[ IP ] Ghost Riders

There comes a point in a mans life when he tires of doing the same thing. I suspect this is true for everyone, but that's conjecture, I only know myself, and while I am blessed with the same companionship I've had since I was fourteen - a couple proper bastards, it is remarkably hard for us to converse with no vocal cords. In life we never gave much thought to these existential sort of thoughts, no we were more concerned with earthly pleasures, small and great depending on the haul. We've tried to learn sign, but again that's hardly useful for having very involved and nuanced conversations, at least with our limited understanding. Frankly we use it to carry on with our old tasks, simple shoot that fellow or quick follow me gestures. If the others could read, perhaps we could exchange papers, but I'm the only literate amongst us, the only one that cared to learn from that fancy fella we had hog tied for half a year. ( His family was remarkably stubborn about paying ransom, killed a good dozen Pinkerton men before they conceded. Good bloke though, paid him a visit awhile back - pissed in his pants. ) 
 
 So yes, there comes a point where one tires of things done entirely too much. Regardless of what these things may be. Back when I was virile I spent two weeks holed up in a brothel, I got tired of that too. The drink and the whores. Matter of fact I can recall getting tired of the simple animal act of eating, something that I am now spared from ( though longing for ), the incessant grind to make sure I could put something in my stomach. The only thing I did not tire of is sleep, and I am not being cheeky. Sleep was a release, I was nothing as I slept and was, frankly, looking forward to death right up until the moment I bled out. Thus was I remarkably disappointed to find out the afterlife is n't eternal nothing bliss, but actually myriad and awful and I ended up, on virtue of my unvirtuous life, to be smack dab in the middle of the worst one. Met the Devil amidst all the fire and brimstone and what not, quaking in my rapidly melting boots, my bubbling skin, and he told me he was a fan. Said my crew lived fast and hard and did n't give a shit about anything but themselves, and he could respect that, and because he could respect that, he was willing to offer me, us rather, an opportunity that could get him in some very hot water with the man upstairs. So I said yes without thinking, without hearing the proposal and he smiled, clapped his hands, and I was back above ground with all the lads. All of us corpses really, skeletons, very little flesh and where there is any it is rotted, but never rots entirely, which is to say, goes away. We seem to be preserved, relatively. I can tell who everyone is even though we hardly have faces, all our striking features largely missing. Almost by instinct, as I write this, I can see Samson by candle light, I think it's Samson, his frame is about right anyway. 
 
 Even had I heard the Devil lay out his plans for us before accepting, I would have been inclined anyway. When the Big Fella, either one, offers you a personal favor, you take it. However droll the act of carrying on our life of both petty and grand crime, self indulgence has proven to be in these long years, whatever was to face me down there would be far and away worse. But it might go on forever, this life of riding and shooting and stealing, and it is, truly, boring. Being immortal ( in so far as I can tell, I've taken a few bullets to my skull ) all the thrill of a good gun-fight is moot. I have no skin and thus no nerves and as such primal pleasures are pointless. I ca n't get drunk. I ca n't do anything but shoot and steal and kill. 
 
 It's awful. Should have took a wife.
