"Yoo hoo...Sleeping Beauty? I say, perhaps you could endeavor to join us for a moment?"
The voice entered the oblivion of sleep Frank had been enjoying for an unkown period of time. It was a British voice, thick with sarcasm and a lower middle class accent. Frank had spent a summer with his aunt Daisy in the south of Great Britain. She had always described herself as "dead common", but she loved to make a game of "playing posh" when they would go shopping or out for tea. She would act like an Earl's wife from Cornwall and introduce Frank as her nephew from Barcelona and he would speak what little Spanish he learned from his Mom and Grandma, and they would have a great time. They would laugh when they fooled people and laugh even harder when they were found out, generally by a sharp-eared Cockney that noticed that Aunt Daisy's "aitches" were not up to standard. After a summer with Aunt Daisy Frank could pick out the most common accents in the UK like an intern to Professor Henry Higgins.
"Do wake up now, please. We need to get started."
Frank had hoped the voice would go away, but after several minutes it returned. Most put-on accents start to show little cracks in their uniformity and this voice was no exception.
"Oy! Ah'm talkin' to you, mate! Wakie, wakie!"
The voice punctuated the last phrase by poking Frank's nose, not in a hard or painful way, but incredibly annoying nonetheless.
"I'll wake up if you stop poking me!", Frank groaned.
"There's a good man! Can I get you a cuppa'?"
Frank raised himself to his elbows and paused while the pain subsided.
"A cuppa?...Oh, yes, tea...Sounds great, two sugars, no milk please" , Frank propped himself up in bed and took a cup and saucer from the grey haired man sitting next to his bed. The man had long unruly white hair, pulled back in a pigtail, but little wisps of hair had broken free and hung limply on the side of his head. His skin was very pale, as white as Frank had ever seen on a living person. He wore a three piece charcoal pinstripe suit. It was showing its age, but was well taken care of. Attached to his vest was a long, jangly chain, presumably for a watch, but the links were as thick as a chain you would use to secure an enthusiastic junkyard dog to steel stake buried in cement. The man had shiny black shoes with large brass buckles and a hint of white silk stockings.
"Right-o, sorry its not proper tea, just packets down here...probably won't matter that much to you, being an American."
"I've had proper tea before, but I prefer coffee. Mmmm, that's pretty good for packets."
"Thanks. Horrible stuff coffee, in my day it was only drank by nervous Frenchman and rich layabouts trying to seem more Continental than British."
"I don't know about that, but coffee gets ya goin' faster than tea... Maybe that's not always a good thing though. I spent my life rushing around. I don't have much to show for it. Maybe I should have had more tea and more chats, more friends and less earthly success."
"Yes, rather...Good thing that, giving thought to your ways. Shame we didn't do more of that while we were on earth, what, what? Might not have ended up here, eh? You got it right enough to end up here instead of the fiery furnace. Lack of real tea is the least of those poor bugger's problems...ah well, good chat, lets get to business then. I am Mr. M, or simply M for the overly casual Americans. I've given up some measure of decorum since so much of my work force is polluted", he grinned a slightly wicked smile and winked. Frank immediately liked his new boss.
"I'm Frank Hernandez, Mr. M. I'm glad to meet you." The two men shook hands firmly.
"I'm afraid I have no resume or application to hand you. You'll have to ask me any questions you may have about me."
"Mr. Hernandez, SMI is actually part of Purgatory, so we have access to their sources of heavenly information. I have already spent some time looking at your files. We have looked at your history, accomplishments, failures and have a fairly good idea of who you are and where you can fit into our organization."
"First off, if you know everything about me, please call me Frank. Of course, I will still call you Mr. M. Secondly, are you going to give me a summary of what you have discovered about me so I can understand why I'm here, and what I need to do to leave here?"
"Of course Frank, we'll start with that first off."
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