Do you embrace a moral action that has negative repercussions that affect you but benefits the world in a net positive way? Do you suffer that potential pain? I read this on my cell phone before the woman glided past me into the center of the boulevard. Traffic trudged past her as she stumbled across. The motorized beings missed her again and again. I stood on that street corner, helpless. No one acted in defense of the young woman who placed herself in danger. I did. I dashed across the cracked concrete. My memory faded after I pushed the young woman from the car. The faded memories did not hold an image. Thud and gurgle sounds stood side by side within this faded memory.

My eyes struggled to open. My other senses came first. A violent mixture of hard liquor and strands of exotic scorched plants penetrated my smell. I could feel a lush velvet material brush my hand as I tried to push my body upwards out of this bottomless sensation. My eyes snapped open and showed me a low light, somber bar lounge littered with people. I scanned the room in the hopes I could determine my location or identify a clue of how I ended up in that lounge. The clue came in the same young woman I pushed in my ephemeral memory, sitting across the lounge with her body hunched over the bar top. My eyes locked on to her while she talked to a bartender. My eyes then shifted to the bartender. This bartender’s body resembled that of a man. A bull’s head with curved horns elongated itself from the neck upwards.

They both felt my stare in that instant. She turned over to me and waved while the bull creature took a quick survey before it disappeared underneath the bar.

“He’s awake! Hi Tony!” the young woman said. The bartender reappeared and placed two drinks in front of her. The young woman grabbed the two drinks and skipped to me. She exuded an abhorrent amount of cheer with each step. She sat next to me and handed me a drink that had a vibrant azure hue to it. I took a sip. It reminded me of my favorite drink.

“Blue Lagoon is your favorite, right? My notes say it’s your most likely to order drinks after a long day at the…” the young woman said before reaching into her back pocket to pull out a notepad. She glanced at a couple of jotted faded notes I could see from my position.

“Data analyst job. Yeah, those numbers things you guys love to do.” She continued to finish her previous statement.

“How the hell do you know these things about me and where am I?” I said. I placed my drink down on a tempered bronze glass coffee table in front of me. That’s when I noticed something was wrong. I stared longer at the tempered glass. The left quadrant of my skull shattered with parts of my brain exposed to the elements. I dropped to the floor and examined myself the more the glass fed me the visual feedback. My head pounded as if I was a drum set of an uncoordinated toddler. The sensation amplified itself the longer I gazed upon the mortal wound. Blood squirted from the open section.

“What the fuck! What the fuck. What the fuck?” I repeated with the highest volume I could muster.

“It’s not even that bad, just an open wound. It could heal if you gave it time,” the young woman said as she took a sip of her drink. Before I could reply to her idiotic comment, she interjected with “To be fair, your cuts have already scabbed” she said while pointing to my arms. I stood up, and she glided her hands across the dark ridged scabs that ranged from my tricep to my forearm.

“It’s like reading braille. I can identify the depth, location, and time of the cuts. That’s not even the best part!” She said. Her nails dug into my skin. My body struggled to communicate the appropriate pain signals. Some were painful, while others were cold and numbing my mind. I could feel the scab uplift from my skin, trying to hold on. She placed it into her mouth, consuming my scab. 

I gagged. A curdled, textured liquid rose from my stomach. I tried to contain it but it overflowed; it splattered across the glass floor. 

“Ew, that’s not edible,” she said. As I tried to get myself together, she examined the latest product served up by my stomach.

“Oh, that’s a piece of tire tracks that ran you over. That’s pretty impressive. I haven’t seen that in my last couple years of service,” she said. She took her little notepad and scribbled additional notes. She poked the puke. Then she lifted a portion of the acidic compounds up and sniffed it to get the exact aromatic description.

“What are you?” I asked, while I regained my composure on the velvet couch.

“I am the embodiment of death in all universes from A to Z. A part-time job that became full time. But my name is Daisy!” she said with a snicker before she finished her drink. I took a moment to reflect on her words. I assumed in that moment I misheard because of the otherworldly skull fracture my hearing had been affected.

“So I am dead, but I have consciousness.” I said back to Daisy. Daisy’s face squinted, her head tilted. We both had trouble understanding each other. An unwanted comprehension test. She flipped through her notepad again for several seconds.

“Oh… you’re an atheist… damn, horrible way to find out there’s an afterlife,” Daisy said.

“So there’s a god?” I asked.

