The day I died began, like most of my days, at 3:30 am.
I woke up and stumbled out of bed in the pitch dark so I wouldn’t wake up my girlfriend, Tricia. I brushed my teeth and showered, half-asleep, and listened to a guided meditation about how I was “enough.”
I kissed Tricia goodbye on the forehead. She mumbled something incoherent in her sleep as a response, and I left.
I was out the door by 4:30 am on the dot. I drove to Francois’s favorite coffee shop (the Starbucks on Hillhurst) so I could get him his usual cappuccino, and have it ready for him well before he arrived. He didn’t like the coffee from craft services, nor any of the coffee that was available on the lot – only cappuccinos made by his favorite barista, Venus, at his favorite Starbucks location. And if I didn’t start his day off right, it would be a bad day. I had already learned that the hard way.
I turned on my seat warmer to keep his cappuccino as hot as possible and drove as quickly as I could to the lot. I parked in the assistant parking lot, which was as far away from our soundstages as it could possibly be, and ran over to our soundstage.
I made it just in time for Francois to arrive.
“Here’s your cap–” was all I managed to say before he snatched it out of my hand and replaced it with his dog, Fluff.
“He’s really pissed off this morning,” Francois said. “Hope you brought poop bags.”
Of course I brought poop bags. It only takes one poop bag-less walk to remember to always carry poop bags. I walked Fluff around the lot, trying my best to stop him from barking at the tourists on the trams that circled the lot. While I walked Fluff, I made my way down the phone list. I called Francois’s agent to check on the status of his next movie. I called his publicist to make sure he was going to be interviewed by a favorable journalist to promote the movie. I called his coke dealer to make sure his coke would be ready by noon. I also called my therapist to push our appointment another few weeks, since the shoot was running long.
When I got back to the soundstage, Francois was waiting impatiently. “Where the fuck were you??” he screamed, loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to turn and watch. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
He snatched Fluff out of my hand and looked him over. “He barely looks like he pooped at all!”
“He pooped eight and a half times,” I gently corrected.
“Don’t correct me,” Francois said. “Now go be neither seen nor heard.”
Being neither seen nor heard was my favorite part of the day, because that meant I got to watch Francois work. Sure, Francois could be an asshole. Sure, he usually made at least one person on set cry per day (not me, I saved my tears for the first half of the car ride home). But, he was a genius. And he was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing – directing horror movies. And we were on set for The Disturbening II, the much-anticipated sequel to his blockbuster hit, The Disturbening.
Francois’s favorite director was Stanley Kubrick, and it showed in his work ethic. Francois was a perfectionist. You might not think we would be doing over one hundred takes of one shot on a movie called The Disturbening II, but one hundred was just the average. And it showed… The Disturbening had been called one of the best horror movies of the century, and it was my feeling that The Disturbening II would be even better.
I watched Francois rehearse the seance setpiece with our lead actress, Nicole Newman. In this scene, evil spirits picked her up and threw her around the room, bouncing her off every wall at least twice. Nicole was rigged up to a complicated set of wires that would throw her around everywhere. Nicole had asked for a stunt double, but Francois insisted on her doing it, for authenticity. He’d also insisted the walls not be padded.
After running the scene a few times, Francois was ready to call action. I watched in awe as Nicole was thrown around the room one hundred and four times, before Francois was satisfied.
“You’re a beautiful genius,” he told her when she was finished, kissing her on the forehead before she limped off to her trailer. “Assistant!”
I came racing over with Francois’s lunch – steak frites. The steak was from his favorite steak restaurant, the Ruth’s Chris in Sherman Oaks, and the frites were from his favorite fry restaurant, the McDonalds on Vine. Fortunately for me, Francois was fine with other people getting his lunch, that way I was nearby in case he needed something.
Francois snatched the food out of my hands.
“Uh, Francois?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from trembling.
Francois gave me an eyebrow raise that was meant to communicate “what?”
“Um, I don’t know if you remember, but it’s been two years that I’ve been your assistant, and you had promised me that after two years, you would take a look at my script–”
“I’ve heard enough,” Francois said. “Attention, everyone!”
Everyone on the set stopped and turned to face us at the exact same time.
“My assistant here is asking me to read his script,” he said, his voice dripping with contempt. “As if I have time for that. But it’s nice to know that I’m nothing but a tool for you to use.”
Francois meant for people to laugh at me, but no one did. Everyone on set pitied me, and for some reason, that was worse than if they had just laughed.
