When you die, you appear in a cinema with a number of other people who look like you. You find out that they are your previous reincarnations, and soon you all begin watching your next life on the big screen.

I gradually regained consciousness and was immediately aware of an absolutely splitting headache. My god last night must have been a heavy one. I kept my eyes closed and concentrated on minimising the pain. I breathed out slowly and became vaguely aware that I was sitting up.

Oh shit.

I must have passed out somewhere. I bet John had been feeding me shots all night. Everyone has a John in their friendship group, don’t they? The kind of guy that starts the shots way too early and then by nine he’s the “responsible” one drinking coke whilst everyone else is falling over themselves. Prick.

I cracked my eyes open slightly. Darkness. Ok that’s not too bad, at least I’m not outside in the park or something. That’s happened on a couple of occasions too.

I could just about make out some sort of weird whispering coming from behind me.

“Oh god I remember when I got here…” a familiar voice said.

“Oh yeah, the pain is pretty horrendous if memory serves” someone replied.

“C’mon, you all saw what happened, I bet he’s got it worse than us! Most of us were asleep, remember!” a third voice chimed in.

I pulled my eyes open and groaned. The pain really was something else. “Do any of you gawking people have an aspirin?” I said.

“Oh, ah, no.” A voice said “But don’t worry, it’ll wear off in a minute.”

“What kind of hangover do you know that wears off in just a minute?” I said, beginning to feel a bit irritated with this smart arse.

“Just trust us, we know.”

I turned around in my seat and found myself looking up into an enormous cinema auditorium full of people. Full of people who looked more or less exactly like me. Well, not identically like me but rather like me in the way that siblings look the same or parents with their children. There must have been about three hundred of my pseudo-siblings in here.

This made me feel queasy.

“What the fuck is this!” I said out loud, and they all roared with laughter. “Ok Ok who had ‘what the fuck is this!’” an elderly man at the back shouted over the laughter, and was met with a sheepish response from another elderly gentleman in the back corner.

“I told you I knew us better than the lot of you.”

What kind of fucked up hangover is this. I sat back down and closed my eyes, I must still be dreaming. Fucking John and his fucking shots.

The laughter continued and I sunk down in my seat trying to return to that delicious unconscious state of sleep.

“Welcome” a voice said, apparently in front of me. “Just so you know, you’re dead. We’re all dead actually.”

Nope. Nope Nope Nope. I really must get back to sleep.

“I get it. You’re having a hard time coming to terms with this but honestly you are dead. Alcohol poisoning as it happens. That fucking John, right?”

I looked up and was met by a broad grin from a guy who looked exactly like me when I was in my teens.

“How do you know about John?”

“Well, we’ve all just been watching your life.” he gestured to the screen behind him. “Good job with Harriet by the way, we didn’t think you’d manage that one!” His grin deepened along with my disdain for him.

He was flustered now “Oh uh yes, so to summarise: you’re dead, we watched your life, and our next incarnation is due to start in…” he looked at his watch “about one minute!”

As if he had planned it, the screen flickered to life, showing a large countdown timer.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

I didn’t think I would, but it sounded like I didn’t have a choice in the matter. God I hated John. Prick.