On Being Dead

After I was dead, things started to get boring. Oh, it was interesting at first, of course. Walking through walls and all that. Going "boo" at people, etc. But the problem is, you can't really affect anything. Or at least, if you can, I haven't learned how yet. Right now, being dead is kind of like playing a brand new video game, but no one's explained how the controls work yet, only there's no walk-through videos posted anywhere. You just have to kind of figure it out for yourself. The afterlife is just one huge open-world exploration game, with faulty controls and no NPC's.

At first I thought I'd do a bit of haunting. I wanted to hang out with my old friends, I thought it would be funny to occasionally play tricks on them, like move stuff around in their house while they slept, that kind of thing. But I can't actually touch or manipulate anything. I can't talk to anyone. I visited my best friend and tried talking to her; she had no idea I was there. I eventually tried screaming in her ear, that made her kind of scratch at her earlobe a little bit, but that was all the reaction I got out of her. I spent about four hours screaming at her at the top of my lungs and got nowhere with her at all. And it was exhausting.

So I gave up on that. I can't interfere at all with the physical plane. All I can do is watch it. Which is frankly pretty fucking boring. And occasionally infuriating -- to watch people I know having a good time and I can't join in, or to watch someone I love making a really stupid mistake and being completely unable to stop them.

Oh, there is one exception. Cats. Cats can see me. Cats can rub up against my legs, and will allow me to pet them. When I was alive, I never really liked cats. But now that I'm dead I don't have a whole lot of choice, they are my only company. So I've become friendly to them. Most of them. Some of them are right bastards.

Here's the thing I don't get: I haven't seen one other ghost since I died. Just me. You'd think you'd run into a few others, don't you? Actually, you'd think the streets would be absolutely teeming with them. Imagine, for just a moment, how many people have died since the beginning of the human race. Has to be billions, maybe into the trillions. Where the fuck are all of them? Why am I not with them?

I've been dead for fifty years. I've watched friends and family members grow old and die, and they just disappear. When my best friend passed away I was there at her bedside, and I actually saw her soul rise up. For just a split second, I thought I saw her turn her face towards me, I thought she saw me -- just very briefly. She looked surprised. But then she vanished.

Where did she go? Where did they all go? Why can't I go there too?