The rest of the day was relatively easy. I spent most of it being seen, not heard – except for when I had to buy a birthday gift for Francois’s mother, write a Valentine’s Day card for Francois’s wife, write a Valentine’s Day card for Francois’s mistress, write a Valentine’s Day card for our lead actor’s stand-in that Francois had slept with twice, pick up Francois’s legal prescriptions, and pick up Francois’s illegal prescriptions. By the time I was finished with all my tasks, it was well past midnight.
I checked my phone on the long walk back to my car. I had three missed calls from Tricia. I realized that I’d been so busy with all of Francois’s Valentines that I’d forgotten to buy her one. I ran to CVS and used Francois’s credit card to buy a Valentine’s Day card and flowers. On my way home, I called her.
“God, I hate him!” I screamed, gripping my wheel tight at ten-and-two.
“Then quit,” Tricia said, sounding half-asleep. “He’s terrible to you.”
“I can’t,” I said. “If I wanna be a director, this is what I have to do.”
“Then don’t quit,” she responded.
“Are you mad at me?” I asked.
“No, I’m just tired of having this conversation,” she said. “You call and say ‘I hate him,’ I tell you to quit, you say you can’t. Hate and love are pretty similar emotions, you know.”
“Are you saying I love him?” I cried incredulously. Tricia didn’t answer.
I hung up. I understood why Tricia was angry. I’d missed a lot of important relationship milestones because of my job. But what she didn’t understand was that I was doing this for us. When I was directing horror movies and we were living in a huge mansion overlooking the valley, she’d be happy.
Then, suddenly, I was surrounded by a bright light.
I did a double-take. I looked around, confused about where the card, the flowers, the road, and my car had gone. In place of all that there was… nothing.
After a few moments of confusion, I walked, or more accurately, floated, for a few minutes until I came upon a large golden gate. As I approached it, the gate opened. I continued on until I found myself at…
“Customs,” the customs agent explained to me with a self-aware eye-roll. “I know, I know. It’s a thing up here, too.”
“Up where?” I asked him. “I’m sorry, I’m very confused–”
“Ohhhh,” the guy said. “Sorry, I’m new here. Just a sec.”
He reached under his desk and pulled out a giant binder labeled “NEW EMPLOYEE MANUAL.” He ran his finger down the table of contents, found the chapter he was looking for, and flipped to that page. He read over it for a moment, then looked up at me. In the most calming voice he could muster, he said, “you are dead.”
“What?” But as the word escaped my lips, suddenly, everything made sense. The nothingness. The golden gates. I had fallen asleep driving home, and now I was dead.
The agent typed on his keyboard and clicked his mouse a few times. “Oh wow,” he said, letting out a low whistle, “that was a pretty gnarly car accident you got in.”
He flipped his computer monitor to face me, and showed me a birds eye view of my car veering onto the other side of the highway, then driving off the edge, landing on another highway, then driving into the Los Angeles River. Just when I thought it was over, the car exploded in a giant fireball.
“You really shouldn’t drive when you’re tired like that, you know.”
“Well, NOW I know,” I said, not feeling like this guy’s opinions were very helpful.
He looked around conspiratorially, as if to make sure no one was listening, then whispered, “Did you feel anything? I’m just curious.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I fell asleep and then woke up here.”
“Well, be grateful,” he said, “the last guy I let through fell between two buildings and got stuck. It took him a few days to die and he felt everything. The worst part was, turns out he got sent to the wrong place. He’d had some, let’s say, ‘questionable’ sexual encounters, so he got sent to… the other place.”
“Am I in the right place?” I asked, suddenly worried about those times I’d shoplifted candy from 7-Eleven.
“Yeah, you’re fine,” he responded. “I do see here that you shoplifted candy from 7-Eleven, and lied to your mom so you could go smoke weed with your friend ‘Tommy,’ but those are pretty minor.”
“So, this is it,” I said. “The afterlife. Wow.”
“Well, if you have unfinished business, you’re always allowed to go back to the Earthly plane,” the guy explained. “We don’t recommend it, but it helps give some people closure.”
“You mean, like… haunt someone?”
“Or someplace,” the guy said. “For example, yesterday, my friend Clarice found out that a new family was moving into her Victorian mansion, so she went back to haunt them. She ended up possessing the daughter, it was a whole big thing.”
It was then for the first time that I felt filled with anger. Francois had literally taken everything from me, including my life. And now, it was suddenly clear to me that he’d had no intention of helping me in my career.
“I have unfinished business.”
The customs agent sent me to another desk, where I filled out some paperwork about the nature of my unfinished business, and after that, I was approved to go back.
I hadn’t decided what exactly it was that I was going to do, but I knew at the very least, I wanted to watch Francois get the news that I was dead, and that it was his fault. Maybe he would learn.
