The Death and Life of Edward Wild

<p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>After the Shakespearean actor Edward Wild is killed in 2022 in Greenwich Village and ends up in a lower realm of the afterlife he meets Molly Kendall. Neither of them could have guessed how their lives would change...</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>---</span></p><p></p><p><strong>From the Chapter: Edward's Dream of Death</strong></p><p></p><p>Edward was a logical man. If he was not asleep and dreaming it meant that he was awake. If he was awake but not on any Earth that he was familiar with what then was left? With his knowledge of the ancient classics there could be only one possibility. It was difficult for him to consider it because he wasn't religious but with a terrible sinking feeling in his chest he looked at the woman with no soul and asked Am I in Hell? Are you the Queen of Hades?</p><p></p><p>He thought she must be because sitting so close to her he could see that her vague illusion of beauty had crumbled. Her face was rough and cracked and her lips were split with cuts from the cold. The skin of her neck and breasts looked like the scuffed and filthy leather that one would see on discarded workman's boots. What he also observed was the presence of evil crawling across her skin and swirling in her eyes an immense evil that made him want to turn and flee. He had never experienced the intensity of dread that he felt as he sat in his coffin in front of her.</p><p></p><p>He looked at the dark liquid of her eyes and realized that his assessment of her had been observed. She was angry and her acolytes inched away from her nervously.</p><p></p><p>Welcome to my Kingdom.</p><p></p><p>Edward did not want to accept her words. It was a Sunday and his parrot was waiting for breakfast and why had he died and arrived in Hell? It was quite plainly unfair.</p><p></p><p>In spite of his overwhelming fear he decided to argue.</p><p></p><p>I do not belong here. There's been a mistake.</p><p></p><p>There has been no mistake.</p><p></p><p>Prove it he said. He wondered then if she was going to snap her fingers and turn him into a blot of scum.</p><p></p><p>She snarled and bent down and whispered to an old man standing next to her. He whispered back...</p><p></p><p><strong>(I invite you to read the book to find out what he said!) :-)</strong></p>