Feed me shrimp scampi until I die.
In the afterlife I will relieve my body of the scamp.
The Angels will feed off the regurgitated shrimp.
Many of the Angels will get food poisoning because no one can resist the scamp, not even Angels.
I will be exiled to the place in heaven where they keep all the deer who have been murdered by cars as punishment for throwing up the shrimp scampi.
All the deer murdered by cars live like Kings in the afterlife.
I will become a slave to one of the Deer Kings despite never having owned a car myself.
It will be about the cars before it’s all said and done, and it has begun.
The Deer King I am a slave to is named Dennis.
Who invented the scamp, I wonder, thinking about a character literally named The Scamp as Dennis brushes my hair.
Dennis is only a minor Deer King, a Deer King Jr. or DKJ, and he is nice to me.
I am, however, bald as a result of his incessant desire to brush my hair.
Now he just scrapes the brush against my bald head and I want very badly to think this feels good but it does not.
The Angels never come to this part of heaven ever since the War of the Angels and Deer Kings.
Dennis does not remember this war because he was still just a deer who hadn’t been hit by a car yet.
None of the DKJs remember it and that’s why they are generally treated like crap by the veteran Deer Kings.
I ask Dennis if he ever wishes he could venture to the part of heaven where the Angels live.
He tells me he does not, but that he does, however, long to vacation in the part where the Sick Angels reside.
The Angels who ingest regurgitated shrimp scampi, I ask?
Dennis tells me all about the shrimp scampi problem and how it’s been going on for as long as heaven has existed, or perhaps as long as shrimp scampi has existed.
Or perhaps they’re one and the same.
The thing is, humans are force-fed the scamp until they die.
This is just the way it is.
They arrive in the afterlife stuffed to the gills with the scamp and can’t help barfing it all over.
The Angels, as if possessed, rush to the vomit and start lapping it up.
It’s only until Kate, Queen of the Angels, realizes they have another scamp attack on their hands that she quarantines the Sick Angels and cleans up the shrimp vomit before more are infected.
Where the Sick Angels actually go is a matter of some debate, but many think it is actually heaven’s heaven, an afterlife so perfect that it doesn’t exist.
Ceasing to exist is the ultimate goal, Dennis tells me.
I ask him why all of this happening.
Why is someone killing people on earth with shrimp scampi in order to then infect Angels in the afterlife.
What is the purpose of this?
Dennis asks me if I know who force-fed me the scamp.
I can not, unfortunately, recall.
In my only memory, the person feels like a friend.
I tell Dennis that I will find out the truth about the scampi, the Angels and everything else.
I ask him if he’s willing to help me.
It’s our only chance, I say.
Dennis agrees.
I have been in heaven for what feels like many months but I haven’t eaten a thing.
I think there is still some shrimp scampi in my body and that maybe, just maybe, my body has been living off the scamp.
I have to remove the rest of the scamp, so I ask Dennis to kill me.
Dennis obliges and sticks his antlers straight through my torso.
He performs an autopsy on me, as we had discussed prior to my death, and is able to extract a very small amount of shrimp scampi.
Eat it, My Ghost tells Dennis.
In heaven, Ghosts are real.
Ghosts are everything.
They are more real than death which doesn’t exist.
Dennis eats the shrimp scampi and begins hallucinating immediately.
My Ghost asks him what he sees.
He says he sees a thousand cars hitting him every second.
He says the pain is real and he can’t stand it.
My Ghost goes to Gerald, an established Deer King who once stuck a “kick me” note to Dennis’s backside.
He tells Gerald about their plan and shows him Dennis, who is in whimpering in a near catatonic state.
At first, Gerald is furious that a DKJ and a human slave would have the gall to hatch up such a plot, but then he wises up.
Gerald knows they’re really onto something.
All of the Deer Kings and DKJs meet to discuss the findings of Dennis and My Ghost.
They agree that something is fishy.
And it’s not just the stench of regurgitated shrimp scampi on the breath of a diseased deer named Dennis.
Gerald calls up Kate and ask what gives.
All of the Deer Kings are surprised he has her number.
They are also more surprised that phones exist in the afterlife.
Kate tells Gerald that they need to talk about The Scamp.
(Intermission.)
The Scamp is a man who hypnotizes people on earth.
The Scamp hypnotizes people so they want to eat massive amounts of shrimp scampi, deadly amounts.
But this isn’t your grandma’s shrimp scampi.
The Scamp’s shrimp scampi is laced with a poison that only affects those in the afterlife.
It took The Scamp many years to perfect the recipe, practicing on himself by flatlining like in that movie.
He learned, after years of glimpsing into the afterlife, that a certain spice combination, when cooked into a shrimp scampi and consumed in a fifty-pound or more portion, would induce a highly specific brain disease wherein the victim would hallucinate the sensation of being hit by a car for the rest of eternity.
The Scamp was hellbent on poisoning Angels.
Back in heaven, Kate has something to confess.
She tells the Deer Kings that the Angels invented cars and, therefore, a fatal dependence on oil, that would lead to the demise of the species and eventually the planet.
It was determined that, after the events of ​Nine Eleven​, humans had proven themselves unworthy of inheriting the earth.
So an Angel planted his seed into Josephine Vaillant and the rest is history.
But there were several unforeseen consequences of this plan.
The most pressing of which was the heightened danger to your species, the deer.
I’m so sorry.
So why does The Scamp want to hurt Angel, my ghost asks.
Kate tells me that he hates cars and loves flatlining.
The Scamp infiltrated heaven through flatlining and figured out our plan to eradicate humans through cars.
He felt betrayed.
He had already spent the better part of his life trying to destroy cars and dissuade people from using them.
He was one of the good ones.
We must concede that there will always be good and bad.
It’s only when the bad outweighs the good that we have to act.
And the good who are sacrificed are just that.
This is hell, My Ghost says.
It must be.
I never owned a car on earth, either.
I was just like The Scamp!
I told everyone who would listen that they were killing the earth!
Kate, Gerald and the rest of the Deer Kings can sense My Ghost’s anger and hide their faces in shame.
I’m sorry, Gerald says.
As am I, says Kate.
Dennis makes a clicking sound.
Dennis’s eyes are all white.
We’re not sure why The Scamp chose you.
He only ever hypnotized car owners in the past.
It must have been a mistake.
My Ghost doesn’t care.
Forget it, he says.
I’m out of here.
My Ghost jumps onto the back of Dennis and rides him like a horse.
He rides him as fast as he can until he explodes into nothingness.
The nothing is an infinite mass of shrimp scampi.
There are infinite blank faces of every animal and of every imaginable form swimming, searching in the scamp, mouths wide open.
They eat.
They eat the shrimp scampi.
It’s the only thing they can do.