I ________ do it. a) can b) can't

One day it was sunny. But it didn't matter. Darkness was everywhere. Or so he thought. Then he woke up, up in the sky, or something close to it, with someone nudging him from behind.   

"What the fuck are you doing here, Teddy?!" Teddy rubbed his eyes. And his head. And then his eyes again. He couldn't believe it. He was sitting in a cloud, looking at his belated Shrink. The one who passed away after her safari in Africa. The one who tripped and got attacked by giant bugs.  

"Ho-ly fuck!" he said with his mouth agape. "Where am I?"  

"YOU'RE ALMOST DEAD!" she yelled at him. Angrily. Frustrated. Just like when she was alive.

"Ooooh," Teddy mumbled. "Ooooh! Yeah! Yeah! I took a bunch of aspirin and then jumped off a bridge. What do you mean almost dead? How can I NOT be dead?" He was so so confused. More confused than ever before when he was back on the ground.  

His Shrink shrugged and shook her head in discontent.  

"What the hell? Didn't I teach you anything? Didn't anything I teach you sink in?! Did you succumb that easily after I left?!"  

Teddy just looked up at her. She looked the same with her short spiky grayish hair, and her almost motherly vibration. "Well, yeah..."  

"WELL," his Shrink threw her arms up up in the air! "YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE!! YOU'RE NOT FINISHED DOWN THERE!"  

"But how can I go back? I took a bottle of pills and I jumped off that bridge. I was sick of one person running my life and the other bashing it in. And a handful of people having control of where my career and dreams go. And the other ones who never make time. Not even for a Slurpy. I mean, what's the point? Why would these dreams and ambitions be planted in me for my entire life if all they do is make me suffer? I can't go back..."  

"YES YOU CAN AND YOU WILL!"  

"Fuck..." Teddy said. He didn't know how to feel. He was excited and relieved, in a way. And he was happy it was his old Shrink who was there to yell at him. He had missed her so much after she passed away. He just didn't think he could do it without her. "Well, why are you up here then? You weren't finished either!"  

"OH LORD...YES I WAS. I died in Africa on safari! I won trophies for lifting weights when I was 60! I dated Phil Spector when I was a teenager! I helped you get there...I mean, I believed in you. And you know that. But I thought you knew how to believe in yourself and so I knew it was okay for me to go. What the fuck happened?"  

"I don't know," he said. "You left. And everyone else was too busy with bullshit to slow down and look at things with me for a while. And I lost touch with hope. Or happiness. Or dreams. It was only for a minute. But that minute was so bad that I didn't want to try anymore."  

"Well, you have to go back. I didn't spend all that time with you for you to be up here so soon. Go back. Go back. Go back." Teddy just looked up at her. The tears swelling beneath his eyes. He started to say something but she stopped him. "Listen, you didn't win with me down there and you're not going to win with me up here. Angel, just go back. TRUST ME." And with that she was gone.  

He woke up in a bed with a smashing headache, crust on his lips, and sleep in his eyes. He didn't know what to do. But he figured all he could do was trust. Or try again.

pill jump with confused bird illustrated by the awesome  Christopher Matty (thank you, C x)