For months no-one saw me but the dog. Not the wife, not the kids, not the live-in grandmother.

     Baxter would never betray my memory, that was a given.  Loyal to the end, which of course turned out not to be the end at all just some new phase I couldn’t figure out, he always raised his head and sometimes his entire sack-of-bones body, to at least acknowledge my arrival.  All those weekend walks through the woods stood me in good stead.

     But the rest of them, not a chance.  Over the years I had gone from Public Enemy #1 to Who was that guy anyway?  Not without cause I might add.  My vagrant sloppy lifestyle, my ‘it’s all about me’ cameos in the show of their lives, my impecunious posturing while hiding piles of credit card debt, my trail of sharky women snapping at my heels, worn down, as they most definitely were, by my affectionate distance.

     That’s where you play act kindness, sympathy and concern while keeping your arms-length cool.  Kelly once said, while I was still around to hear it, that I should wear a Do Not Disturb t-shirt.  I reacted to her kidding with daddy glee but I knew deep down she wasn’t kidding.  Of course I kept up the nice guy act in the dog-walking drop-in vacations in between my extended absences.  It’s easy to get caught in a behavioural rut, the comfort of familiarity, the clearly marked boundaries.

     It is one thing to develop software, innovative and useful to the smaller entrepreneur, but as they tend to be tech peasants it’s better to show up and give them a couple of run-throughs than be endlessly answering panicked emails so trips around the state were soon seen to be the solution, and one that I was happy to play the part in.  It suited my impulse to wander and adventure.  I could have delegated and stayed behind to tend the nest, but units in industrial parks quickly wear thin, regardless of the fine art prints and plants you hang about the place to make up for the lack of exercise bikes and all that recreational shit for young geniuses the bigger places provide.  My gals and guys got the smoke breaks they craved, at least until the vape craze died that ugly death.  Combine that with the lay-off spells the big guys caved to, throwing what they thought was their adventurous pals onto other folks couches, and I had a conveniently submissive work force that my enterprise, once it had lost that start-up-of-the-month status, required for smooth running.  I could leave regularly and still look cool.

     Sure, you guessed it, I used those trips to spar with, well, just about anyone who was up for it.  If you could be smooth and smart about it, like respecting the schedules working moms are slaves to you can score with a satisfying regularity.  And that’s how Melissa slid into my life.  Her party girl status, partly deserved and partly exaggerated, had left her with only weekend custody as husband Roy ran a tight ship Monday to Friday, even driving the kids to and from school.  Some sort of financial advisor/mutual fund influencer operating out of his basement office and the way Melissa spoke of it, quite the sharpie with investment strategies.  The guy who takes care of business without a second thought or spurts of whinging.  Just the job for a flakey part-animal like me, she’d say.  Kind of regards me as a lost cause, which from his pov is just right yet he’s too kind hearted to make a meal out of punishing me.  Boy did I luck out.

     Melissa, as you might imagine, was more fun than twin sisters on a Saturday night, and when cooked, which was more often than not, could do a fair imitation of two gals in one body.  I’d always shied away from the white stuff, having seen a few users make victims of themselves, winding up not exactly homeless but just one step above crack house habituee.  Melissa not only knew where to draw the line but where and when to toss me in the deep end.  Me, play it safe?  You must be kidding, but she thought so.  Her ex Dean, a graduate from the Grateful Dead finishing school, an equipment guy until his back gave out, kept her in high grade pot for years and was a perfect example of how a disability pension can fund a carefully mapped out business plan.  For many years his occasional drives up to the back woods of the Pacific Northwest, likely Oregon but it was never name checked, secured by helpful sheriff’s deputies was the safest supply chain.  One of the growers, one Mae, had eventually supplanted Melissa in his heart and she was politely shunted aside, with everyone remaining friends, or so she said, rolling another perfect joint.  Crosby trained apparently, Melissa would joke while toking.  Yes, that would be the David in his post jail time recovery years with rock and smack long turfed out.

     I was amused by this hippie lingo and vegetarian lifestyle.  The highs were incredible and Melissa the slinkiest fuck buddy imaginable.  She’d risen through the system until a small branch library was hers to manage, and further promotions deftly avoided.  Carefully faking occasional bouts of exhaustion sealed her fate but regular returns to work after three or four days gave her undisputed heroine status.

     I saw her as someone who knew to enjoy the pleasures of the passing parade without needing to plan for some nebulous future.

     The only time she messed up, at least while I was in the vicinity, was the crash, which sure wasn’t her fault.  A speeder did not see her left turn signal and whapped us good.  She walks away scratched and dazed while I am watching her, thinking Oh thank god she’s okay.  I sat beside her as she commiserated with the bleeding speeder and forgot to talk to me, at least until the emergency service vehicles arrived and I saw myself on a stretcher being carefully deposited in the ambulance.  Then it was like Oh shit, now what?

