Canto I

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark

Oh, Dante! So dramatic. Not that I'm a master of understatement, you see, but "a forest dark," Dante? Seriously.

Whatever, Dante. We are all guilty of something, whether it be something small like not taking out the garbage today or something big like not taking out the garbage all week.

Me? Well, personally I'm guilty of a whole long list of things. I like to think of it as a healthy collection of "experiences of a questionable nature." There was the time I tried to make out with a girl in front of her ex boyfriend. Or the time I didn't go to work because I was hung over...

Alright, alright so I've done that more than once and while I was in the Peace Corps. I mean, that's pretty shitty. But can you blame me? During the winter there, the sun only shines for five hours and you can only heat one room of your house at a time. Did you expect me to sit around sober all the time?

I'm getting ahead of myself. We're still in the forest dark. It's not time for forgiveness yet. That comes later... right?

I've been negligent, selfish, drunk, lazy, lecherous, greedy and downright cruel at times. And then, there was that man I killed for looking at me funny when I walked into the saloon.

OK, so that didn't really happen. But it sounds pretty bad ass, doesn't it?

But I've burned my fair share of bridges and now, slightly less than midway through my life (I hope), I stand in some melodramatic forest, my way forever lost! What a woeful creature I am! LOST IN A NIGHTMARESCAPE OF GNARLED, MENACING, BLACK TREES.

Ahem. Let's not get carried away.

Wait. Is there seriously a she-wolf gnashing her teeth at me from behind the wall of monster trees? Don't you think this is a bit much? I get it the point already. I've done some shitty things and now my soul is in danger. I don't think I need some demon wolf and a bunch of mangled, hell-burnt trees to drive the point home. Isn't it bad enough that I've alienated almost everyone I know? Do I need to have my entrails devoured by a ravenous metaphor as well?

Oh, look! A shade! I certainly hope it's not another overwrought symbol of my wayward existence!

"O! be you a man or be you a shade, sir?" I shouted at the form gliding toward me.

"Why are you talking like that?" he responded. His accent was peculiar, mostly British but occasionally, he choked back his Rs like a Frenchman.

"Well, you being a ghost and all, I thought you might use more archaic language."

"I may be a ghost, but I'm not that old."  He had trouble with his THs, too. They came out like deflated Ds.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. It's a common mistake. Most people think that just because someone's dead, they're going to talk like some community theater over actor," he sighed. "Let's get on with this business. You know why I'm here, right?"

"Yeah, I think. You're here to save me from my ways. I've been a shithead for most of my youth and now, as I'm getting older, I'm starting to realize that if I keep being a shithead, that giant furry monster over there is going to snack on guts."

"And?"

I paused to think for a second. And what?

"You know I can hear what you're thinking, right?" the ghost chided.

"Um..."

"And you feel bad for being such a shithead... right?"

"Oh, right."

"You know, the only way you punks ever repent is if we threaten you with some nightmarishly brutal punishment. Don't you ever want to be a better person for its own sake?"

"Yeah, sure I do. If I were a better person, I could probably sleep with a lot more girls. Chicks dig good people, right?"

"You're not giving me a whole lot to work with here, Jason."

"That was a joke, ghostie. I thought you could read my mind."

"I can, which is why I know you aren't really joking. We're just going to have to do this the old fashioned way. Follow me."

With that, the ghostly shadow disappeared into the muddy ground beneath my feet. There was a brief moment where I thought I had lost him, but soon a skeleton shot up from the ground. Mud clung to the bony frame and soon, it started to harden into muscle and sinew.

Finally, the outer layer of mud turned into flesh and no longer was I looking at an amorphous mist. I was looking at a man.

And he was naked.

"That was disgusting," I said.

"You don't look so hot yourself," the naked man quipped.

I stared intently at his face, mostly to avoid looking at his junk. Deep crevasses cut into the flesh around his gray eyes, which sunk into the back of his skull. His cheeks, stretched taut over his bones, were sprinkled with white hairs, as if he hadn't shaved in a day or two. A salt-and-pepper wisp of a mustache sat above his thin lips and a patch of hair beneath them turned his chin into a sharp point.

"You kind of look like the devil." It slipped out before I had a chance to realize that I really ought not tell that to the apparition-turned-person that had come to save my immortal soul.  "Well, not the scary, ugly devil. But the charming one. Like Mephistopheles. I think it's the mustache."

"You almost done?"

"Um, yeah. Sorry."

"I'm your favorite author, Jason. That's how this works. Don't you remember from reading Dante? Virgil saved Dante because he thought Virgil was totally awesome. So, now Joseph Conrad, yours truly, is here to save you."

"Oh... my... God...!"

"Don't embarrass yourself, Jason."

"I... I just..." I stammered.

"I know. You love my books. You think I have profound insight into the human soul. You think my stories touch on deep truths about our struggles and our weaknesses. You think that all my writings are both masterful works of art and pithy philosophical treatises on the nature of man."

"I... I... I..."

"Also, take it from me, next time you want to give a book to a girl you have a thing for, maybe you shouldn't go straight for Heart of Darkness. It's a little... much. Now, let's get a move on."