“The big guy? He’s real, but he’s been on vacation for several billion years. That’s how the job transitioned from part-time to full time. Miss managing managers, ya know?” Daisy said. Her tongue twisted itself together.

“Tongue twister” I said to her. She took her empty glass cup and broke it into a thick piece. She cut her tongue off and tossed the flesh matter onto the tempered glass of the coffee table. Daisy stuck out her tongue, and it grew back at a rapid pace.

“Worse, he’s listening for once.” Daisy sighed. She continued with, “Follow me. We have a busy schedule.” Daisy walked towards a grand dark wood lacquered door with an engraving of a large tree with circles hovering around it. I followed without a word. What else could I do? Is it acceptable for me to keep claiming that this place isn’t real? I needed to know more.

She pushed forward the colossal doors and a gust of wind flew into the lounge. Chimes rode along the strands of wind, each with its own unique note. Golden slot machines dinged alongside the clang of chips slammed across the various four shaded teflon coated fabric tables. We weaved across machines and tables. The commotion of the bar areas drowned out the constant whirl of the roulette wheels out littered across this never ending room. The dazzle of the lights and sounds dissipated the more I navigated across with Daisy. My eyes informed me of something critical I missed. Some tables and machines had non-human individuals.. They varied in sizes and colors. Bodies that resembled the bartender in the lounge. Faces of eagles, dogs, cats, just to name a few. If this were heaven, it would be a harmonious blend of all the races found in theologies across the entire human spectrum.

“Why is this place a casino?” I asked Daisy.

“Long story short, I got bored after the first couple of billion deaths. So I made this to entertain myself.” Daisy said.

“Seems silly?” I said to her, she stopped in place.

“Every second you breathe is an opportunity to die, but everyone here seems to forget that. Reclaim the right to be careless as you were, regardless of the moral implications.” Daisy said. I pondered on these wise words but realized one critical fact.

“I was trying to save your ass. What are you talking about?” I shouted.

She darted to the right. “Good point!” Daisy said. I chased her with the ignited will power to slay even death until we reached a table with several creatures seated with none of them in an active game.

Daisy walked around the table and into the dealer pocket of the table. The table’s occupants looked my way. I scanned their faces. A dog which wore glasses and even a cashmere sweater. Sat next to the dog, a pale-faced woman with multi layered wings contracted to her back. Next to the women sat a male in a black suit with black horns protruding out from his skull. A cloud of darkness surrounded by several eyes hovered over the last chair.

“Oh, look, another freak she brought,” the dog said.

“All dogs go to heaven. Dumb ones must come here, it seems,” I fired back while I took a seat next to the levitated set of eyes. Everyone but the floating cloud of eyes laughed at the remark. The dog growled in my direction.

“An angel, a talking dog, a fantastical abomination, a demon and a zombie walk into a rigged casino. I assume there’s a punchline coming, daisy?” The woman said.

Daisy developed a grin that expanded past the normal range possible for the human anatomy.

“A good punchline requires more setup than what we have,” Daisy said.

“Admit you’re not funny, we’d get it,” said the horned man. Daisy’s face turned sour. She passed stacks of coins to each player. A red chip with a multicolored orange. A blue circle surrounded the edges of this chip. In the center sat a one percent inscription. A green chip with a black stripes symmetrical to each other. In their center sat a five percent inscription. The third type of chip had a cascaded purple and white dotted across itself, with the final inscription that read ten percent.

“We are playing blackjack. Each chip has its own value to represent the amount of life force you’re betting on each round, instead of me handing chips from myself to you. The highest value from among you all will gain the chips betted for the round,” Daisy said.

“So if we kill each other, we don’t have to deal with you,” the woman said.

“Yes, of course! And I will add any additional life force gained from this game into your reincarnation, so place your bets,” Daisy added to the woman’s statement.

The full stack of chips in front of the abomination moved forward.

“Looks like he’s going all-in,” the man commented. He pushed all his stacks on the four colored teflon table. “There was a drug rager I had planned before this… excursion. I could utilize the extra lives for that,” he continued. I faced a critical decision: bet the full stack to get this over with, or see if I could win all their lives with a methodical approach. Resolute, I pushed all my chips to the center.

“It’s the head trauma I suffered, but an all-in hand of blackjack sounds perfect.” I told the group.

“I don’t think it’s the head trauma Tony, I think it’s the lack of a father figure,” Daisy said as she perused through her notes again.