     Believe it or not I thought first of the family.  I had set things up in the event of my sudden demise so they’d likely be alright, if not exactly flush forever.  My wife was in IT herself and could probably run the show, that is my show in the strip mall, or at least have the connections to find a trusted friend to, if not make it happen, then keep it from going off the rails.  So I’m standing in the kitchen, watching my kids put together some after school snack, annoying each other in the process.  At 15 and 13 that’s just the norm.  No teeth were bared but the language was impolite.  They fled to their rooms where I witnessed each one settle to the smartphones.  Wife and I had been on the outs for years but my monthlies and occasional dog walking visits seemed to somehow keep the peace.

     Wendy had been dating on and off with limited success, a lot of sad sacks soaked in self-pity she said.  With the kids closing in on maturity and more studious than any parents has a right to hope for, she felt freed form motherly duties and could not see herself doing more of the same for some romantic partner.  I tried to sympathize without bragging about Melissa but she sniffed it out anyways.  She’s a stoner fuck monster isn’t she?  My tepid denial went nowhere.  With my mom’s generation it was always, She’s a bit of party girl, but those days were long gone.  Ah feminism, how it freed tongues as well as monthly cycles.  Melissa, of course had her tubes tied years before I came along.  Wendy had heard a couple too many medical screw-up stories and was praying nightly for menopause. Thinking these thoughts brought me right to her office where her head was staring at a screen and could not be shaken by my repeated yells of Wendy! Wendy!

     Disappointed to say the least, I resorted to Baxter, whose head was raised from his afternoon garden nap the minute I arrived.  I don’t care what you say but dogs and I hear, cats, can at least sense ghosts if not see them.  East to say now but was I then aware of being a ghost?  Not likely, I was just reacting from moment to moment.  Speaking of naps I found Wendy’s mom Mary in her bedroom napping peacefully.

     Melissa I found in a hospital waiting room, waiting I suppose for confirmation of my state, or lack of it.  A doctor entered and bent down to whisper.  She nodded.  After he left she got out her cell and tapped.  I sussed or maybe heard, not really sure, her leave a message at my work number, hoping I assume that it would be quickly passed on.  Calling Wendy was not a good idea and she knew it, even though I’d given her the number for emergencies.

     I found dad at some casino, as involved as ever.  He just flashed through my mind and there I was.  I thought, wait a minute he’s been dead for years.  Maybe he was a ghost like me?  After all this time?  Then I saw the dealer acknowledging him and thought, okay he’s not a ghost.  It was ages before I found out that in this world there is everything that human desire can ask for, arenas for baseball and football, theatres for music and plays, museums for the cultured and casinos for the addicted.  But then, naïve as I was, I had no idea that everyone I could see around dad, you know coming and going, was a spirit in a spirit world casino.  Not that I thought they’d all be in churches and temples, although I later found out that lots were.  Sports are big here but religion is even bigger.  Really anything that humans have developed desire for is here.  Whatever your fancy, name your poison.  Mum was still in an extended care facility, eating and sleeping but not much else.  She hadn’t recognized me for a year or more and standing by her easy chair as she stared out her window was about as pointless as visiting her

     In the flesh.  I had this crazy thought: I’ll come back when she’s feeling better.  I did actually but that’s skipping ahead.

     Then I was back with Melissa who had managed to connect with Dean and was relaxing on her couch with him as they shared a pipe.  Dean had seen a lot in his days with the Dead and was as cool as a cucumber.  Yet he seemed to be surrounding her with sympathy.  I saw it as a cloud, a warm orangey cloud, soothing as she wept out her guilty grief.  She had called my office number and relayed the news, the location of my body and other necessary details.  I waved my arms and yelled at them but it did no good.  I might as well have been miles away.

     I wondered if the office had passed on the bad news and suddenly I was back at home watching Wendy and the kids, – shocked, stunned, more silent than weepy.  I watched as she called the funeral home where a deposit had long been made.  We hadn’t really thought about transportation at the time, hoping maybe that I’d flake out while walking the dog nearby.

     I found myself at the office.  Everyone had gone home for the day.  Worried about their futures I guess.  They were a self-sufficient lot and had always managed just fine when I was away. But away for good?  That was a whole different ball game.  Chloe, being an energizer bunny by nature, had been handed the office manager/traffic coordinator role months before and seemed fine with it.  As I wondered about her I found myself in a trendy high end bar, watching her sip at some wine and lean into a girlfriend I hadn’t ever seen.  The body language spoke of promotions, responsibilities, salaries and the like and I found myself trying not to be offended.  Maybe they’d miss me later.

