Surprise , a Short Short Story

"Oh my gosh, I tripped over a dead guy!"

The man sat up in the gutter. "I'm dead?"

"Oh, you're not! Thank goodness."

"I'm not? CRAP!", and he laid back down.

The man laid in the gutter with spit running out of his mouth and I looked down and said, "What are you doing there? Don't you have some other place to go; You'll catch your death laying down there in the rain."

"I want to die. With luck maybe I'll drown and it will all be over once and for all."

"Come now, there is nothing so bad that you can't find a solution." The girl reached down and tried to get his hand. "Whatever it is I will help you figure it out.

He looked up at her and asked, "What is your name?"

"Angel".

"I knew it. I am dead."

"No you're not dead! I'm talking to you. You're alive. "

"How can you be so sure? Do you know who I am or where I came from?"

She shook her head from side to side. "Can you sit up? We can talk. Maybe I can help you."

He smiled, took her hand and began to rise from the wet cement.

The girl smiled back. "Hey, that is much better. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and we can talk about what is wrong. Okay?"

He was holding on to her hand and seemed to follow along like a little boy as she led him into a coffee shop and to a booth in the back. She hoped that no one she knew would see her with this bummy looking guy, but she could not just let him lay there in the pouring rain in the gutter. It wasn't in her natures. She called the waitress over and ordered two cups of coffee.

The odd stranger sat there smiling like a Cheshire cat and it was beginning to unnerve her.

"I'm glad to see you smiling, but I don't see what is so funny. You were trying to kill yourself out there in front of the store where I work. Now tell me, why do you want to die?"

"Oh! I hadn't planned to die. Just to snag an unsuspecting female that would feel sorry for me, like you."

"You what????? You low down sorry piece of......"

He started to laugh. "Smile you're on.... Candid Camera"