Ruby Pier amusement park<\/a>, a place that he has worked for most of his life. He is the maintenance man, so his job is to maintain and fix the park\u2019s many rides, attractions, and games. After so many years, he can detect problems with the rides just by listening to them. He is an old, resilient man. He has the stature and dress of a workingman, which is exactly what he is. <\/p>\n\n\n\nEddie walks with a cane now because of a knee injury he got in the war. He has white hair and a strong, barrel chest. Despite Eddie\u2019s past of alley fights in his youth, the park\u2019s regulars trust Eddie and children like him. Many people have taken to calling him \u201cEddie Maintenance,\u201d like it says on his name tag. He doesn\u2019t think that\u2019s funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today is Eddie\u2019s 83rd birthday. If he had known he was about to die, he would have gone somewhere else and done something new. He had always dreamed of leaving Ruby Pier behind and starting a different life. But he never got around to leaving after the war. So, he goes about his last day as he did every other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With thirty-four minutes left to live, Eddie walks into the amusement park maintenance shop. There, he talks with Dominguez, one of the fellow workers. Dominguez tells Eddie that he is planning a trip to Mexico with his wife. Eddie takes out 40 dollars, hands it to \u201cDom,\u201d and tells him to get his wife a nice gift. Then, he walks away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With only 19 minutes left in his life, Eddie goes to sit in his special spot. It\u2019s an old aluminum beach chair that he has placed behind the ride where he first met his late wife Marguerite. The ride used to be called the Stardust Band Shell in those days. The night they met, Eddie and Marguerite danced together on the boardwalk. Listening to the sounds of the ocean, he visualizes that moment, which he considers the snapshot of true love. Eddie used to think of his wife all the time, but lately, he tries to forget the pain like an old wound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eddie\u2019s daydream of Marguerite is interrupted by a young girl with blonde curls. Eddie has seen her around the park many times before, but can\u2019t remember her name. Annie? Amy? She asks him to make her an animal out of the pipe cleaners he is known to carry in his front pocket. He twists up a small, yellow bunny for her, and she dances away, smiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of a sudden, Eddie hears screams and immediately knows something is wrong. Looking up, he sees the cart of the Freddy\u2019s Free Fall ride dangling at a dangerous angle. The passengers are terrified. He calls to Dom and the rest of the park maintenance and security teams. He gives everyone directions of how to handle the situation. He tells them to evacuate the passengers from the ride, then send the broken cart down to be examined. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eddie could never have known this, but a few months earlier, a young man lost his car key at Ruby Pier. He had been keeping it in his jacket pocket while he rode the rides. As it turns out, the key had fallen and become lodged in Freddy\u2019s Free Fall and had been slowly wearing away at the cable. There was no way to see that this was happening. Every person\u2019s story overlaps with someone else\u2019s<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\nJust as the passengers are being taken off the dangerous ride, Eddie realizes that there must be something wrong with the cable. He screams for Dom to keep the cart at the top, but it\u2019s too late. He sees the cart hurling toward the ground. Just underneath, the little girl with the pipe cleaner bunny is crying out for her mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without hesitation, Eddie runs toward the girl, ignoring the pain in his injured knee. He jumps toward her and feels her small hands just before the impact and a flash of light. Then, he feels nothing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In heaven, the Blue Man explains, you will meet five people. Each of these people played an important part in your life, even if you didn\u2019t know it at the time. Meeting these people is meant to help you understand the meaning of your life. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nAlthough Eddie wants to ask the Blue Man questions, he finds he cannot speak. The Blue Man tells him that when you first arrive in heaven, you lose your voice so that you can listen. However, Eddie manages to make out one question\u2014he asks how the Blue Man died. Slightly surprised, he smiles and says that Eddie killed him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the day of Eddie\u2019s birthday, the Blue Man had been practicing his driving in a friend\u2019s Ford Model A. All of a sudden, he saw a baseball bouncing across the road, and a young boy chasing after it. The Blue Man slammed on the breaks and swerved out of the way to avoid hitting Eddie. He lost control of the car, and suffered extreme stress. The Blue Man had a heart attack behind the wheel and died alone at Ruby Pier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Blue man asks Eddie if he understands. Eddie shivers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
How We Are All Connected: Tala’s Story<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Eddie’s fifth person is a girl named Tala. Eddie doesn’t know who she is at first, but soon sees how we are all connected to each other. Eddie sees the other children in the water around them. They are bathing with stones. Tala says that is how their mothers used to wash them. Then Tala notices pipe cleaners in Eddie\u2019s shirt. He twists up a little dog for her. He asks her if she likes the toy, but she answers \u201cYou burn me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tala tells Eddie that she used to have to hide from soldiers. Eddie is horrified because he knows that she was the shadow he saw in the flames the day of his escape from captivity. Looking into Tala\u2019s eyes, he is heartbroken. He begins to sob and wail, asking for forgiveness for the things he\u2019s done. Eddie continues to weep while Tala plays with her pipe cleaner dog. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tala hands Eddie a stone and asks him to wash her. She removes her shirt and Eddie is startled to see that her skin is burned and scarred. As he washes her with the stone, the scars begin to fall away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tala uses her fingers to tell Eddie that she is his fifth person. A tear falls down Eddie\u2019s cheek, and Tala asks him why he was sad in his life. Just like he told the Blue Man, the Captain, Ruby, and Marguerite, Eddie says that he was sad because he was stuck at Ruby Pier his whole life. He didn\u2019t feel that\u2019s where he was meant to be. But Tala tells him that he was<\/em> meant to stay at Ruby Pier. He was keeping other children safe<\/strong>\u2014making up for the harm that he accidentally caused Tala. Then she calls him \u201cEddie Maintenance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nSitting in the river, Eddie can sense that he will be moving on soon. So he asks Tala if she knows about the little girl he died trying to save. He wants to know if he was able to pull her out in time. Tala says no. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eddie didn\u2019t pull the little girl, he pushed her out of the way of the falling car and into safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eddie is confused, because the only thing he remembered of his last moment was the little girl\u2019s hands in his. Tala smiles and holds Eddie\u2019s hands. The hands Eddie remembers were Tala\u2019s hands as she pulled him into heaven to keep him safe. Though Eddie never knew about Tala, she proves to him how we are all connected to each other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n