     Back at the ranch I could see Wendy was coping by organising.  We hadn’t been close in years, quietly tolerating each other for the sake of the kids.  But they were 14 and 16 now, weren’t they?  I’m hopeless at losing track of birthdays, even my own.  My son was acting his newly discovered man role, which of course, meant repressing all emotion that might make him look soft.  My daughter, as I could clearly see, as she wept in her bedroom, was going to miss the dad she’d clocked as a nerdy loser best forgotten.  Her bestie Amanda had the perfect dad and she’d gloomed onto him big time.  Enjoying the heated pool, the endless barbeques, while tolerating the open bibles and soft-sell gospelising that obviously sought to draw her in to the very friendly church and youth pastor.  Jenna had the makings of being her own woman from about eleven but was shy about pushing it, fitting in sweetly when the occasion demanded it.  A natural diplomat I always thought, but one with a cutting edge when it came to her wandering dad.  And let’s face it I deserved it.  More of a smiling stranger than saint, that’s for sure.  Baxter had picked up the vibe and seemed to be moping about the place, glancing up dejectedly when I appeared in the room.  His look seemed accusatory, though that might have been my guilt surfacing.

     I was good at guilt and had been for years.  The bad boy feels bad but keeps on, telling himself that being bad is just another way to be.  After being here a while and seeing plenty of folks feeling remorseful about their pasts but still managing to enjoy the pleasures of paradise I began to think Why punish yourself, it’s all in the past and should be baggage that you let go.  And isn’t it everyone’s  challenge to let go their baggage and forgive those who trespass against you.  And while you’re at it forgive yourself for being less than saintly and perfect?

     Yeah I’m jumping ahead a bit here.  There was much to see and do before I got to that place of forgiveness and letting go.  Being a newbie in deep denial, like I was, kinda slows your progress.  Basically I was clueless and had to be taught every little thing.  And that’s after I admitted to myself, Yeah I’m dead so now what?  Thing is you don’t feel like you’re dead, if that means without life.  I was full of beans and going everywhere at the flash of a thought just amplified that.  You get giddy with the potential you feel opening up.  After many visits to family, the business and Melissa I thought Why not get more adventurous.  A brief fond memory suddenly took me to the Grand Canyon and there I was flying about as free as any eagle.  A glorious feeling of freedom.  If this is being dead then give me more!

     I spied an eagle ahead of me and idly wondered if I could catch up.  Next thing I knew I was flying alongside and it seemed to be smiling.  Eagles don’t smile I know but it sure felt like it.  I thought he’s acknowledging me.  And in some way I couldn’t define he, or maybe she, was.  Then it was a slew of tricky manoeuvres, as if I was being taught.  I stuck to him like glue, although there was no glue.  My silent commitment, whatever that was, did it.  Eventually he returned to the nest and made it plain I was not welcome.  I zoomed down to water level and amused myself by skimming the surface and then some rapids.  If being dead was this much fun I could see why suicides felt attracted.  Or did they know?

     Maybe wanting to end it all really did end it all.  But I hadn’t time to want to end anything.  I wasn’t blissfully happy with my life but the challenge of staying sane while navigating the ever changing moods of not just me but everyone around me was something I was always up for.  The carnival ride of life was never less than amusing.

     Wondering, just briefly, about software development and who might be active here, wherever here was, took me to some fancy R&D facility.  In the recreation area for some reason, guys and gals playing table tennis, pool, sweating on exercise bikes and chattering away around their lattes and fruit smoothies.  I sat myself on a couch in a lounge area.  Two guys were deep into it.  I was in the line of vision of one and mid-sentence he said to his colleague  We got a floater here.  That guy turned to look and said, Just visiting are you?  My response was kinda lame: I guess so.  The first said, Sleeping or dead?

     I replied, Dead, I think.  We get a few of you up here.  Seems like all you have to do is think I.T. or software or coding and you’re here.  Mind if I just sit and absorb?   Dude, chill out, it’s all good.  We’re, like, totally dead but we’ve had time to adjust.  Grinning all round.  Looks like you just made the change.  Shoot out?  Overdose?  Nah, head-on collision.

     And so it went. I resisted the temptation to follow my body home.  Couldn’t see the point.  The funeral was a different story.  You may think how could you miss your own funeral?  Well I tried.  But the draw was overwhelming.  Eventually I just gave in to the tides of love and tears.  Had I ever felt emotions so strongly?  I began weeping myself.  God, everybody showed up.  I couldn’t believe it.  Was I that popular?  My good time Charlie act really had an effect.  I thought folk could see through it and just indulged me.  Wendy and my daughter crumpled, my son stayed stoic, my parents looked on disapprovingly.  Once again I‘d let the side down.  Their side of course.  I’d always run away from my life and this was just the final lap.  Look at him go!  Stalwarts for respectability and convention I’d always  suspected they’d harboured a secret envy of my waywardness.  When I told them once they just wanted to go wild and crazy like me, they went ballistic.  But the assembled multitude more than made up for that.  A quiet chorus of approval rippled around the room.  I luxuriated in its warm vibe until I wondered, was it approval for me and my existence, that irreplaceable contribution to life’s rich pageant,  or my sudden and tragic departure which may have left more breathing space for the inextricably entangled?