Francois was picked up by his driver at his mansion that overlooked the valley that morning. I sat in the backseat with him, watching him call me over and over again, getting angrier and angrier each time I didn’t pick up. I smiled, knowing that the more angry he got, the more stupid he’d look when he realized what had happened. Francois looked over in my direction a few times, as if he could feel a strange presence, but he didn’t say anything about it.
When Francois arrived to set, he jumped out of the car and marched onto the soundstage.
“Where the fuck is Assistant?” he shouted at the crowd that was standing there, looking somber and confused.
“Francois, I don’t know how to tell you this–” the assistant director started to say.
“Well, find a way,” he snapped. “Because I’m caffeine-deprived, hungry, and ready to kill Assistant–”
“He’s already dead,” the assistant director said. “H-He fell asleep while driving home, apparently…”
“Oh shit,” Francois said. He took a step backwards from the assistant director and put a hand on his forehead. I leaned in, ready to watch him eat his words.
“I’m gonna need a few minutes,” he said.
“If you’d like, maybe we could take a day to honor his–”
“I said a few minutes,” Francois said. “And I mainly meant to find a new assistant. I can’t be a creative genius and book my own travel all at the same time.”
I watched, mouth agape, as Francois marched off toward his trailer. I looked back at the rest of the crew. They looked stunned, but slowly, they all began to return to their tasks.
I followed behind Francois. I walked into his trailer, where our lead actor’s stand-in was waiting for him, stripped down to his underwear.
“Francois, I was thinking we could have a little… fun… before shooting,” he said. “And then maybe you can take another look at my reel, and maybe recommend me for–”
“I can’t, I’m in mourning,” Francois said sharply. The stand-in tilted his head in confusion.
“My assistant died last night!” Francois clarified.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” the stand-in said. “I can put my clothes back on.”
“No,” Francois said. “Keep them off. And actually, I’m down for a quickie…”
I was so offended by Francois’s callousness that I gasped. Francois and the stand-in turned to face my direction, then looked around in confusion.
“You heard that, right?” the stand-in said.
“Yeah…” Francois said. “Anyway, why don’t you take off those–”
I angrily shoved a stack of scripts off of Francois’s desk. They tumbled to the ground, and Francois and the stand-in jumped to their feet.
“What the fuck?” the stand-in cried.
“That was nothing,” Francois insisted. “A tiny earthquake or something. Either way, I’m not horny anymore. They’ll need you on set soon. How about you meet me here at lunch?”
“Could we meet someplace else…?” the stand-in whimpered, slowly pulling on his jeans.
Francois walked out of the trailer, looking shaken. I followed after him, glad that my haunting seemed to be working. I walked right up behind him and whispered in his ear, “it’s all your fault.”
Francois whipped around to face me, and then looked all around him, looking for the source of the voice. Then, he shook his head and marched up to a production assistant, and instructed him to get his cappuccino from the Starbucks on Hillhurst.
For the next hour, I watched Francois prepare for the next scene. Even though I was dead and no longer had a shot at directing a movie on the Earthly plane, it was still fascinating to watch a genius at work.
“Let my assistant’s death inform your scene,” he told the actor, who, appropriately enough, was playing a priest haunted by the death of his close associate. I couldn’t help but feel honored that I was finally having a direct impact on the movie.
When the production assistant returned with Francois’s cappuccino, I watched Francois snatch the drink out of his hand. Then, I snatched the cappuccino out of his hand, then threw it at him. Francois screamed loud enough to make everyone turn and look.
Francois looked terrified for a few seconds, then he looked determined to find a rational explanation for what had happened. “You’re fired,” he snarled at the production assistant. “Learn how to hand someone a drink before your next movie!”
“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath as I watched the production assistant leave the soundstage with his head down. I had only meant to annoy Francois, not get an innocent person fired. Francois looked in my direction again, then shook his head. “It can’t be.”
I realized I had to up the ante.
Before the next take, I went up to the catwalks above the soundstage, and unscrewed a giant light. Just when Francois was about to call action, I dropped it. I was aiming for his head, but I missed him by a few feet. Everyone screamed as the light hit the floor and shattered.
I was happy that Francois looked shaken, but my happiness was quickly dampened when he fired the entire lighting team on the spot and promoted their assistants.
I raced over to Francois’s trailer while they filmed the next scene. I found a red sharpie, and wrote “IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT” all over every surface I could. After about two hours, my masterpiece was complete. Francois stepped inside and froze when he saw what I had done. He backed out of the trailer, then returned a few moments later with the art director.
“Is this your idea of a prank?” he demanded.
