Mitch bounded out of the WeWork space on Second in a rush. He popped open the charging case for his AirPod ear buds with one hand, while calling his assistant with his other hand.

“Jackie… yeah, I know, I’m on my way to the Creamery to meet the Angel investor,” he spoke into the air weaving through the other pedestrians. “I realize I’m late, that’s why I’m calling you on the run. Look, I need you to book me a flight to Vegas… no, not another party trip. My brother Thad died last week… Yeah, thanks… no, totally unexpected – some weird bathtub electrocution thing, he was into weird shit… he was an asshole anyway, but I have to make an appearance, you know?” He dodged a bedraggled man with a long beard carrying an enormous plastic bag with half-crushed aluminum cans and nearly crashed into three white guys with conference badges around their necks.

“Did you get rid of Elaine?” he changed the subject. “…No, I don’t care if she’s got two kids. You need to get rid of her before she files that sexual harassment charge. I don’t want a single mar on our record going into this next round of funding.” He rounded the corner onto Folsom, shoving his way through the knot of people waiting for the light to cross. “Did I do it? Jackie, you know me better than to ask that. Of course I did it. But that’s not the point. The point is if we don’t sweep this under the table it will mean a lot of money for the IPO.”

One of his AirPod earbuds came loose and as he fidgeted with it Mitch didn’t see the homeless woman’s puppy laying in front of her until he tripped over it, knocking it into her can of change. The puppy yelped, the change exploded out of the can, the woman shrieked, and Mitch staggered sideways flailing his arms to catch his balance before he fell. With so many things happening at once it’s reasonable that Mitch completely missed the hipster on the electric unicycle barreling towards him. Unable to stop, the hipster slammed into Mitch and tumbled off, barely missing the yelping puppy slamming into the building along the sidewalk. The force of the collision caromed the already-falling Mitch off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic. Mitch had time to look up before everything became bright white. The bright white, it should be noted, was the color of the Google bus that charged through the yellow light and didn’t even attempt to break until Mitch became a hood ornament. For Mitch, everything then went black.

The first thing Mitch noticed was music. It wasn’t angelic like he’d hoped for, nor was it some sort of Wagner-esque fugue to accompany him to where he expected to go. No, this was some ukulele solo over a hip hop trap beat broken by the intermittent howls of a woman clearly getting oral surgery without anesthetic. Oh shit, he thought, this was hipster music – it had to be that goddamn hipster’s Bluetooth speaker on his fucking unicycle, because of course he had a Bluetooth speaker on his electric unicycle. He opened his eyes and saw he was lying in the street in front of the stopped Google bus with the electric unicycle next to him in the gutter, “music” still blaring. He pushed himself to his feet and saw a crowd gathered near the back of the bus. He stepped onto the sidewalk and started into the crowd that were talking amongst themselves.

“Who is it?” someone said.

“I think that’s Mitch Dessner,” came a reply.

“Oh my God, that asshole?” someone else chimed in.

Mitch turned towards the voice, but couldn’t make it out before someone else joined in, “Right? A bus is too good for that guy” and “Poor bus!” and “Is the puppy okay?” and “Hey, a quarter!” “Oh yeah, I found an AirPod earbud!”

Mitch pushed his way through the crowd which didn’t move aside for him as much as he moved through them. Reaching the edge of the sidewalk, he saw two off-duty paramedics partially under the bus attending to… him. Well, what clearly used to be him. There’s denial, and then there’s seeing your body after it had been run over by a double decker bus. Without going into detail, let’s just say it doesn’t really leave much room for inconclusiveness. Mitch Dessner was dead. So, Mitch thought, where does that leave me?

As the thought coalesced in his not-head he didn’t notice that everything around him had become an opaque gray. Or maybe he did notice and just thought the fog came in awfully quickly for a fall day in SoMa.

“Hello, I’m Saint Andrew Avenillo,” The tall wiry man in a long, white, billowy robe and an aquiline nose spoke with a light Italian accent. “Signore Mitch, you may call me Andrew.”

Mitch turned to look at the man and he didn’t say anything, just gave him his best pursed-lipped TED Talk stare.

Andrew blinked several times before saying, “I am the angel of sudden death. I’m here to help you pass on… No,” he stopped. “That is not right. Not in this case. I’m here to guide you on your journey.

Mitch’s mask of self-importance fell. “Umm, excuse me? Journey?”

“Yes, Signore, your Journey. As you might suspect, most people who die are instantly judged and sent one way,” he gestured up towards the sky, “or the other,” he pointed to the ground. “And there’s cases like yours…”

“Because I’m such a successful, powerful power broker whose every utterance causes markets to quiver with anticipation?” Mitch asked.

Andrew stared at Mitch with a baffled look on his face, shaking his head. “No. Precisely because you are so irritatingly full of yourself. You still have much to learn before you are escorted off this earthly plane.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Scusami?”

“So, what comes first? The ghost of Christmas past or Christmas future?” He snapped his fingers, “No, I’m supposed to say something like, ‘the world would be better without me,’ right? No, no, no,” he hopped up and down, “This is like some goddamn ‘Our Town’ with San Francisco standing in for Grover’s Corners?”

“Are you quite finished, Signore?”

“Finished?” Mitch spread his arms wide, “I’m in the afterlife, Andrew, I can go on forever, right? Time has no relevance, right?”

“Not quite,” Andrew said pulling back the hem of his sleeve to check his Apple Watch.

“Whoa,” Mitch stopped cold. “You’ve got an Apple Watch? I don’t believe this…”

Andrew gave him a patronizing smile and sighed. “No, Signore, not exactly. What you see is me through the lens of what you would expect. In your existence, an Apple Watch is perfectly reasonable. If I were speaking to a Swiss banker perhaps I would have a fine Rolex, or if you were one of the programmers you dismissed so often perhaps I would have a calculator watch. It is all relative, Signore.”

“Okay,” Mitch said, rubbing his eyes trying to ease the headache forming… then realizing he no longer even had a head to ache and that it still ached so he rubbed harder. “Then what does your not-Apple Watch tell you?”

Just then the opaque gray evaporated and they were back on the corner of Folsom and Second, but night had fallen. The bus and people and paramedics, and hipster, and electric unicycle were gone, as was the homeless woman and her puppy. Mitch looked up and down the empty street which was, in fact, slightly hazy with cold fog. He judged it sometime early in the morning – maybe two or three AM. He turned questioningly to Andrew standing behind him. Without saying a word Andrew nodded towards the direction of oncoming traffic. Mitch followed his gaze and saw a black Tesla Model X glide up to them silently. The black car had blacked-out rims, completely opaque tinted windows, but the roof bristled with numerous bulbous cameras at varying angles as well as a spinning LIDAR unit. As the car pulled to a stop, the rear driver-side falcon door raised open. Mitch looked in to verify what he already expected – self-driving. Of course, he thought.

“Signore,” Andrew gestured for Mitch to get into the waiting car.

To be continued…