The woman with angel wings laughed, then she pushed forward all her chips to the center of the table alongside us. We turned to the dog and watched its reaction.

“I’ll only go all in if the zombie takes back the dumb dog comment,” he stated.

“Dumb dog.” we all said in unison.

“Then no,” the dog said. Daisy tossed a bone shaped treat into the pot.

“Does this sweeten the deal?” she asked. The dog jumped with joy onto the table, which knocked all of his chips over.

“Of course,” he said. Although I didn’t say it, nor did anyone else, I could tell everyone thought the same thing… dumb ass dog.

Daisy dealt out the first portion of cards to each of us. King of clubs for the dog, king of diamonds for the demon. Queen of hearts for the angel and king of spades for the abomination. For me, I got the ace of hearts. The next set of cards. Two of hearts for the dog, eight of spades for the demon. Three of diamonds placed on the angel stack. A four of spades went to the abomination. Then Daisy placed an ace of diamonds next to my ace of hearts.

The demon let out a stressful moan of disappointment. “I guess I have to wait for one of you guys to crap out. I can’t take another hit. Ironic.”

“What’s all of your names?” I asked. I found it weird at that moment none of us even introduced each other.

“Celestia, but my friends call me Toni.” The angel said. The demon followed her comment with “Anton, but my friends call me Tony,”. My eyes squinted while my brow rose upwards. The dog then said “My owner calls me Antonio when he’s angry at me but Tonio every other time,”. I turned and looked at Daisy.

“This just sounds like another setup for a terrible joke, with everyone having the same name.” I said to her.

“It’s a meta joke, not a terrible joke, there’s a difference!” Daisy replied to me. Celestia tapped the teflon fabric table with formidable force.

“Cut the bullshit. I want to get out of here. Hit.” Celestia said. Daisy slid a card from the dealer’s shoe and flipped it onto Celestia’s stack. The seven of clubs built itself upon Celestia’s stack, which gave her the lead over all our souls.

Tonio the dog tapped the table. Daisy slid another card from the dealer’s shoe and with one motion tossed it towards Tonio’s stack. A three of hearts. Tonio tapped again. Daisy repeated her previous action. A five of hearts placed joined forces with the three to create contention between Celestia and Tonio for the win.

“At what point do we get to hear the abomination talk?” Anton asked. The cloud of eyes shifted in Anton’s direction. One eye glided out of the colony and made its way towards Anton. It hovered several centimeters away from his face.

“Sick side eye.” Anton said. Anton attempted to swat the eye away, but it carried a nimble soul and dodged every attempt. Another eye dislodged itself from the colony and crashed itself onto the table. Sclera tissue splattered across the table. Daisy slid another card out from her stack. A six of diamonds laid above the abominations’ stack of spades.

“You gotta be kidding me.” Anton said. I tapped my side of the table in response to his comment. A five of clubs, two of diamonds, then a jack of spades conjoined together on top of my stack.

“Four-way tie of twenties. Anton has to get either twenty-one or bust first.” I said.

Anton tapped his side of the table. Daisy dealt the card with neck snapping speed. Everyone in the group witnessed two of clubs.

“Five way tie, so who will hit next?” Anton said, while a sly grin expanded throughout his face. We all needed an ace to secure our soul, at the least.

“I bet if Daisy dealt cards to herself, it would be two aces.” Celestia said.

“You are correct!” Daisy’s grin matched that of Anton’s from a moment ago.

“We could just agree on a draw. From a technical standpoint, we all have our own chips showing our souls. We could just pick them and go cash them.” I said to my group.

“That wouldn’t be fun,” Anton said.

“True, but it would mean Daisy doesn’t get to set up whatever trash joke she had.” I said.

“Setting this up required meticulous planning. You can’t just do this to me!” Daisy cried out. From that reaction of Daisy’s, everyone grabbed equal parts of the chips on the table and walked off. In the abomination case, the chips levitated beside it.

“Guys! Please, if I don’t tell this joke, I will die!” Daisy screamed.

“Good, you need a day off.” Celestia said. As we walked around in search of the cashier’s cage, a weird thought popped into my half eviscerated skull.

“What if we all mixed each other’s chips? What would we become?” I asked the group.

A voice with a low monotone replied, “An abomination squared”. We turned to the colony of eyes.

“Did he just attempt to crack a joke?” Anton asked.

“I found it funny, let me be.” it said, then floated past us.