The Morning After The Night Before

CHAPTER 1
On the day of his wedding he awoke in a mote.

CHAPTER 2
Well, not a mote really, more like a brick alley way that didn't
contain the slightest drop of water, but circled a really really really
really tall building. He thought about motes once before, today when he
woke up, the reason being that he didn't know what one looked
like.
What have the bastards done?- he thought. No handcuffs, no strippers,
just this load of bricks and a tall brick tower, with no windows, and
it stood against a sky of a colour he had never seen before, so is
impossible to describe here. A brand new colour.
They must have spiked my drinks with drugs- he thought.
He walked the circumference of the brick building and entered through a
door made of calcium on the far side. A pink winebar type sign lit up
infront of him in the darkness he had just come into. It read "Welcome
to The Recording Tower". The recording tower? Then a song came out of
the dark, an echoey, distant, harmonic voice to a simple beat that
repeated the words ... "Floor 46, Corridor 11, Room 8" over and over
again.
Then a lift in a glass lift shaft lit up bright arauka (Arauka being
the name adopted by this new colour) 20 yards to his left and he walked
over and stepped in, and the repetative song still played on so he went
up to floor 46, he stepped out onto a cross road landing of corridors
and he took corridor 11 and arrived at the door to room 8. He was
confused but knew this wasn't a dream. His name was printed on a wooden
panel on this door made of zinc. Chris Linford, in the house. He opened
the door and walked into wherever.
"Lance," he yelled, into yet more darkness. "Lance, are you in
here?"
Lance was Chris's best man, and he was also a fine magician. A fine
magician.
No response, but a huge screen half the size of a cinema lit up white
at the far end of the room, and cast light upon a chair and a flat
computer screen mounted upon a stand, similar to the ones used in game
shows in the first decade of the 21st century.
"Take a seat." The new song began blearing out of nowhere, the same odd
angelic voice as before. He sat down infront of the big white screen.
Then the song changed to "This is where you will spend the next 27
years."
"What?" asked Chris Linford.
"You will stay in that chair for 27 years, you will not need to eat,
sleep, shit or piss." The tune changed, the voice changed key and it
repeated the words in the previous sentence. Chris Linford tried to
stand, but couldn't. Some force kept him pinned to the big chair. The
chair was comfortable, blue leather, but far too large.
"Get me out of here!" he yelled.
"You aint goin' nowhere" was the next song.
"What is this? What the fuck's going on?" Then on the screen infront of
him appeared his mother, lying on a hospital bed with her legs spread
and what looked like blood gushing out of her. But no, hang on, it was
his mother giving birth. Giving birth to him.

CHAPTER 3
Chris Linford watched in astonishment his own birth. And the song on
the bull shit hidden jukebox changed. "You will sit there and live
every single second of your life again, but this time you will be asked
questions, given multiple choices at various stages throughout your
life. You will have a choice of four alternative courses of action for
each point. You will even have to sit there and watch yourself sleep at
night, so you may get a little bored."
"Shut up! Get me out of here!" Chris shouted.
The words of the distant voice repeated over and over again to a simple
but melodic beat. And Chris Linford was forced to watch himself as a
newly born, being carried away by the nurses to be cleaned up. He was
about to embark on a 27 year stretch, bound to an oversized armchair,
viewing every second of his own 27 year long film. He tried to struggle
free but by now had lost all sensation from his neck down. He even lost
feeling in his head. All he could do was stare at the screen, not
blinking and he found his vocabulary shrink. Infact the only things he
became capable of saying were the four letters A, B, C or D. But his
brain was still active, and insanity brought on by intense tedium would
surely set in. He thought about Lance and what the bastard could have
done to him on his stag night. It would be five years before he was
faced with his first test, and a chance to correct all the wrongs of
his life, change destiny. He saw himself as a five year old, and by
now, was exremely bored.

CHAPTER 4
"You're now five years old, so should you join the primary school A.
Hockey team, B. Football team, C. Cricket team or D. Badminton
club?"
Chris Linford's original choice had been cricket but he opted for
football this time, mouthed "B", thus changing things from such a young
age. But he continued to view his life as it really had been, so he
watched his apalling displays on the cricket pitch. He'd been shit at
cricket, no doubt about that, so perhaps he could have had a career
with England after all, with a little perseverance.
The next test came at the age of ten. In his new school, in his new
class should he sit next to A. Jim, B. Mick, C. Lance or D. Desmond.
His original choice had been Lance, but in this fucked up game of life
he went for Desmond. Ten years down the line his brain had gone, he
could hardly mutter the letter on his tongue.
There were two more tests to follow at 15 and 20. The decades ellapsed
but he didn't age sat in that chair and even though he had gone spare
inside after the first couple of weeks he could still just about think.
And he knew, as he witnessed his early 20's, that he would see for
himself the true events of his stag night in a few year's time. If he'd
not gone mad long ago, he would have felt appalled and embarrassed by
most of the things he saw himself doing.
Year 15, Test 3: Should you lend Lance the money to buy a magic
guillotine?
A. Yes, B. No.
Original choice had been A. This time it was B.
Year 20, Test 4:Should you get drunk in a club and take one of these
four girls home?
A. Jenny (future fiance), B. Julie, C. Jackie, D. June.
He chose B. Julie this time round because she was a lot better looking
than Julie, and she had a wilder personality, and she was keen for
everything.
So he watched the final years pass and he watched the stag day dawn. He
watched himself and six mates go out on the piss. He watched them
stumble back to Lance's house where he promised to show them all some
fabulous magic tricks, and they all drank even more, and Lance got out
his magic guillotine and Chris volunteered to stick his head in it. It
was one of those things where the blade falls and the person's head
stays attached to the body, but when Chris Linford had a go and Lance
dropped the blade, things didn't go quite according to plan. Basically
Lance decapitated his best mate on his stag night because he was so
wrecked he forgot to switch the blades round.
The head rolled, the screen went black and two words appeared THE
END.

CHAPTER 5
Chris felt all of his senses return, after a gruelling 27 post life of
hell. He got up from the chair and ran screaming to the door, but it
was locked. "I'm dead," he screamed. "So this is the after life, this
hell hole! Let me out!!!"
Then the distant echo voice returned after its 27 year absence. "Think
yourself lucky," it sang. "A 112 year old woman has just died and
inherited the room next door."
Chris fell to his knees and started hammering at the zinc door. His
eyes filled up with tears and he screamed to be released.
"You've only got yourself to blame, you fuck wit!" crooned the voice.
"Think of the tests, if you'd made those decisions while you were
alive, you'd still be alive now. You'd be a famous footballer, the best
striker England and Ipswich Town would have ever seen."
And the screen lit up again and displayed Chris Linford putting ball
after ball into the backs of nets with majestic grace. And he lived
like a king with his beautiful wife, Julie. And as for Lance, well
Chris only knew him briefly in his school days and now he was doing a
life sentence .... for the murder of Paul Daniels. Lance would have
gone off the rails, seen Paul Daniels as a major threat to a potential
career in show biz magic, and run him over in a fork lift truck he
stole. All this flashed on the screen like some crazy trailer to a
film, and Chris just lay, slumped against the wall of zinc, staring, as
if 27 years hadn't been long enough.
"So what now?" Chris shrieked.
The voice changed to a howling of laughter that echoed around the dark
room and in Chris Linford's ear holes. And he laughed, yes he laughed
out loud, and the tears poured from his wide open eyes.