Swinging

I kicked the chair out from under me. My head jolted and my body jerked as the rope began to support all my weight. I swung gently to and fro. I waited.

‘What the hell is happening?’ I thought to myself after a few minutes. I was totally conscious, not even fazed by the supposedly fool proof technique. I decided I should wait a little longer. Maybe it takes more time than they show in the movies. 

I checked my watch. One hour later and nothing. No light at the end of the tunnel, no pearly gates or even flaming brimstone. ‘Maybe this is a dream’ I thought to myself after an hour of dangling. 

I woke up the next day at 8:47 a.m. Still dangling. Still living. Now I was getting sort of angry. Not even with the fact that I wasn’t dead, just that now I was stuck on this damn rope and even in ‘death’ I was unsuccessful. Jasper clawed at feet, meowing and nibbling at my pant leg. I put plenty of food in his bowl so he would still be around and healthy by the time they found me. He gave up trying to get treats out of me and trotted off. The T.V. stand, one of Jasper’s favorite perches, was about three or four feet behind me. I was just thinking about trying to restrict the air flow with a bit of my shirt when I felt a set of claws dig into the back of my shirt and crawl up my back to my shoulders. Next thing I know, Jasper is curled up around my neck like a scarf, purring. He fell asleep. 
“How am I supposed to do this with you sleeping on my shoulders, dude?” I told him. He licked my face and I smirked. “Thanks asshole.”
So I figured it was probably about time to get down since it was clear I wasn’t going to be able to do the deed. Return to life as usual, I guess. Jasper finally had to go the little feline’s room so I used the chance to try and swing myself around and dislodge myself. I started kicking my legs and spinning, sort of like one of those rides you see at county fairs- you know the ones that look like they were made in some hilljack’s backyard and spin you like a- well a guy trying to dislodge himself from a noose tied to a ceiling fan.I spun for a good five minutes until I decided that wasn’t going to work. 
Plan B? Good question. I took off my pants and tried to use them as a tool to hit my pocket knife closer to myself. That lasted less than a minute. 
Plan C. Call someone. Now the question is who will freak out the least. Probably mom, but she’s a little busy being coked up to answer her phone at the moment. It is eleven o’clock on a Monday, after all. Mary would have a heart attack just seeing the mess of an apartment her brother calls home. Definitely can’t call the cops because of the legal bullshit. Killing one’s self is apparently much more difficult than it may seem. I sat- swung –there for awhile pondering this when it dawned on me. I’ll call Keenan. Any self-respecting drug dealer, especially my mom’s, must have seen crazier things than this. He barely knows me, so he won’t care that I tried to do what I did, he doesn’t want to be involved with the police so there’s no way he’ll call 911, and he also does lots of drugs so even if he did care, he won’t be sober enough to realize what’s going on. I pulled my phone out of my shirt pocket and dialed his number. 
No answer.
I was about to give up all hope when my phone rang. I whipped it out of my pocket and saw that it wasn’t a phone call, but a text. ‘busy now. see u wedns’. Looks like I’ve got another two days of swinging ahead of me. Great. I really just want to play some video games. Is that too damn much to ask? Just some Call of Duty. That’s all I ask. I’m not a religious man. Not even a little. But I was bored and Jasper wouldn’t talk to me so I figured there was only one other person to talk to. 
“Hey God.” I said. I waited. I wasn’t really sure how this was supposed to work. Do I wait for a reply? Or keep going? Or is it supposed to be some sort of spiritual awakening type deal where I just ‘feel the spirit flowing through my very soul’? Why is this shit so hard? I’m just trying to-
“Hey Drake”, came a booming, deep voice. It was exactly like you heard it all those times in the movies. 
“God?” I said slowly.
“Yeah, it’s me, dude. You called, didn’t you?” This time it was much less intimidating. More like- kind of like Joey from Friends. 
“I guess I did”
“Yeah”, he laughed, “so what do you want?”
“I dunno, I was just sort of bored.”, I stammered, “I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting much.”
“Well, here I am. In all my glory. Here to… entertain you. Apparently.” He replied.
There was an awkward pause. Not just any awkward pause though. Like imagine when you and a friend are trying to figure out what to do for the umpteenth time except your friend is an Omni powerful being and you are dangling by your neck on a rope. 
“…You have to know some good jokes” I suggested. 
“Not really. Everyone is so serious in Heaven”, he imitated what I can only assume is the most comedic argument in history. “’No!’, they say, ‘God says no Muslims in Heaven!, you’re not allowed here!’ Every time a Muslim walks in. Every time! Then the Muslims ask what the Christians are doing here, and one time, one time someone mistook me for a receptionist and complained to me about me! They’re ridiculous.”
“Why would someone mistake you for a receptionist?” I asked.
“Wrong place at the wrong time I guess.” He sighed.
“So where exactly are you right now?”
Jasper jumped onto the couch, his eyes aglow with heavenly light, blinding me; he meowed with the ferocity of a lion and a wind arose from the North, shaking the entire apartment, knocking my videogames from their shelves, dislodging the T.V., throwing pictures from their frames, and swinging me in my- swing. 
“Here” He replied in his scary, yet epic Morgan Freeman voice. 
“Are you telling me that my cat is God?” I yelled, exacerbated. I was met by a booming laugh.
“Don’t you knowing anything? If I did come back to Earth it would be the end of the world. You still have time before that comes.”
“How much time?” I inquired.
“A few minutes now.”
“WHAT?”