     Something to puzzle over I guessed as the box slid into its fiery receptacle and I absented myself until the location of the reception became obvious.  Lines of cars are not easy to miss.  Once there I listened as folks chatted about me and my ways.  Some politely, some reverentially, some humorously, some with an edge of spite.  Somehow the spite seemed the most sincere.  That’s right I said, get it off your chest, go home relieved and more than a little squiffy.

     The weepiness had modified into cheeriness, a cheeky cheeriness at that.  My chat at the R&D spot ticked my interest and a couple of the ladies on bikes ticked my fancy.  I could see a future here.  Right about then grandad showed up, giving me that famous grin and slapping me on the back.  You made it I see, well done.  I hadn’t thought of my transition as any kind of achievement but was glad to see it treated as so, especially by someone I’d admired since childhood.  Great to see you again Bert, I really missed you.  His birth name was Horace but he hated it and demanded his middle Albert be shortened to Bert.  He was the kind of banker who really wanted to be a carpenter and spent a good deal of his short life woodworking in the garage, much to my grandma’s annoyance.  Sure all financial services are a scam at heart, but what could you do, it was the way the world worked.  An FDR new-dealer to his dying day, and likely beyond, he worshipped John Maynard Keynes and despised the Chicago School of Unregenerate Scumbags as he so liked to call them.  He’d only just said hello and already I was wondering if he’d managed to meet up with FDR and Keynes.  You bet, he grinned.  And then, Ah don’t worry we can all read minds here. You’ll get it in no time.  And as to your old man, he always was a stuffed shirt.  Even as a boy I wanted him away at boarding school.  Fortunately he didn’t take much convincing, the posh status being more than enough.  The gambling was his way to letting off the steam he’d kept hidden for decades.  Makes him feel free even when he’ behind the bars he made himself.

     Bert offered to take me away for a while.  Until things calmed down a bit.  He had a very spiffy condo high up in one of the astral plane cities and when that got too much a very rustic cabin in the Rockies.  Both options seemed amazing, but given that I was only just dead a day or two I was not sure I was ready for such radical change.  Bert chastised me.  How could I be so wimpy?  Besides the change would do me good.  Hanging around the mourners would only drag me down.  Then I said something that really surprised me: Maybe I deserved it.  Deserved what he asked.  Being dragged down.  Maybe I’d been a free agent for too long.  Also, I added, I’d had a flying visit to an R&D facility that really intrigued      me.  Bert grinned: yeah, the technical and scientific developments here were beyond belief.  Even your  average Joe could use his thoughts to manipulate things, so the smart ones were in a category that was just short of magical.

     Bert held out his hand:  Come for a flying visit, get the lay of the land and then come back to swim in your guilt.  I must have given him a look as he smirked in a way that somehow said it all.  Okay,  I’ll indulge you.  Then he laughed.  He grabbed me by the forearm and suddenly we were flying.  At first over landscapes.  I uses the plural as it kept changing like a movie, an all round movie. Maybe the projection of a hologram.  Who knows what they could do here?  A shining city appeared on the horizon, reminding me of, oh I dunno, Singapore or Dubai.  As we closed in I began to discern skyscrapers with amazing breathtaking pretzel like twists.  Architecture designed by surrealists on an unlimited budget.  We landed on a sidewalk, shockingly normal, at the base of a structure so curved I wonder if it might fall on us.  In my amazement I still managed to notice a glassed-in elevator tunnel.  Odd looking folk were just walking into it.  My first thought was ‘creative plastic surgery’.  Bert muttered, extraterrestrials looking to live a human life, the building caters to them.  Can they afford the rents I asked, assuming the worst.  None of that here my boy.

     The elevator began to rise.  Bert grabbed my hand and we rose with it.  The beings from elsewhere seemed to be examining us.  Fascinating species Bert said, but far too well behaved.  Everything according to plan, no improvising.  About as humorous as a German industrialist.  Meanwhile we’re getting pretty high up, about fifty floors I’d guess.  The elevator stops and we watch as they exit with that polite body language I’d seen in many Japanese.  The some red and purple haired punks, the full regalia, bounced in.  Bert said, yeah they’re dead too, overdoses from fentanyl or something like it.  The elevator began to go down and we kept rising.  Bert said floor 63.  The curves were dizzying, as we traced them we were close to horizontal.  Carnival ride stuff.

     Exactly how we entered Bert’s condo is still a mystery to me.  Bert said, Hang tight for a minute, and there we were inside.  Stylish, ultra modern, interior design by Salvador Dali.  Not just a print of  a melting clock, but an actual melting clock, kind of, Oh I dunno, rubbery and warm to the touch.  Easy chairs that folded themselves around you.  One small room with a gorgeous collection of orchids, another with three Siamese cats, all snoozing. Bert chuckled and said More about that later.  He sat me down with a refreshment that tasted fruity creamy and maybe hiding a buzz.  Yeah, Bert smiled, the thc content is not to be denied.  He spoke of many things, all magically attractive.  It was the self-adjusting golf course that got me.  If you were playing a round and got a bit bored with how easy it seemed, it would stretch itself in a microsecond, inserting sand traps and mature trees right in your line of sight.

