Sister Souljah - Life After Death

When Pretty emerged, she was in purple Pucci, not Gucci. She looked good in anything. Her purple open-toe high heels showcased her lavender French pedicure. We had discussed her role as my new secretary and that I would take the fashion lead. She would dress like a fashionable executive secretary whose outfits would elicit certain business advantages. She had her hair wrapped in a neat bun at the nape of her neck.

Olga showed up strutting like a supermodel, not a professional executive secretary. She already had the chiseled supermodel face, green eyes, and model body. She wore a white lace mini and white Converse. She seemed a little conflicted fashion-wise, but I’m not about hating on fashion, so fuck it. Besides, I was vexed that she wore lace same as I did. But hers was post-death Versace and mine is eternal Chanel.

Bridgette arrived last, her blonde hair swept into an attention-grabbing topknot. Her Betsey Johnson–designed light blue mini matched up nice with her blue eyes. Like Olga, she chose to wear kicks with her dress. I couldn’t figure them out. But I could see they definitely liked each other. That’s their business.

We traveled in a motorcade, one security car in the lead, one security car in tow. In between was Olga pushing his white Porsche with her and Bridgette inside. Him and me and Pretty rode his white Bentley that was the opposite of his rose-red Rolls. The Bentley had a white exterior and red leather captain seats inside with white piping. It was reeking with richness. Screaming , fuck the world! As soon as I found out that all of the cars in his underground garage were his, I chose this one, naturally.

I stayed looking out of the window for the drive. Speeding through the continuous blackness of the Last Stop Before the Drop, the roads and streets are the opposite from my streets up top. I started to feel a little sad. The only reason to rock these high fashions and flaunt these whips was to be seen in them. Diamonds glisten to catch eyes. In the blackness, if anyone was seeing us, I couldn’t tell. It wasn’t until we got close to the block that he owned that we saw faint light. The spa was lit up and the adjoining stores of all kinds were as well. On one side there were tall torches and flames. On the other, there were telephone-pole-type pillars with one powerful streetlight atop of each. Wondered why he had flames on the left and lampposts on the right. Thought if he had access to utilities, why not just light up both sides brightly? Maybe he preferred the dimness of a flame? I don’t know.

All I do know is out of the left side suddenly something hit us hard. Rammed into the Bentley severely. I had been looking to the right out of my window so I never saw it coming. Oh fuck, I thought to myself as my head banged hard on the side window at the same time that the airbags blew up. Why? Why? Why? I thought to myself. Every time I’m about to make it big, something fucked up occurs and snatches it away from me. I was in a type of shock. I think I felt my head bleeding but my brain froze and would not order my arm to move so that my fingers could feel if there was warm moist blood trickling or not. I could not turn to the left or sit up straight, or turn to the back. I could not see if he was hurt or if he was saved by his airbag. But of course he was hurt. It was his side of the car that was impacted the hardest, I thought sadly. It turns out I had caught real feelings for him. Furthermore, under our contract, if something happened to him, I would not be entitled to anything except my fashion company, which was just getting started. And would I live in a tower without him? Impossible, his nasty-ass son who I threw up on would probably be there to seize all of his things, including the Light House. Yep, he’d show up before his father’s body was even cold. But then I felt my body falling as though someone had opened the front passenger door where I had been chilling enjoying the drive. Now someone was pulling me out.

“Keep your hands off of her,” I heard him say.

Good, he is not dead, I thought, excited on the inside. I didn’t know if my eyes were filling up with blood and that was why I could no longer see. But I could hear. A scuffle occurred. Oh shit, men are fighting over me. They were so into the fury of it, however, that one of them dropped my body in the street right next to the Bentley. I heard fists breaking bones. I didn’t hear Pretty. Was she dead? I felt my eyes crying. Or was it my blood leaking? My voice wasn’t crying though. I could feel the heat of a pileup of men wrestling or dragging each other right next to where my body lay.

“She’s my bitch! You knew! Iblis told me he told you.”

“Son, I told you. Everything is mines.”

“That’s fucked up,” another voice said. I heard the struggle of multiple bodies.

“Security, get these young fools out of here,” he ordered. Next I heard what I guess was security trying to move the men who were attacking him. I heard a lot of sounds of injuries being given and injuries being received. Then someone picked me up from the ground. It was the scent of a woman. I could smell her Obsession perfume. She dragged me to the back, opened the door, and pushed me back in the Bentley. I was helpless. But my mind was still on. It never ever shuts off. I was thinking about the time that I was outside of the rent-a-car fighting Simone. Bullet came to so-called rescue me. He put me back into the vehicle. It was because I was seated in the rental car that I caught the charges and the responsibility for all of the drugs and weapons. Recalling, I tried to reach for the Bentley door handle to open the door. I would throw myself out of this vehicle if I had to. The ignition started just then. My arm would not lift high enough or follow my demands. The Bentley pulled off as though the driver pushed the pedal all the way to the floor. My arm fell. When it did, my fingers grazed Pretty. I could smell her Estée Lauder. But I still could not see. Apparently she could not speak. She didn’t react to my touch or this crazy accident scene. Then I heard and felt something smash into the Bentley again. The half-million-dollar powerhouse vehicle spun some. Seemed we were being chased by another vehicle whose driver was fucking determined to crash us until we were all dead… again.

“You motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker!” Bridgette screamed out. I was like , Oh no! The crazy white bitch is driving the car with me and Pretty knocked out in the back. Just then we were hit on the left side this time. Did the one who hit us on the right fall back and come up on the other side, I wondered. Or were there two cars chasing the Bentley now? I was worried about crashing again. Could I survive another violent impact? Did Bridgette really know how to drive or was she in the midst of a wild outburst?

“You’ll never catch me. Never, never, never!” Bridgette screamed. “You wanted to send me to the nightclub alone. There’s nothing inside that nightclub building except a raging inferno! You wanted to throw me to the fire like I was trash. And you murder people that same way every night, every day! People who loved your club and the beautiful red DJ and the music! You have some fucking nerve. You are worse, worse, worse than the serpent in Pretty’s story. You are the real son of a bitch. No! Not son of a bitch. Son of a motherfucker. You, your sons, and your whole goddamn man-empire. I will never, never, never, let you murder me and my friends! Not after us three bitches all survived death!” Then she smashed into something extremely hard. Or something extremely hard crashed into her. It was the last I heard of her and the last I heard of myself.

25.

“We forgive you.”

Oh no. The frightening faces of three old bitches all crouched over and way too close to my face is what I woke up to. The last place I wanted to be on Earth or after Earth was the convent. What was I wearing? Please, not the straight gray garment.