Just Make A Choice!

Your dead best friend Lenny has something he wants to say to you. Lenny was your best friend from middle school through the beginning of high school. He used to tell you how he wanted to be an Olympic diver, and you used to tell him how you wanted to be a world famous actor.

Lenny was as good at diving as you are at acting, which is why he’s dead now. He cracked his head open after jumping from a thirty-foot cliff into the swimming hole at the bottom of the old quarry you used to swim at. You dragged him from the water and held him in your arms as he took his last breaths.

“Live your dream for both of us,” he rasped. “Never give up on acting.”

You’ve always remembered Lenny’s dying words. He is one of the reasons you’ve managed to stick it out all of these years, despite the constant rejection and seemingly limitless discouragement. No matter how hard it gets, you’re always able to buckle down and keep going. For Lenny.

Just before you make your decision about whether you want to give up on acting so that you can save Julia’s life, a cold wind comes blowing through the room. Your vision seems to go black except for a bright white tunnel of light, from which the translucent image of Lenny floats toward you. He is the same age he was on the day he died, except there is no wound where he hit his head. Also, he’s naked.

“Lenny?” you ask the spirit.

“It is me,” he says. “Your friend. Do not be afraid to look upon me. You need not avert your eyes.”

“I’m not afraid. It’s just that you’re naked,” you say. “And you still look fifteen. It’s kind of uncomfortable to look at a naked fifteen year old boy.”

“I come to you as I was on the day that I died,” he says.

“You were naked when you died?” you ask.

“We both were,” he says.

“We used to swim naked?” you ask. “Really?”

“Really,” he says. “Those summer days swimming naked with you are the fondest memories of my corporeal life.”

“It was great swimming with you,” you say. “I must have just blotted the naked part out.”

“It’s understandable old friend,” Lenny says. “Now then, I come to you today to tell you something that is of the greatest import.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just you that was naked?” you ask.

Lenny’s ghost takes a deep breath. He is growing impatient.

“It really isn’t what I wanted to talk about. But yes, I’m sure. What I need to tell you is—“

“It’s just that the memory of my best friend dying in my arms,” you say, interrupting. “And me begging you not to go, to hold on and be strong for me, and me kissing your forehead and crying into your hair, it’s the most vivid memory from my childhood. I just think us both being naked at the time would be a detail that I wouldn’t forget.”

Lenny takes another deep breath. You’re not sure, since he’s floating, but it looks like he might be tapping his foot impatiently.

“Okay,” he says. “If it’s such a vivid memory, what color swimsuit were you wearing?”

You think for a second. Nothing comes. “Holy shit!” you shout. “We used to swim naked!”

“Yes, quite a surprise, I’m sure,” Lenny says. “Anyway, I’ve come here today all the way from the afterlife, which is not a short trek, to tell you it’s perfectly fine if you give up on acting.”

You feel like he just punched you in the ribs. “But your dying words,” you say.

“I know what I said, but we were children at the time,” Lenny says. “Since then I’ve kept tabs on your career and, well, I think if you turn your back on acting the craft will survive.”

“All these years,” you say. “It was your dying wish that kept me going.”

“Oh please,” Benny shouts, causing his sparsely haired scrotum to rise and tighten. “You used my dying wish as an excuse. You’ve been stuck at the same place for over a decade, going on pointless auditions that were open to anyone with a copy of backstage, while just barely pursuing workshops or theater collectives that might help you develop. Any time the idea of going into some other field presented itself, you’d use my dying wish as an excuse to avoid making a scary decision about your life.”

You’re sulking now. “You don’t think I’ll make it?”

“I know you won’t make it. You were supposed to figure it out on your own about three years from now, but there’s a girl’s life at stake and believe me, you giving it a go for a little while longer is so not worth a girl losing her life.”

“But Lenny,” you say.

Lenny starts to float back up the tunnel of white. “Give up on acting. Save the girl and eventually go to grad school,” he calls out. “Oh and by the way,” he adds. “We once watched each other jerk off. Behind your parents' garage.”

“I remember that Lenny,” you shout, waving goodbye to your old friend, your eyes filling with tears. “Of course I could never forget that day, old friend. And forget it I never will.”