     Then there was the simulated stock exchange, where the various addicts could satisfy their lust for gain and terror of loss without actually damaging their precious accounts as money, credit and debt meant absolutely nothing here.  That is unless you really wanted them to.  I must have pulled a face of disbelief and puzzlement as Bert added Hey it don’t mean shit to me, not any more.  In fact I run a class for disenchanted bankers, investment gurus and hedge fund fraudsters.  Once a week, when I actually remember what a week is, we go through the basics of non-attachment.  Letting all those earthly obsessions go can be a tough haul for these guys and gals.  They really miss the shine and perks of status.

     Like wanting someone to open doors for them.  And all that clean and fetch.  Eventually the discover there are robots that can be had, but I remind them that doing everything and anything with your thoughts is the way to go.  And when they discover that the palatial home is easier to maintain as dust and dirt has been done away with here and staff have wisened up, it’s just them and their significant others in the rambling museum of fancy furniture, one of a kind décor and pricey art that is actually not original but the kind of immaculate copies that can be done here, they settle down to as much of a repeat of the old life as they can manage.

     I absorbed all this in a state of wonder, like a kid at his first circus.  Bert interrupted his spiel by asking if I wanted to go back now.  I nodded, just this side of dumbfounded, and he whisked me back to the reception/celebration of life like it was the easiest thing in the world.  Making his exit by slapping me on the back, wishing me well and reminding me that I could return to his condo just by imagining it and wanting to go there.  While I was thanking him profusely he disappeared.  Just gone, like in the movies.

     I figured I’d been dead maybe three days, half of that still in a muddle about what was actually going on.  Wandering about the get-together in my honour, tuning in to people’s real thoughts behind their kindnesses and their liquor laced bonhomie, I saw some real fear from those who supposed death to be the end and feeling sad for their, I dunno, agitation, I stood close by, telling them in no uncertain terms I was still alive and kicking and might indeed kick their ass if they didn’t smarten up.  Of course that did no good at all, except for one or two that seemed to be wavering.  They looked like they might be convinced… sometime, but I lacked the insight as to how I might pull that off.  But hey, I took notes for later.

     I found a group of tokers behind the pool and wished I could join them.  Figuring the answer would be no, I just hung around soaking up the vibe.  All in all I ‘d say contact highs’ are better here.  After a while I found out that everything is better here.  Satiated with the good vibes that combined somehow with the grieving I thought to go see Baxter and finding him napping in his favourite spot Iay down beside him and slipped into some kind of sleep.  Later I was told that sleep here is not much more than habit, that there are no muscles and bones to get weary.  That may be true but at first you have emotions that exhaust you, your own and those of those grieving.  Sleeping them off was something I couldn’t resist and sleeping with Baxter made it even better.  I could not get the vibe of grieving from him.  It felt pretty much like our long walks together, but now it was a long sleep together.

     When I came to he was gone.  Probably walking with my daughter.  The thought that he might be took me to them strolling in the woods nearby.  A hilly stretch behind a park that the city fathers had  seen fit to leave untouched.   I floated along beside them trying to support my little girl in her sadness.  At first I couldn’t quite get how to do it, then I hit on a memory: when she was about six maybe seven her best friend died in a crash with her parents and she was inconsolable.  She’d climb on my lap and bury her head in my shoulder until a trail of whimpers slowly faded.  It was that energy, quiet reassurance you might call it, that I sent into her as they walked.  Baxter, being the guru that he was, acted like nothing unusual was happening.  I thought, how cool is that, and tried to imitate his nonchalance.  All these hyper emotional humans and here he was, a miniature buddha.

     Next thing I know, likely the product of some random thought, I was with Melissa, who seemed to need more comforting that I could provide.  Inadequate to the task, wondering where my reserves might be.  Hidden treasure perhaps?  That’s how it felt when I found them later.  But then, the fresh from earth newbie, I could not locate it.  Instead I sat next to her as she scrolled through old shots on her phone.  Sure there was loads of driver guilt, I thought she’d be torturing herself with that for ever.

     My presence seemed to have no effect on her at all.  I wondered how I might more effectively communicate with her.  Maybe Bert would have some ideas.

     He was playing with his cats when I showed up, trying not to be flustered at my sudden shift,  Well, that was sooner than I expected, dear boy, well done!  You have a query?  I wondered if I should sit down.  Yeah, he said, make yourself comfortable.  How do I cope with friends grieving and feeling guilty? How can I have an effect?  Bert replied Simple, wait until they are sleeping.  At some point they will emerge and you can talk to them then.  What did he mean by ‘emerge’?  There was another body inside the one we all see as real.  That’s the body I was in now by the way.  Oh yeah?  Yeah, and she’ll come out of hers at some point during sleep.  Almost everyone does, you did when you were alive.  He grinned.  Don’t remember right?  Hardly anyone does, but it happens.  She might need some snapping out of her trance but you’ll figure that out.  Just try different things until she does.  Okay, will do.

