him and he’d sounded weary.

“They are likely to show up at your house,” the lawyer said. “Of course, I can’t say when, but in cases like this, they usually get a surprise warrant to search the house.”

“This is bullshit,” Andre said. They both spoke with the lawyer over the speaker of Gustavo’s cell phone. “This is obviously mistaken identity, or stolen identity. Gustavo has never even seen cocaine in real life, how could he traffic it?”

“I’ve seen cocaine before,” Gustavo growled. “But I’m not a drug dealer. This is my cousin,” Gustavo looked at Andre, shaking his head. “I know it’s him, he looks just like me and he’s into shit like this.”

“Whatever it is,” the lawyer said, “the best thing you all can do at this point is cooperate. You’re innocent, I believe you, we’ll show them you have nothing to hide.”

Andre and Gustavo went to bed that night pretty angry, but resolved that no matter if they showed up with a warrant to search the house as soon as the following morning, no drugs would be found and they would be vindicated in their outrage over the entire mess. 

But after they had fallen asleep, the police arrived to kick in their door. This action led to a bizarre chain of events, like a Rube Goldberg machine where the door swung inside the apartment to knock over a coat rack, which startled one of the invading officers who mistook the coat rack for a scary figure which he shot, the bullet from which went into the kitchen and struck the gas stove, sending the entire house up in flames. Two of the officers were badly injured and eventually recovered, though both Gustavo and Andre were killed in their sleep when the explosion ripped through the house. 

Gustavo would be posthumously exonerated of all changes.

The Fates have been made aware of your situation and are actively defying the will of the All Knowing who protects all reality and they have decided that your deaths will cause irreparable instability on Earth. Your deaths will exacerbate racial tensions and divides over homosexuality, which will escalate to civil war that will destabilize the United States of America as a global power. The vacuum left by the US from the world stage will lead to war and an attempt to conquer the US that will end well for America, but not before extensive societal collapse that will set the human race back for many centuries, delaying exploration of the cosmos and other technological advancements. The Fates have deemed this unacceptable. The Fates monitor the timeline of your existence, that is a large and prime universe from which many healthy and vibrant variants are born, and we Fates are tasked with maintaining this structure and ensuring it’s stability. Weakness from Earth will allow a much more aggressive intelligent culture to abuse the natural resources of existence, making it unstable and threatening the structure of the ever enlightened All Knowing.

Andre shook his head. He was dead and this voice had laid out a bleak reality that resulted from his death. Gustavo had his eyes closed.

The Fates have the power to reset existence in a limited capacity and this particular calamity has two possible solutions that will avoid the eventual threat to existence that occurs at the death of beings Gustavo and Andre. Either scenario are stable choices so it is left to the beings Gustavo and Andre to choose the tweak to the past that will avoid your deaths. We can restore you both to life in your reality as you are, but born fifteen years later than your current birthdates, or we can restore you both as straight men. The first requires delaying some past events, and the second requires adjusting both your parentage. There are metaphysical consequences to each of these choices. If you are born of a different time, or if your body is technically the same on a DNA level but you have a different sexual preference, are you the same person that you are now? You will not have memories of your previous lives or this moment, but the energies of your spirit will continue on in the present so that each of you can fulfill destinies that will make Earth and its inhabitants the saviors of all existence. 

Make your decisions. If you do not choose the same option, you will both remain dead and threaten the continued existence of everything.

Andre looked at Gustavo from the corner of his eyes. 

“Let’s be born ten years later,” Gustavo said. “We can still be together, right?”

You can still be together. It’s fifteen years later.

“Ten years later, then.”

Andre was silent. He thought about his young, teenage years, when his father walked in on Andre exploring a friend’s body. He was extremely embarrassed, and his father beat him relentlessly for half an hour. This led to all of Andre’s teenage years when he over compensated in his masculinity and became an athlete and a bully. He was unhappy into his late twenties when he almost married his college girlfriend, but called it off and he attempted suicide. His brother found him with a gun in his mouth in his backyard and part of his emotional recovery involved him learning to be comfortable with himself. 

“Gustavo,” Andre said, speaking very deliberately, “think about the choice we have here. Think it through. Have you ever thought about how much easier life would be if we were straight? You know what my life was like. I love you, and we can still have a special friendship, but it would be easier.”

Gustavo turned his head to look at Andre. 

“I love you, Dre. Maybe things were easier for me because my family isn’t as religious as yours, but I know what it’s like living in a world that doesn’t particularly like me and even with that, I still want to be with you. I love you, Andre.”

Gustavo looked tortured. Andre had rarely ever seen Gustavo look so sad and vulnerable. 

“I love you,” Andre said. “You know I love you. Which is why I want you to think it through. We will make the same decision, I just want us to take as much time as this voice will give us to really think about the choice we have.”

I will let you both discuss it for a time. When I speak to you next, I will need a decision.

Andre turned his head and the two looked into one another’s eyes. 

“You decide,” Gustavo said calmly. “I love you and I want whatever you want.”

“That’s not fair, we have to talk about it.”

“No,” Gustavo shook his head. “I don’t have anything to talk about. You know how I feel, I told you what I want. If you want to do it my way, then we’ll be born ten years later, but you’re the one who doesn’t have an answer. So think about it, and answer the voice when you’re ready. I won’t hold a grudge, the voice said we won’t remember this. Whatever you choose Andre.”

Andre looked away from Gustavo. Andre knew that Gustavo was serious, he wouldn’t say another word.