**LJ Idol Season 4 Week 16 Entry: Equality**

Chapter 2

 

Over the next few hours, my
inner Libra weighed the changes between my old life and my new…
un-life. As a newly dead woman, would my credit cards go into
instant lock-down, denying me access to all things Prada, Gucci,
Wang, and Chanel? Hmmm, somewhere in there might be a well dressed
law firm that I might consider putting on retainer. Surely I could
convince some jury to award me hefty reparations for this nightmare.

 

As my list of items grew,
the scales of my zodiac sign groaned from the strain upon them, in an
effort to find some sort of balance. I wanted only to ensure my
continued existence in the manner I was accustomed to. Namely
keeping myself stylishly dressed and on the VIP lists for all the
great parties. Should it matter that I am dead? I could walk, I
could talk, I could look great in Givenchy. Who could ask for
anything more?

 

“Where are my shoes?”
If I get them and get back to the cruise ship, maybe I can forget
this whole horrible experience. I am not afraid to pretend the whole
thing never happened. No one needs to know, and I can get back to
enjoying those cabana boys by the pool. If my tone came off a little
demanding, serves this guys right. Sure, I might think about being
grateful since without him I’d be… well… dead… but I need shoes
and need them now.

 

“Let me get them for you.
I put them… uh…” He looked about a bit absentmindedly.

 

Oh
dear lord he lost my shoes. These feet do not meet the great
outdoors without something on them. I will never make it anywhere
without protection for the soles of my feet. “You said you only
removed them for the ceremony. How far could they go without me in
them?”

 

He blinked, maybe a little
put off by my biting tone. “I, uh, I took them off after bringing
you here and… um… then…”

 

Oh geeze. He still won’t
tell me exactly what he did? What on earth does it take to do some
kind of Hocus-Pocus-Pretend-I’m-Harry-Potter stuff anyway? I might
need to take the fate of my toes in my own hand and find Jimmy
myself. “Hey, where did you put them? Maybe with your stuff? I
assume you lit these candles with something? Or maybe…”

 

He snapped his fingers.
Glad I could spark his brain to work by pointing out the glaringly
obvious. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

 

He ducked out of the musty,
ancient room, leaving just me and the cobwebs and the table I woke up
on. In disgust I looked at the table, but saw no real signs of
thousands of brutal ritualistic sacrifices. I hoped that meant I got
lucky. Maybe this is just where the priests would come to have
supper after a long day of those brutal ritualistic sacrifices.
Carving up humans and chucking them to the gods must work up an
appetite! What did I know? I sure didn’t pay attention to any of
that history junk growing up. I had a life so I focused on my
clothes, my nails, and if Bobby McKearny liked me. (He did, we dated
for 9 weeks my senior year before I dumped him for a college guy I
met at a party.)

 

I edged towards the only
way out of the room, a shadowy door frame. The dark tunnel he
disappeared down looked rather foreboding sparking an inner debate
about house much I really desired to blunder down it. I squinted to
peer down the hallway, but realized the effort is completely
unnecessary. No candles as far as I could see, so why could I make
things out?

 

No worry about premature
wrinkling from the squinting here! I must say, that is nice. The
future plastic surgeon in my life probably not too happy with this
outcome, but I threw that benefit onto the scale for after life.
Works for me, if not for that doctor. The idea brought a small grin
to my face, and I stopped squinting.

 

It made me think, does this
mean I get to have this glorious 28 year old body forever? OK, so I
claim 28, even if I am really 33. No one believes me when I say my
real age anyway and I sometimes even get carded when ordering from
the bar. There will definitely be no skin off my back if I get to
stay young forever. If dying at 33 means looking mid-20’s for
eternity, how can one complain? The Libra added that to the undead
side of the scales.

 

Really, at this point,
downsides seemed few and far between. Obviously I was alive, so who
could deny me use of my credit cards. Can they prove I’m dead if I’m
walking around in my body? To prove death, I would think you might
need a corpse. Corpses that walk and talk generally give off a
non-corpse vibe to people, especially authorities dealing in death
stuff. I didn’t see any way people could deny me my rights.

I wondered who to contact
about discrimination towards the not-dead.

 

What am I? The question
made me really think for a minute or two. I was dead. But not dead.
No blood thirst and fangs, plus this guy totally did not seem
vampy, so logic ruled out vampire. The slim information he gave was:
I croaked, he performed some ceremony, and now here I stand.
Un-croaked. But I am not really alive. Undead? I felt a pulse so
am I re-alive? Talk about confusing. I needed to figure it all out
before crying foul. Undead discrimination people might not consider
me undead.

 

I needed to pay attention
to this guy. Find out what he said. Determine my new station in
life and death. Why had it sounded so boring? I planned to smile
pretty in a hope nerd-boy might sum things up.

 

My mental focus returned to
the hallway. It was nothing more than a long corridor reaching
towards the outside wall of the Temple. Where the hell did he hide
my shoes? I mean you carry the hot dead girl from the crumbling
building into the creepy Aztec Temple of Doom. You put her on grody
old stone table after hopefully making sure there’s no gross 2,000
year old blood on it from barbaric sacrifices. You remove shoes and
put them underneath said table. You use crazy ritual, which once
more better not mean we’re married, to bring her back. You give her
back her shoes. End of story.