     The desire to try out his suggestion brought me back to Melissa.  I accepted this magical shift in perspective as if it were an everyday occurrence like, say, video messaging.  But Melissa was not anywhere near bed.  She was watching something and snacking.  Ah, reruns of the Friends, I should have guessed.  I waited, watching as she watched.  Hoping that she’d nod off at some point.  Did people emerge as Bert said, during naps as well as a night’s sleep?  Well turns out they did.  Maybe Melissa was the exception, but after her head fell back onto the couch and her eyes shut I saw another her slowly slip out of her body.  It was the weirdest thing, seeing two almost identical Melissas.  One sleeping the other alert.  Well almost.  Truth to tell a bit distracted and dopey.  I guessed she’d been stoned and was still in the soup.  Her eyes focused and she saw me.  She kind of leapt at me for a hug, and it went on from there.  Waves of explosive emotion, weeping, blubbering, relief, apologies.  I’d say the whole nine yards if it didn’t sound so dismissive.  She asked, in moment of sudden calm, what it was like being dead.  Like you really are dead huh?  I said I thought so, but the confusion of perceptions made it all so weird.

     She looked at me imploringly, wanting more.  Yeah, it was pretty cool, this dead thing.  Light as a feather, free as a bird, whizzing from place to place.  Like what places exactly?  Well, granddad Bert’s condo.  Where was that then?  In some amazing city somewhere.  There’s cities?  Yeah, and a whole lot else so I hear.  Oh honey I’m so sorry!

     Talk about high strangeness.  Someone is desperately sorry for taking away your life and you’re telling them not to worry as it’s all pretty far out and you’re thinking maybe it’s them that’s losing out on all this magic stuff.  So when Melissa said she wished she was with me I felt, Yeah me too darling, but what could I do?  Encourage her to off herself so we could meet up in this world?  Didn’t sound right and now I’m glad I didn’t go with it.  Now that I know so much more that option seems pointless.  I can see Melissa any night when she sleeps.  And at this point I can take her places in this amazing world and we a can have as much fun as we did before.  Now her issue is feeling guilty about her earth-side boyfriend.  To me we are free agents and should play the hand we are given.  In either world.  This magic one is still a world with people and relationships, communities and activities, stuff to learn and other stuff to forget.

     Melissa figures I’m seeing other women but rarely asks or pushes on it.  She’s guilty enough over Grant, who doesn’t even believe in an afterlife, thinks it’s all bunk but is otherwise easy to get along with.  Of course I went back to that R&D center as soon as possible and quickly slotted myself in.  There were at least three or four projects I was fascinated with:  telepathic computers, flying cars, very advanced robotics, interactive holograms and something so out there I’m not sure I can or should describe ‘it’.  And no shortage of young women in the field who had succumbed to despair and depression on earth, mostly without knowing the total magic carpet ride waiting for them here.  Of course there’s no shortage of ‘young’ here, everyone moves in that direction almost without trying, like there’s some subconscious desire pushing you to thirty years old no matter where you’re starting from.

     Wendy took the plunge and assumed control of the business.  Staff were not overjoyed to begin with but she make efforts to smooth over any ruffled feathers and allowed the natural creative energies of the young full expression.  Fortunately I’d left the place in good shape, and to be honest being on an upswing made that easy enough.  I’d never been tempted to go fancy real estate in downtown trendy.

     Low overhead, you bet.  It’s not what you make it’s what you spend.  Staff used to joke about pizza Tuesdays being just like grade school but the fig, artichoke and olive option remained a favourite.  At least four ambitious keeners left for the big time in the previous two years, but two of them returned, having been caught in the usual wave of cut-backs.  Ever heard that one about the small, mobile and intelligent unit?  Well that was us and Wendy saw the wisdom in maintaining.  The children adapted to their new world slowly and to be honest painfully.  Having learned the trick of nighttime visits with Melissa, I patiently awaited their sleepy exits, being rewarded with a loving but delayed recognition from daughter Kelly and a manly interaction with son Steve, who was holding in so much in I worried he’d explode.  My trump card was finding Kelly’s best friend who’d passed with her parents in a gruesome smash up years before, and bringing her along for a visit.  It worked so well I was annoyed with myself for not thinking of it earlier.  I watched as the two of them dropped the teenager sophistication routine and slipped into little girl silliness.  Then I left them to their own devices, reporting back to Bert, who had suggested it in the first place, that all had gone well.  He nodded, Told ya!

