Donna Augustine

People say karma's a bitch. Personally, I really don't think I'm that bad.

I'm dead?""That body is... yes.

Anyone who thought death warmed over didn't look good, had never seen this guy.

I stepped out and the sun was shining. And the birds were chirping. It was the nicest day we'd had in ages. A couple of bunnies scampering about. It could have been the start of a Disney flick.

Would it be possible to speak to this Universe person?""I'm sure that they will understand that there is a personality conflict." It was time to bump my complaint to upper management."No one speaks to the Universe.""Then how do you know what to do?" I leaned in a little."Simple. Through my orders." His eyes started to twitch. "Which you get how?""My memos.

You are familiar with World War 2?""Of course I am. I'm dead, not stupid.

I was flipping back and forth between do and don't quicker than they were serving up flapjacks down at the diner, he was getting closer to me.... close enough that I could smell him.... smell the heat that he threw off and that other certain energy that was pouring off of him right now at levels I'd not seen since Chernobyl. If I didn't move soon, I'd be in trouble... or ecstasy.

We weren't a couple, but friends didn't spoon every night. Fate and I were officially in relationship-no-man's-land.

I was going down and hard. There are a few things in life that suck really badly. Loving someone who doesn't love you back is one of them.

The sizzle I felt being near him was so intense, but I couldn't figure out if they were fireworks or warning flares.

For all that my co-workers put such stock in not being a transfer, we had a definite edge in one area. As a human, you were born knowing that you were going to die.

The way I feel about you doesn't come with a set of restrictions. There are no rules that say if you do this or you don't do that, I won't care anymore. This is just an aspect of who you are and I love you for the entirety of you, not for the different pieces I can pull out.

No, I might not know what's coming, but I know where you're going.

Santa, himself, was sitting behind his desk when I walked in. "Hello," he greeted me. He looked exactly as one would expect. Long white beard and a thick head of white hair. His cheeks were rosy and he truly did look jolly when he smiled at me. "You're the new Karma." "Yes," I smiled back all the while waiting for the scolding. "Would you care for a cookie?" He motioned to the heaped plate on the corner of his desk. "No thanks." I didn't want to get thrown out mid-bite. He was Santa. He knew everything. Any second, he'd tell me to get the hell out of his office, throwing coal at me as I ran. He stood up from his chair and walked around to the fireplace that blazed in the corner, lending the space a warm light. "Would you like to sit?" He motioned to the two well-stuffed chairs in front of it. "I don't want to take up too much of your time. I can see you're busy." I made a step backward toward the door. "I got time for you." Guess I was going to have to see this thing out until the coal started flying. I watched as he sat. He was still smiling. I took the seat across from him. Maybe he didn't know. "I know why you're nervous." Well, there went that. "Karma, sometimes there are gray areas in life. Things that don't fit neatly into wrong vs right.

His eyes slowly moved up my legs. I drank the iced tea in my glass so as not to have to respond. He needed to stop staring at me like he was ready to eat me. What the hell was wrong with him today? He was too smart to get caught by Cupid. But, he was acting awfully interested. The worst part about that was that the more interested he looked, the more my body seemed to respond. Forget him! What the hell was wrong with me? My breathing became more erratic. I tugged my hair loose from its pony tail and pulled it over my shoulders, trying to hide how excited certain parts of my body were becoming. It backfired, because he took it as a different type of sign and closed the gap between us. One hand reached up and threaded through my hair as I tilted my face upward. I felt his other palm land on my hip, but it didn't stay there long. Slowly it slid down and then wrapped around until it cupped my ass and pulled me upward into contact with his hips where I could feel just how much he wanted me.

He didn't get it. That's exactly why I needed my Maker's Mark. You can't throw my life into turmoil, and then screw me out of my bourbon too.

I thought we weren't actually dead?", I asked. There was a lot of ambiguity surrounding that subject. We weren't mortal anymore. That was for sure. I could swing by my grave and prove that anytime I wanted. But, we had bodies with needs. And could get hurt or killed. And, though, I've been told we didn't age, my hair continued to grow. I still woke up hungry in the morning, and watch out, if I didn't get a cup of coffee. It was like we were straddling some invisible fence between immortality and human frailty. "Seriously, are we dead or not? I asked again when I still received no response. I got several yes's and no's at the same time confirming my own belief. Somehow, we were neither.

I wonder if he ever smelt bad. Maybe if he got all sweaty. No, that wasn't a good thing to think about either. I'd seen him all sweaty as he'd covered my body with his. There was good sex, and then, there was that night.