Departure and Arrival

So, it was just a normal day. Well, I guess it wasn't. It was the my last day ever at a school I'd been attending for 9 years. It was bittersweet.

Anyway, I'd just finished signing my friends' yearbooks (there were a lot of mistakes, as usual. Honestly, how is it so hard to differentiate between Math Club and Math Counts?) and I was walking to the bus that was going to take us to a pool party. So, my friend came up to me. He was sad that I was going, so he gave me a hug. I said, "I'll see you over the summer," and he said, "Yeah, but I'm still sad," and I said, "I know." Then we broke the hug and I turned around and walked forward. I saw a streak of yellow and... I don't know.

Suddenly, the air felt really heavy and thick. My eyes were closed for some reason. I opened my mouth to breath. Instead of air, fluid gushed into my lungs. I tried to yell and scream, but I couldn't. Instinctively, I jumped up, and I felt my head break out into air. I coughed up about half the water right there. I opened my eyes and saw through my blurry vision that I was in a pool. I swum to the edge, pulled myself out, and coughed up the rest of the water. What the heck is going on?

I turned my head to the side and saw a wrinkled, liver spot-covered foot in front of me. I looked up, and saw a wrinkled, liver spot-covered man in a Speedo that came with the food.

"Hello!" he said in a stereotypical old man voice. I just laid there, slightly in shock. "Welcome to Purgatory!"

I, being a slightly agnostic but mostly faithful Lutheran who believed that Purgatory was a scam made up by the Catholic Church in the olden days used to make poor people give them money, said, "You've got to be kidding me."

"Nope," he said. "You're in Purgatory."

I scoffed (fun word!) at him. "Okay, even if that were true, how would you know that we're in Purgatory?"

He explained, "Well, I'm not completely sure, but I've been here for quite a long time. Years, I think. The last thing I remember was climbing a very large mountain, I can't remember which, and then I slipped and fell for a while. Suddenly, I was laying in a hot tub."

I took this opportunity to examine where I was. We were in a closed room, about thirty by twenty feet. In it was a large pool and a hot tub. There were more people swimming laps. Very slowly. Like turtles (no offense to turtle lovers). "I still don't believe you," I said. Spotting a door, I marched to it, opened it, and continued marching. I reached a room that appeared to be a lobby for a health club or something. There were a few more people there, just sitting on chairs, doing nothing. I left the club and found that there was a city outside. So I kept walking, and walking, and walking... Trying to figure out where the heck I was.

I didn't like the answer.