“N-No–” the poor art director started to protest. I was about to knock something off of a shelf to protect them from getting fired as well, but Francois continued.
“Right, you gotta stay in character,” Francois said with a laugh. “Well, it’s a great pitch. Let’s add this to the bedroom scene. If it freaked me out, it’ll freak the audience out.”
Again, I was proud to contribute to the movie, but I was still annoyed that none of my efforts were working on Francois. The art director, though, looked positively freaked out.
I followed her to a gathered crowd of crew members, who were murmuring conspiratorially.
“I knew this shit was gonna be haunted,” the key grip said, shaking his head solemnly.
“It was probably just a pissed-off PA,” the art director tried to explain nervously, but another assistant director shook her head. “I was right here. No one went in or out of Francois’s trailer.”
“Movies like this are always cursed,” chimed in a costume assistant, “seriously, look it up. Poltergiest. The Omen. The Exorcist.”
“First that assistant dies, then the light falls, now this?” The key grip continued. “I don’t know, man. But I can’t afford to turn down a job right now.”
Everyone agreed.
Over the next and final two weeks of the production, I continued haunting Francois on and off the set. I whispered in his ear every morning when he woke up, and each night before he went to bed. I slashed his tires. I was able to bring some sulfur smell canisters from the afterlife into his trailer, and made sure it always stank. At one point, I even possessed Francois’s dad’s Oscar that he kept in his trailer and chased him around.
But, strangely, nothing got to him. He attributed everything to his own exhaustion from trying to perfect this much-anticipated movie, even the Oscar incident, which no one else believed.
Finally, I decided enough was enough. I found some matches, and overnight, I lit our primary set on fire. I placed Francois’s People’s Choice Award for the first Disturbening in the center of the blaze. At first I’d been scared to walk into the flames, but then I remembered that I was dead, and it ended up feeling more like a warm tickling sensation than painful.
The fire was the final straw for everyone on the crew who could afford to leave the job. With the sudden exodus, the film was put on pause. Francois was beside himself. His franchise had been ruined. At last, I was happy.
My happiness lasted about two days, until word spread through Hollywood about the cursed Disturbening II set. There was a huge article that went viral across the country that detailed how, beginning with the death of Francois R. Smith’s assistant, the set of The Disturbening II had been plagued with incident after incident. The first Disturbening shot to the top of Netflix’s Top Ten. Suddenly, even the most cynical, franchise-fatigued horror fans were eager for the new movie. The studio decided to cobble together a cut of the film, even with a few key scenes missing, and release it theatrically.
At the premiere, Francois left an empty seat next to him for “my ghost” as a publicity stunt, but I gratefully accepted the invitation. I whispered in his ear during the entire movie and ended up missing most of it, and Francois either didn’t hear me, or didn’t care. He was so enthralled with his film, and so were critics and audience members alike. Instead of yearning for the scenes that had been cut, the film was praised for its restraint and ambiguity.
By the time the credits rolled, there was already buzz about The Disturbening II becoming the first horror movie sequel to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture. Francois B. Smith was lauded as “the next Stanley Kubrick.”
“I’d actually like to thank the ghost of my assistant,” Francois told the press, “I really don’t think the movie would be what it was were it not for him.”
I smiled, glad to finally be getting some appreciation for all the hard work I’d done for Francois. And then, that’s when I saw her. Tricia.
She was there with a few of our friends. Her eyes were red and puffy, as if she’d just been crying. I walked over to them just in time to hear her say, “I know it’s stupid, but… if he really did come back as a ghost, h-how come he didn’t visit me?”
And all the joy I’d felt from the posthumous recognition Francois had finally given me vanished. And I realized that, just like in life, I had prioritized Francois, and the movie, and my career over everything else. And just like in life, in spite of my efforts, I felt empty.
That night, I finally went home. It was exactly as I’d left it. All of my things were still in our room, even the clothes that I’d left on the floor. I realized with a sinking heart that Tricia was trying to freeze life in the moment just before I’d gone. And I realized, for maybe the first time, how beautiful our tiny, one-bedroom apartment was. And I wished that I could spend more time there.
I watched Tricia crawl into bed. She curled up in the fetal position, staying on her side of the bed, as if I was still there. Once she fell asleep, I slowly crawled in bed with her and spooned her. She let out a sigh as I wrapped my arms around her.
“I quit my job,” I whispered.
“Finally,” she responded.
Perfect ending
Excellent reading Austin. Anger left him with nothing! True love is what he missed. He thought so much of that old man’s care for him that he didn’t realize that this man didn’t care about anything or anybody except himself !