There are too many souls and too few humans, that is something Elspeth realized quite early on in her afterlife. Afterlife isn’t a great name for it, though. There’s nothing life-like in the After.

There are waiting rooms. Places souls are essentially trapped, waiting for their chance at life again. Ten souls each, from varying times and places in the world. Elspeth has been there since 1873. She is not the oldest being there.

The waiting room changes over time as the world changes. When Elspeth first came to her waiting room it was fashioned like a parlor, now it’s gray and dreary with stiff chairs and bluish-tinted white lights. There’s a single wall without any chairs pushed up against it, instead furnished with a tiny bell that rings when the waiting room is called upon and a tiny window that opens to choose who will be reborn. Elspeth does not like the change, and neither do the rest of the older souls.

Every so often there is a new birth in the world, and the waiting room is chosen, one of the lucky souls taken to be reborn. Though there are supposedly many people still on Earth, this does not happen very often. So many people have died and will continue to die, and there’s only so much room for them to occupy.

Elspeth believes the system to be very flawed. She’s been waiting in this waiting room for over one hundred years—many longer—and she has zero priority. It’s just a game of chance. There was once a soul of an elderly woman who stayed in the waiting room for an hour before she was sent up to be reborn.

It has been ten years since the last soul left Elspeth’s waiting room. She’s lucky that souls go dormant, settled in their little chairs, staring off into space. Because if that wasn’t the case, she surely would have gone insane.

Being dormant feels like the bridge between asleep and awake, wondering if your eyes are open or closed, the warm feeling of a blanket wrapped around you even if the blanket isn’t warm at all. Elspeth hates the wait between the chances to be reborn, but it is muddled by the calm, dazed feeling that encompasses her as time passes, ticking slowly. She is not certain if she’s the only one who doesn’t have dreams, since the souls do not partake in small talk. When there is a chance to be reborn, it is “every man for himself”, as some say.

Elspeth feels the fog dissipate. The little ting of a birth resounds from the tiny bell on the cleared wall. She blinks awake (if a soul can truly be awake), the sound finally making sense in her brain. Her eyes connect with the soul in front of her—Elspeth does not recognize this one, he must be new—and she bolts out of her seat, joining the horde crowded around the little window.

It opens with a creak, dust flying through the air, coating the souls more thoroughly. A cacophony of coughs and wheezes follows, hands waved in the air to dissipate it. This makes the souls realize they were already covered in dust from the wait. They silently swipe it away, a few sneezes joining the sounds of ruffled cloth.

The angel Anthony smiles. “Ah, waiting room 9999460821! What a surprise to see you all again, how has it been?”

The souls remain silent, staring them down.

Anthony waits a moment before clearing their throat. “Oh, lovely. Well, you all know why I’m here—!”

They are interrupted b

y the sounds of the souls exclaiming for them to be picked, with an assortment of reasons.

“It’s been thousands of years!”

“I barely lived in my past lives, I kept on getting killed!”

“I never got to watch The Godfather!”

Anthony presses a finger to their mouth, shaking their head. Silence starts immediately, no one wanting to anger the angel.

“That’s better. Now, give me a good argument, perhaps it will change my choice.”

Anthony finds it amusing—Elspeth knows this. There’s a smirk on their face, one only a powerful being can have. One that knows that this is all for fun to them. They have already chosen who will be reborn, they just want the entertainment of the souls clamoring for a second chance. Elspeth guesses that all the souls know this, and yet they all continue to feed into it.

“Come on now, Anthony,” a young-ish soul exclaims. “I’ve been waiting for ten years!”

Bitter laughter rises from the crowd.

“Ten years?” a soul pipes up. “I’ve been here for sixty!”

“Sixty? Try one hundred!”

“Just one hundred?” another quips.

“Oh, calm down, the lot of you,” Anthony scolds. “Time is not the primary factor.”

“I was a very well-known politician in my time,” a soul says from the front, smoothing his shirt. Elspeth scoffs.

“You were Napoleon. You were exiled twice.”

“Semantics, semantics,” Napoleon’s soul waves off. Elspeth knows that in his time he was a fairly average height, but she’s sure that his soul is rather short.

“Semantics? You killed me, mate!” Napoleon swerves to look the other soul over.  “Truly?”

The soul glares daggers at the old dictator. “I wouldn’t joke about this, you know.”

Anthony makes eye contact with Elspeth, raising their eyebrows in annoyance. Elspeth gives them a tight-lipped smile in hopes that it will help her chances.

The souls continue to argue as Elspeth adds little bits and pieces to her plea, though she is continuously talked over by her peers. This has been the case for many years. She can see the look on Anthony’s face again, the happiness of pure control. Anthony smiles at her, a faux sympathetic one. Elspeth goes quiet instantly. She will not be picked.

“Silence, silence!” Anthony exclaims. Silence comes yet again, the souls waiting with bated breath.

Anthony clears their throat, taking an already written scroll from thin air. They unroll it and exclaim, “Soul 34!”

The entire waiting room groans as Napoleon races to the now open door, not even saying goodbye on his way out. No souls do that, though, so Elspeth is not surprised.

They let Napoleon Bonapartebe reborn, a dictator in his time. The system is very flawed.

The souls settle back into their chairs. Elspeth presses her chin against her hand yet again. 

The fog cloaks her mind yet again.

Perhaps next time.