Short Story – How Boring Can You Get?

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I lay on my hospital sick bed, trying to re-read Proust’s Remembrance Of Things Past in the original French, when the nurses told me that I had a visitor. That was a surprise, as I had outlived all my relatives and my few if any friends. I had become something of a recluse and even the medics tending me in my final days (oh yes, I am dying, but I am 97), avoid my company much of the time. I have come to appreciate the solitude more than I regret that many find me so insufferably dull company. I asked who wanted to see me. “A Mr. Beal Z. Bubb,” the nurse informed me, and scuttled off. The name had a familiar ring, but I couldn’t claim to knowing him personally. From cat-killing curiosity alone I told the nurses I would see him and put my copy of Proust down, with my place carefully bookmarked. I knew he was a demon as soon as he walked into my private cubicle ward. He was green, and wore enormous serpentine horns. The nurses must have assumed it was a fancy dress costume but the aroma of brimstone told me that he was for real. “Cedrick Tarquin Smythe?” he asked, telling me that I was as much a stranger to him as he to me. “Yes,” I said, feeling more than a little afraid. “What can I do for you, Sir?” He pulled up a chair by the side of my bed, looked at my drips and the slow-blip heart monitor, and shrugged. He smiled politely. “My associates and I have an assignment for you, Cedrick. Your life is about to get interesting, or perhaps I should say, your afterlife.” I coughed, for once without spitting blood. “Sir, please appreciate that I am not an evil person, unless not believing in you or Jehovah until your obvious presence here rather proved my atheism misguided. I have no desire to sell you my soul.” “Relax, Cedrick. I have no wish to take your soul. I just need to be sure that you die at precisely 15.47 this afternoon. We need you to be soul 953,764,987,000,666th in the queue for Judgement on Judgement Day. It’s the people right behind you in the queue I really need to control, rather than you.” Cedrick was confused. “What is all this? Judgement Day? Queuing? Me?” Beelzebub explained. “Ah, Judgement Day is when God decides who gets into Heaven and who goes to Hell. It will lead to the war between his army and Satan’s. The dead are brought to Heaven’s gates, and God listen’s to your life stories. Your entire lives then flash before your eyes so God can watch every moment over with you and decide if you are good or bad. “Are you expecting me to be damned as evil?” “Not at all. Your behaviour in life would be seen as exemplary if not for….” “If not for what?” “Well, frankly, you are the most boring man who ever lived. Even your name is boring.” “Excuse me!” “Oh, I’m not insulting you. Please don’t be offended. It’s actually quite an achievement. It’s just a fact. You are insufferably dull. That’s why you have so few friends. Even now I find it a struggle to find you remotely interesting. Look at you. Blue striped pyjamas and reading Proust, again. “ “In the French. It’s my favourite novel. Look, I’ll read a bit to you.” “Oh, please spare me that Hell. No disrespect, Cedrick, but you are really uninteresting. That’s why we need you on Judgement Day.” “What are you planning?” “Simple really. When God plays back your life, the sheer mind-numbing dullness of it will put him, and the angels & saints to sleep. That’s when the men behind you rise up and take over Heaven. You are our Trojan horse. God will have to watch you sipping port, and reading Proust twenty-five times. You listen to Wagner. You watch soap operas. You like cricket. He will be put to sleep by you easily. “ “Surely by making me so important in your plans you are making me interesting again?” “Right on your death, but no one is going to be awake that long. Your tragedy is that the one brave interesting act in your life will never be known by anyone but me. Now is it alright if I pull a few wires out of your heart monitor and put a pillow over your face?” “In a moment, Beal, but first, please look at my Proust book, lying face down on the table there.” “I’m not reading that. Proust would have had your job on Judgement Day if you hadn’t been born.” “I don’t want you to read it. Just humour me and open it to the page I was up to.” “Ok, but we must hurry. You have to die on time to keep your place in front of my army. Oh my, there is a magazine inside this. It’s a Batman comic. I wasn’t expecting …. That’s interesting. ” “Yes. You see, I am a Trojan Horse, but not for you. God was onto you from the start. Nurse!” The nurses flew in on archangel wings, ensnaring the demon between them. Cedrick’s own wings grew as he rose from the sick-bed. His halo glowed blindingly. “Take him to the Proust Room. Have the novel read to him over and over for eternity.” Beelzebub screamed. ”No! How could you? Besides, who could stay awake long enough to read Proust at me forever?” Cedrick laughed. “Marcel Proust will do the readings himself. Take him away chaps.” Beelzebub was flown out kicking and screaming. Cedrick sat down and finished his Batman comics. He looked round for something new to read and saw only a story by Arthur Chappell, but he soon put that down. It looked boring. Arthur Chappell