     I was at that point, hanging my afterlife hat in his spare bedroom and enjoying his cabin when he wasn’t entertaining one of his lady friends there.  This of course was many months later, when my newbie status had been eroded by many information sessions in the condo and a couple of surprize interviews with a dude who claimed to be my guide.  My conception of ‘many months’ was primed by watching Wendy gradually adapt to the office routines and noting the date on her screen.  Months don’t mean diddly-squat here.  At first I figured it to be like vacation time, then forgetfulness, then just the way things were.

     And being honest with myself that’s always been my m.o, adapting to the way things are.  Being here, wherever here actually is, makes you look at yourself.  Besides all that flipping about at the click of your fingers and making stuff with your mind, looking at the real you is almost unavoidable.  Partly because you got plenty of down time to indulge.  Maybe not everyone gets to see through themselves but it happened to me.  Maybe it was just my time to fess up.  Bert thought it a waste of time, even though I got him laughing about that old habit called time.  Why beat yourself up with a bunch of self-analysis when you could give that fun loving kid free reign in this carnival of pleasure and joy?  Leave it to the philosophers to figure out the existential meaning of happiness.  And with that he was off on a skiing vacation with Eleanor and Teddy.  Teddy was, btw, her son who’d been biking and whacked by a drunk when about six or seven, who she chased down here after a year of depression followed by suicide on pills.  Bert had previously offered the situation up as evidence of something or other.  Teddy was now a fifteen year old look alike with awesome ski-ing skills and Eleanor his admiring and protective big sister.

     In the midst of all my self-examination I wondered if Eleanor and Teddy went through anything of the same, but what were the chances that I’d be able to ask them?  They were Bert’s friends.  As I opened up to more and more interactions, both at the R&D center and pretty much anyplace where folk gathered, yeah bars and the like,  I could see the many paths that people took to get here.  Some made a beeline, others stumbled about, and others just fell down the rabbit hole.  A couple of those on the beeline path confessed that they since figured all that self-destructive behaviour, anything from bad drugs, careless crazy sex and high-risk extreme sports were just ways of hastening the inevitable.  One guy said it was like running straight towards a cliff edge just for the thrill of falling over.

     One of the stumblers was Erica, an IT whizz-kid from grade school on who told me relationships always got her in a tizzy.  Having come from  a rural existence in England with her parents for dad’s new posting in LA, the fluidity of Silicon Valley types just threw her, with every other person, and not just guys, hitting on her.  I’ll never be  a blonde again, I swear.  This between spoons of yogurt.  The manic ride of moods was crazy making and she just fell to pieces.  The psychiatrists’s drug menu doubled the confusion and an overdose seemed the smart choice.  I know I’m supposed to be full of remorse and regret and all that, but other than visiting my gloomy parents who think I threw it all away I’m quite at ease with my new life.  I’m involved in the work that I like, it’s both challenging and rewarding.

     I told her about my time with middle-of-the-night Melissa and the feelings of success in the face of all the barriers to communication that it engendered.  She seemed intrigued and said she’d give it a try. I was relieved as I’d felt immediately pretentious using the word engendered.  Another shift: back on earth I’d have not given it a second thought.  Now I was seeing through my own game playing.

     Then she asked if I’d noticed how easy thinking was here.  For her it had turned into a tidal wave of ideas that were hard to separate from each other.  It hadn’t been quite the same for me, although the whole atmosphere did seem bubbly with energy.  I asked what she was doing to facilitate this, thinking maybe mushrooms or meditation.  She replied that it was nothing she was aware of.  I suggested maybe she had some genius level intelligence that had just flowered in the freedoms here. She gave me that

     ‘Don’t try that line on me’ look.  I’d already made the point of being a newbie and just reiterated it with a shrug that I hoped was inoffensive.  Right on cue the two guys I’d first connected with sat down beside us and the conversation drifted in another direction.

     Camping out at Bert’s might seem a bit confining but I enjoyed the access it gave me to all the wonders of an astral plane city.  Everything that you could love about a vibrant bustling city on earth was repeated here times ten.  No, times fifty.  Theatres, museums, clubs, cafés, high end dining, sports facilities, architectural wonders that make Dubai look like child’s play on a tight budget.  And the people!  Maybe it was the relief at realising that life did go on for ever, and I guess, the knowing that no religion actually ran the show despite churches and temples being plentiful, but the vibe was unbeatable.  That devil-may-care vacation vibe.  The constantly changing colours and designs on t-shirts and hairstyles as folks move through the spaces between buildings that we used to call streets is only one detail of the creative madness that is par for the course here.

     Underneath it all was a concern for those left in the old world, especially children and teenagers.  Those that had checked out as grandparents seemed better off, but the parents of still growing families worried about the young ones wandering off the beaten path and making lousy choices.  I soon had to face that issue myself, as son Steve, unable to shake off the depression that my disappearance had brought on, began hanging out with a sketchy crowd, where the drugs of choice became harder and harder and the means of acquiring them riskier and riskier.  People that you didn’t want to owe money to.

