Seven or eight years ago, I left the faith of my youth. I went from an absolute, die-hard believer to someone who wants nothing to do with the church. I’m sure it seemed abrupt to everyone on the outside. One Sunday, I was there, praying and singing hymns with everyone else, and the next, I was gone…unwilling to talk to anyone about what had happened.
The truth is nothing happened. I’d just finally stopped forcing it. I’d ignored the red flags for too long. The cracks in my faith had been growing for a while, but I kept holding on out of fear. Fear of judgment. Fear of losing a part of my identity. Fear of Hell. And fear of oblivion. Because, as time passed, I realized that my issues were not only with my church, but with religion as a whole. And I wasn’t ready to face the possibility of no God and no afterlife. Until…one day, I was.
I stopped going and never looked back. This confession may ostracize me from some readers, but I have zero interest in joining any kind of religion. At the same time, I have no desire to talk anyone out of their personal faith. If it brings happiness, comfort, and community (and doesn’t marginalize entire groups), faith can be a beautiful thing.
Anyway…this post isn’t about my agnosticism. But the big question—what happens when we die—has always influenced my writing. Now? With no real belief in an afterlife, I’m haunted by the possibility of nothingness.
That fear influenced my writing of The Useless of Wasteland—the story of a writer who dies (or does he?) and finds his afterlife is the dystopian world of his unfinished novel. There were, of course, other sources of inspiration—different what-if questions that had teased me for years. But, looking back, I can see writing this story was, in a way, my search for immortality.
Faith is belief in things you can’t see. This can be positive or negative. I won’t dive into the negative here—I’ll just say that when it comes to the question of what happens after we die, we have absolute freedom and ability to believe anything we want. Personally, I don’t want to end up in one of my stories, but I like the idea that through the act of creation, I can obtain immortality. Art and words are forever—no matter on what scale they are created. In other words, seize your chance to live forever and go create something!
The Useless of Wasteland is coming soon! I’ve shared the cover, book blurb, and prologue below. Let me know what you think.
No longer in control of the story, Alex must navigate Wasteland as a character. Thrust into danger, met with suspicion, his only hope of survival lies with Mabie Nightlady—the book’s protagonist and the leader of a group of rebels. Though wary, Mabie offers Alex her protection. Her distrust and his unease eventually give way to friendship, passion, and love. Unfortunately, Mabie is supposed to die at the end of the book. To save her, Alex must either find a way back to his world—and lose her forever—or change the story from inside it.
I think I’m dead. Only, I’m not a ghost. And I’m pretty fucking sure this isn’t heaven.
Dirt freckled with sagebrush, grass, and wildflowers stretches out behind me. In front of me, a grove of trees grows into a forest as the land slopes upward. The sun looks ready to pop and bleed across the dusty sky. My skin prickles as beads of sweat collect in my five o’clock shadow. Ghosts can’t feel shit like that.
Right?
Yet if I’m not dead, why isn’t my body broken? My truck crashed into the oak tree at high speed. The airbag punched my head back with neck-breaking whiplash. Then tinnitus, a whiff of gasoline, and finally, blackness. It was the kind of crash you don’t walk away from. But as far as I can tell, I don’t have a scratch on me. My wrecked truck, the tree I crashed into, and the road are nowhere in sight, as if I’ve teleported to the middle of nowhere.
In the moments between blacking out and waking up here, my life flashed before my eyes, just like they say. Time ballooned, making space for thirty-six years in a matter of seconds.
Some of it played like a movie. Other moments more like rapid-fire snapshots.
I’m nine years old and new in the neighborhood. Shy, with an almost unintelligible stutter, making friends isn’t easy. My mom has arranged a play date with the twin boys next door.
As Kyle and Aaron argue in my backyard over whether we should play pirates or zombies, I stutter through a compromise. They listen as patiently as third graders can…so, not at all.
Finally, I run into the house, find a sheet of paper and a pencil, and write down my idea. Pirates who find a treasure map. And the gold is buried on…Zombie Island.
At the time, I think I’ve simply found a way around my stumbling voice. But in pre-death hindsight, it’s the moment I became a writer.
Christmas mornings. Learning to ride a bike. High school wrestling matches.
Then, my first—and last—cage fight. I’m twenty-nine and a fresh blue belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu with about six months of Muay Thai training. It’s only a local amateur bout, something to check off my bucket list. Just for fun.
But it turns personal real quick.
While my opponent and I chat before the fight, he notices my stutter. After years of speech therapy, it’s better, but still there, and it flares up when I’m nervous. I’m introduced to the crowd as Alex “Pretty Boy” Baker, my nickname at the gym. It wasn’t my choice. My coach submitted the name without telling me.
Gavin “Lightning Fists” Rinker laughs from his corner and shouts, “Let’s go, P-P-P-Pretty Boy.”
Early in round one, I shoot for a double leg takedown. My opponent, a former wrestling champion, sprawls. I spend the next thirty seconds struggling to get back to my feet. As soon as I do, he lands an elbow, cutting open my upper lip. It will leave a scar.
Round two, he knees me in the ribs, cracking one of them.
Final round, he shoots in for a double leg. Exhausted and in pain, I let him take me to the ground, but luck into a triangle choke, my legs around his neck and one of his arms. With everything I have left, I lock down the choke. He taps. I win.
My wife, Elizabeth, tells me later she watched the whole thing through her fingers and begs me to never do it again.
“No problem.”
Elizabeth.
As my world faded and I watched the last bits of my pre-death, “Alex Baker, this is your life” hallucination, I hoped to see our good times. Our wedding day. Wedding night. I wanted my last thoughts to be of her body. Her smile. I wanted to see myself burying my face in her hair, breathing in her vanilla-scented shampoo. I wanted to hear her laugh.
Instead, I saw her sitting on the ground, back against the wall, blood pooling between her legs.
The final miscarriage.
I’m holding her hand and staring at the ground because I don’t want her to see the disappointment on my face.
Look at her, you stupid fuck.
She’s scared. Shocked. Grieving. And alone.
The images faded away, blackness creeping in.
No. No, no, no.
This couldn’t be the end. I needed to talk to Elizabeth. Tell her I love her. That I forgive her. Beg her to forgive me.
Our dog, Kevin. I needed to take him on one last walk. Earn my black belt. I needed to say goodbye to my parents. Thank them for everything.
And I needed to finish my book.
In the storm of should’ve, could’ve, would’ve, that final failure hit hard. If I die, who’s going to finish the story?
With that thought, everything went black. I woke up here, left to wonder if I’m dead or alive.
The evidence is pretty damning: high-speed crash, life flashing before my eyes, and teleported to the middle of nowhere. And then, of course, there’s the woman.
Her name is Mabie Nightlady. And she doesn’t exist.