Family Discount || Part 1, "It's Your Afterlife!"

The sounds of struggling can be heard, bodies rolling around on a padded carpet. The angry grunts of two young girls are followed by slaps and muffled thuds. From the sounds of the grunts, one girl triumphs in the struggle while the other, somewhat younger, gets angrier, and her grunts turn to angry growls and screams.

"Stop it, Patty!" The elder girl barks.

"Get off me, Dana!"

"Not until you stop acting like you're better than me!"

"You're hurting me! Let go!"

"If you don't stop, I'll break your arm, and it'll be your fault!"

"Do it!" A much older man cackles.

"Dad!" Dana scolds with a hurt tone.

Brand stirs on the couch, struggling to stay asleep during the chaos. His brow furrows as his head turns to peek at the scene unfolding in front of him. His vision blurred by nearsightedness and astigmatism, the sleepy man searched the blurry and immediately familiar scene.

He saw the coffee table in front of him. The loveseat across the room. The '70s-era oven in the kitchen in the next room across from him. Finally, his gaze fell on the painting of his grandfather above the loveseat.

He was alone.

He saw the sun streaming through the windows, instinctively knowing it was around 5 pm. So, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and sighed comfortably. He shifted his body on the sofa, lying on his side as he got comfortable. Brand was stress-free for this one welcome moment, his mind barely functioning.

"Mom should be here soon to pick me up." He thought.

As Brand adjusted the small pillow under his head, he felt his feet touch the arm at the other end of the sofa. The shape of his body was much rounder, pushing his stomach to the edge. These simple anachronisms forced his brain to reevaluate his situation. If he was tall enough to reach both ends of the sofa - one he's not used to being so large on - then why would he be waiting for his mother?

His mind began to catch up with him in time. With the simple conclusion that he wasn't in school anymore, more facts began to flow to the forefront of his mind. He hadn't needed to stay here after school for years, not since he left elementary school… or high school, for that matter.

He squints his shut eyes, pushing the memory away from the front of his brain. He rockets forward in time again, this time met with the rapid flashes of his grandmother, frail and near-skeletal. Her nasal cannula leads to a leash-like trail of tubing linking her to an oxygen compressor. That's when his eyes suddenly flew open in a panic. 

"Meds!" He exhaled.

His torso flung upwards, snatching his glasses off the coffee table. He hadn't even unfolded the temples before he sprung to his feet, traversing the living room and into the kitchen, masterfully avoiding the furniture. He could walk through this whole house blind if he had to!

"Granny, you ready to knock out your meds?"

"Oh, I suppose." The aged woman's voice was meek and strained from decades of cigarettes. 

Brand's sock-clad feet slid across the linoleum floor as he approached the counter space separating the oven from the sink. Looking at the counter, he realized the two daily medication containers were missing. Throwing his glasses on, he yanked the upper cabinet door open, expecting shelves full of medications. Instead, the only thing left was a lonely bottle of acetaminophen on the bottom shelf of a Lazy Susan. 

Groaning in frustration, he immediately patted his pockets, looking for his cell phone. Meanwhile, Ann's grippy hospital socks could be heard shuffling onto the linoleum floor. Her steps were short but slow, and she made it into the kitchen.

"Why does she keep changing your meds without telling me?" He grumbles.

"Oh, don't call Patty." She protested, "All she'll do is fuss at us!"

Brand couldn't help but smirk, listening to her talk shit against her youngest daughter. However, he was all too used to the poor communication between family members. Many had their subtle reasons for it, including Brand. However, the broad gist of it had to do with control. Everyone in the extended Caldwell family has control issues.

After a second of searching for his cell phone, Brand finally looked down at himself. He pondered why he'd been dressed in blue jeans and a black t-shirt since he rarely left Granny's house. Why bother dressing out of pajamas or house clothes when you aren't going anywhere? 

That question was overshadowed when he saw the gray cord leading from his pants pocket upwards until it split in two and led to either side of his head. Touching his face, he realized he had earbuds in, the style that lets you hear everything around you, comfortable enough to forget you had them in.

A smartphone emerged from his pocket as he gently pulled on the gray cord. While holding the phone in his hand, two copper antennae emerged from the sides, pivoting at the top corners of the phone. They swung forward and met at their tips as if pointing at something.

He clicked a button on the side, lighting the screen up and unlocking it. It took him straight to an app calculating the fluctuation rates of environmental data. There was room temperature, electromagnetic field, air pressure, and electronic audio interference. The smaller text showed smaller numbers shifting higher and lower, all factoring into the highlighted number beside those: 21.47% Holonomic Consciousness Stability.

"Twenty-one percent?" He mumbled, "No, the HCS should only be four -."