 

Was this really that hard a
concept? What part of this particular chain of events meant hiding
my shoes in the next Mexican city over? I mean, really. How long
ago did he leave? My impatience grew so I distracted myself by more
weighing of the situation.

 

I made a mental list for
each category to hang on my scales. I needed to find balance, an
equality between the two. Only then could I truly get on in my life,
death, whatever.

 

On the side of being alive
I added the usual goodness: Birthdays, parties, shopping, guys,
shopping, family, guys, work, shopping, and guys.

 

On the side of being…
whatever… I heaped onto the scale: Young and hot forever, oh can I
celebrate my birth day and my death day? Double the presents! OK, so
it was awful close to my birthday, but still. Nothing is perfect in
this world.

 

That was as far as I got
when my nerd in lab coat returns. All praises to the shoe, gods, his
hands held my Jimmy Choos, albeit a little too carelessly. I raced
to him, snatching my precious shoes for a tight embrace. Ahhh Jimmy
Choo, how I missed you so!

 

A choice lay before me.
Sit on the dirty stone floor or perch myself on that nasty table. I
Choos the road less traveled and attempted to balance myself on one
foot while reintroducing Jimmy to my feet. Worked fantastic for the
first shoe, not so much for the second. I tottered quite a bit while
struggling to put on lefty, but thankfully managed to maintain
myself.

 

My clothes may remember
better days of no earthquakes and me dying, but the shoes looked
great. Order in my world reigned once more, if a bit weakly. Now,
to get back to my cabin for some outerwear as well as a mojito and I
might just survive this insanity.

 

Oh yeah, except I needed
some more information. “Thanks for my shoes. Think you could give
me the Reader’s Digest version this time of what the hell is going
on?”

 

“Well it started four
years ago when…” Well that’s not going to work. I held a hand
up, stopping his Sunday stroll down Memory Lane.

 

“I said Reader’s Digest.
You do understand Digest, right? Just the important stuff.”

 

“It’s all important. You
need to know where it all began to understand what is going on now.”

 

“No, see, that’s where
you are wrong. I really don’t. Just tell me what you did in this
ceremony thing.”

 

“I reanimated you. I
brought you back from death in a Mayan ceremony-” He used the
ceremony word again. I bet he did not think I would notice. Guess
what, I did.

 

“Yeah, see, I don’t get
this ceremony thing. I mean I know all about these creepy places out
here in the back end of nowhere. All you do is accept an apple from
someone and poof you are married. You didn’t marry us did you,
’cause if so then let me tell you… I’ll have it annulled so
fast…”

 

“Married? No. What?”
He seemed taken aback. Apparently he doesn’t watch the TV exposé’s
featuring all these crazy native cultures. I have the Travel
Channel and I’m not afraid to watch it!

 

“You better be glad. It
takes more than some kind of ‘reanimated’, whatever that means,
dealio to get me, Mister.” OK, so it doesn’t take much more, but
he sure did not need to know that. What can I say, I like a good
time. But a girl needs to have standards.

 

“Can I tell you more now
so you can understand?” He never gives up, does he?

 

“Keep it short. I just
need to know about this reanimation thing. I have a boat to catch,
you know.” The bad thing about losing that purse, how would I
prove my identity when I attempted to board my cruise ship? Another
bone added to the scales. Balance appeared illusive for the time
being.

 

“A boat? Um, what do you
mean?” I watched as he pushed the glasses up his nose another time
and then ran his hand through his hair. He still looked nervous.

 

“Do I seriously look like
I am from around here? This was just a day trip for the cruise I am
on.”

 

“There might be a problem
then. See, it’s been a day and a half since the earthquake.”

 

Well, that was definitely
not news I wanted to hear. Not looking good for the reanimated side
of the scale. If only I realized then how much worse things would
get. There would never be a balance. I might be hot and 33 forever,
but it came at a price. No one likes having the dead walk amongst
them. I thought life sucked having brown hair instead of blonde? I
thought it was bad being a size 8 instead of a size 2? Forget
whining about the race wars or the battle of the sexes.

 

Libra’s enjoy balance.
Their sign is the scales used by the modern judiciary system. I
never understood what it felt like to be judged until I died and
resurrected by my very own nerdy guy. This is worse than being the
pimply kid in 8^th grade, worse than being a vegetarian in
a steakhouse, worse than being a Republican in California.

 

Now I see the other side of
the coin from growing up. People walk on the other side of the
street from me. It’s like Julia Roberts in the beginning of Pretty
Woman with the shopkeepers that won’t help her because of the way she
is dressed. Mothers keep their children from me. And then there are
The Hunters. At some point I need to figure out how to grow eyes in
the back of my head so those bastards can’t sneak up on me. I
thought dying would be the end of my worrying about death, but no.
There seem to be those Shaun’s of the world that want to fling their
bad ’45’s at me in the lamest attempt to kill me. And then there’s
the serious ones, but we’ll get to them later.

 

It seems that even after
you die, you still need to worry about taking a dirt nap. Good
grief, can’t a girl rest in peace?

 

-Lady O

*Author’s Note*  I would like to officially thank the LJ-Idol community for all they’ve done to inspire this.  From the original topic last week, to this week’s topic on equality, to a member offering the fantastic idea of using “Choos” for “Choose”.

Originally posted on ladyozma.vox.com