     Wendy, as I hinted, had taken to managing the company like a duck to water and hadn’t really noticed, and my attempts at sleep-time messaging seemed to fade quickly.  I tried Melissa but she thought it was none of her business and a mistake to even try and interfere.  Wendy’s parents had moved to Australia years before and that had put them out of the loop to say the least.  Not that I’d ever been tight with them.  They never did trust me and our various trial separations, that’s my useful euphemism btw, became the proof they’d always wanted.

     So at some point I got clued in to his sleep time, which being your typical teen stoner was, to say the least, erratic, and made it my purpose to hang around till he emerged.  His state of mind was woozy at best, opioids being his own personal dominatrix.  The spell casting was chemical in nature for sure so even the smidgen of clarity one needs for communication took ages to achieve.  A brief respite from the self-medication due mostly to exams and a new girlfriend was my chance to break through and I focused bigtime until he saw me as I actually was and not some dreamy fantasy of dad long gone.  Yes, we talked.  That’s guys for ya, none of that weepy huggy stuff, talking it out.  He knew he had to quit and said every morning at nine he’d swear he would but by early evening held be back at it.  He really wanted to get into a local but much celebrated performing arts school, one where you had to be smart as well as talented.  His synth work was really coming along he assured me and he’d already provided some intro music for a local community tv station. And putting aside his love for classic jazz, he’d held his nose while supplying some rhythm tracks for a hip-hop wanna-be at school for the princely sum of oh-never-mind.

     I employed this break to hammer the point home.  I’d learned the art of following the living during their days when necessary and the guys he was hanging with to get high seemed well on their way to loserville.  Exams done and the girlfriend gone out of state for some exchange, it was back to snorting, one smart step away from shooting up, or so he thought until one of the guys got a fentanyl laced shipment and in no time had bought his one way ticket to the land of the dead.  Hey, that’s my bailliwick, and in no time I found him.  Mostly because I remembered the name from playdates decades before, weird as that may sound.  I never was much of a stay at home dad but there you go, it must have been one of those weekends when Wendy begged off for a conference.

     Hey Jerry man how’s it goin’ dude?  From a fetal slump in no man’s land he perked up and have me this quizzical look.  You won’t remember me but I’m Steve’s dad.  You sometimes came by to play as kids.  My daughter would have been little I guess and would have trailed around you guys whining.  If you say so was his response.  Then: What’s your game now and why am I here?  Dude you’re dead and I’m here to show you around.  Suppose I don’t want showing around?  Suppose I don’t care what you want.  Oh right, you’re on a mission from god.  Suppose I’d like you to just fuck off?  Alright then see you around.

     I’d been told by Bert, who didn’t really care for such charity calls, that some new arrivals got all testy when you offered a helping hand and it was best to leave them be.  Let them stew in their own juice for a bit.  So I did, returning ‘some time later’ to see him still curled up.  Seeking oblivion was my guess.  Not Let’s forget everything and start again, just Let’s forget everything.  That vacuum void that can seem so delicious when you’ve exhausted the world of choices.

     I brought this up with Steve on my next nocturnal visit but he was back to snorting and dopyness reigned again.  He nodded but it did not sink in.  Can spirit bodies be affected by physical conditioning?

     I’m working on it. At that point Kelly was proving the happy camper, ignoring her brother, glad her mum was too busy to bother her, and lacing her social life with tales of dad dreams that her friends indulged her in, with a couple leaning towards believing.  When I witnessed them chatting, basically texting while sitting shoulder to shoulder and giggling, it was that teen witch vibe, powers that could easily be harnessed and the like.  I thought of how much they’d love the life of the young at heart here, with all the constant changing of colours in clothing and hair and the horizontal dancing I’d just seen in clubs.  That’s right, folk lifting off and sliding around each other like snakes with invisible wings.  I was happy to sit at the bar sipping something or other and trying to suss out the technique.  But the thunderous techno drove me out eventually.

     As Bert had already advised on the various jazz legends still gigging here, there and everywhere, I suddenly thought, What about Dexter Gordon, and in a flash I was in some mid size club watching a quarter steam though some bop with a young Dexter lookalike leading.  Now that was more like it and the young fella was doing a fine homage.  In a break later, I turned to the guy next to me and remarked on the quality of the Dexter disciple.  He grinned, That is Dexter!  I asked if he knew about Miles and Duke.  Maybe you can guess the answer.

     Yup life does go on, in more ways than you can imagine.  More ways than I can imagine and I’ve been here a while.  In response to some expression of wonderment from me, one guy said, You get bigger as you go.  And I still ruminate on Bert’s comment, Let the philosophers work on the existential ramifications of happiness.  Another guy at the R&D center said, sipping on some marvellous concoction, So the universe is constantly expanding, or so they tell us. Where to is what I wonder. Right now, whenever that is, I’m expanding into that myself.