Brand looked up, expecting to see his grandmother in front of him. He heard her feet shuffling into the kitchen not a second before. However, there wasn't anyone there. With the tap of a button in the app, the phone brought up a camera, which began recording with a second button press. Lifting the phone revealed Ann, who stared curiously into the lens.

"Oh." He said in a deep tone, "Granny, you don't need your meds."

Ann raised her brow, her curiosity having piqued.

"You're dead."

"Oh."

Ann's tone deflected the gravity of what had been said. She took this information as if she'd been told the weather forecast for the next 5 hours or some other information that held no sway over her life. Brand felt like a child again, having just gotten off the bus to meet his Granny and tell her how his day at school went with somewhat little interest in the finer details.

"Well, can I have some ice cream then?" She asked flatly.

They pause. Brand looks at the phone screen with confusion. Ann's lips turn upwards, which causes Brand to snicker, leading to both laughing. To Brand, this was on point for his Granny, having learned to similarly deflect. To Ann, laughing is a much better way to spend your life. Nothing can stand in the face of laughter, she always said.

"It's your afterlife, Granny! You can do what you want."

Ann smiles while walking past Brand, following her with his camera phone. He records her going to the freezer and pulling out a small plastic cup of chocolate ice cream. Once the freezer door closes, a second person is beside Ann in the dining room. The second woman looks familiar to Brand, but he can't place where he knows her from. 

"Oh, Mom!" Ann gasped.

"Hi, Annie." She smiled, raising her hand, "It's time to go."

Ann looks down at her mother's hand and smiles earnestly. Instead of taking it, she quietly puts up her finger before turning to Brand. Ann shuffles over, handing him the cup of ice cream and patting her cold hands on his. She makes eye contact with him, so he politely turns away from the camera and looks into thin air, where her eyes should be.

"Feel free to bring over any girls you like."

"Granny," Brand chuckles, "girls, plural?"

"Well, I'd hope you have the sense to bring them in one at a time and sneak them out the back door!"

Brand and his Granny snicker loudly.

"Annie!" His great-grandmother scolds.

Ann lets go of her grandson's hand, waving as they part ways for one final time. Brand watches through the screen as Ann takes her mother's hand, going deeper into the dining room. He continues to record until their images fade, and the HCS drops drastically. The copper antennae fall loose as he folds them back into place, turning the recording off.

Brand doesn't move for a moment, staring into the dining room. Physically, he doesn't want to move, even when the coldness from the ice cream cup becomes uncomfortable. His mind is deadlocked with emotion and realization, a cacophony of incoherent noise that somehow makes sense to only him.

He goes to the countertop across the kitchen and sets the ice cream and the phone down. He takes the earbuds out and is left with silence - dead silence. He leans on the counter, staring through it and into nothingness. That same nothingness began to terrify him.

All he can see are the silent memories of this house playing in front of his vision. Smelling toasted whole wheat bread. Feeling the cold aluminum of a crackers container filled with chocolate chip cookies. The printed words of children's detective novels while he sat with her on the loveseat, learning to read.

That black pit of nothingness grew in his stomach, crawling up his spine. His eyes glazed over as a lump formed in his throat. He was terrified that this nothingness was coming for these memories. The abyss reached for him from a place he couldn't see or hear... or fight back against.

With his job now finished, he was closer to the reality of the inevitable. Granny's funeral was on Friday. That weekend was up in the air, with consideration of his cousins and sister. The house will be up for sale that Monday morning. The house he grew up in. The same home he'd formed sibling-like bonds with his cousins. The home his grandmother owned for sixty years was only owned by his great-grandparents when they had it built!

A home he had no hope of owning or even renting. With it gone, what would happen to those memories? Those afternoons, waiting for his mom to get off her shift at the bar to pick him up. The summers he'd spent playing in the backyard on a jungle gym that hadn't been there in... 15 years.

Brand found himself in front of a black lacquered cabinet about five feet tall. The entire thing was covered in authentic oriental carvings, Korean, as he'd learned some months back. Several pieces of furniture in the dining room were of the same design, gifted to his great-grandfather, Master Sergeant Ignatius McKinney "Pappy" Cain of the United States Navy.

Brand ran his hand along the rim of the cabinet, sliding from the front to the right side. He searched intently, letting his fingers feel every indent and raised portion until he found a nub. Firmly pressing on it, the nub slid inward as the cabinet shook with a muffled thud. The top jumped, and the front split in two. Carefully opening it, Brand revealed a hidden bar. Its wooden cup and bottle holders were all empty except for one spot.

He knelt down with a sigh, eagerly taking the lone bottle in hand. His gaze ran over it as he analyzed every inch of it, cradling it like a newborn babe. It was a bottle of bourbon, Jim White Label. The plastic cap was still sealed shut by the unbroken ring.

"You are only four years younger than I am."