Fiction by Tom Hoerr, September 1983. This imaginary first-person afterlife narrative is not an obituary or a report of the author’s death.
I don’t know when it first hit me that I had died. I mean, my experience began with me standing in my bedroom watching myself sleeping.
There was a great deal of noise from the stairs and I remember wondering why the me in the bed didn’t stir. Several men in uniforms appeared and without a great deal of care, placed my body on a stretcher in a rather unceremonious manner. I watched all of this from the side of the room from what seemed like a few feet above the floor, although I felt like I was moving a bit up and down.
I was a spectator, like one would watch another decorating a cake or tuning a car.
The activity interested me, but I wasn’t part of it.
At football games I yell and cajole, here I was a somewhat interested bystander.
All of that changed when my wife entered the room. Actually, I felt myself growing more attentive a few seconds before she entered.
Her voice was coming from the hall. I couldn’t tell what she was saying because she was crying. No, sobbing more than crying, the kind of crying that a kid does who is hurt but, because of the sobbing, unable to tell you exactly what the hurt is. I started to go to her, to tell her to stop crying, and get a hold of herself. Something happened, though, that made me stop. – One of the uniformed men, medical types it now seemed, also heard her.
In one deft motion he turned his head to the doorway and, seeing that she had not come into view, pulled the sheet over the face on my body lying on the stretcher.
No sooner had I realized that I—the me on the stretcher—had died then I was struck by the fact that it really didn’t bother me. Maybe I was distracted by her entry; I’m not sure.
All I know is that I knew I was dead and it really didn’t upset me. I saw my wife for but a second. Someone was with her (my mother?) and then she was gone.
There was a book by the bed, actually several books.
The one I remember, however, was Mailer’s Ancient Evenings.
It was laying face up, opened to a page where I had stopped reading. I forgot about my wife and began thinking about the fact that I’d never finish Mailer’s book. I’d never know how the book ended.
It took me a while to realize that people couldn’t see me and that, in fact, I wasn’t tied to space or time.
The first few times someone looked at me, I actually moved away (somehow I knew that I was, even in my own home, an intruder and shouldn’t be seen). Once, in an attempt to be out of sight, I backed into a plant.
My house was full of plants. I started to reach for the plant and catch it when I saw that I had walked through it. Just like that!
For the heck of it, I walked back and forth, through it, again several times.
The funeral home was interesting.
At first, when the family met and planned the funeral I was mildly interested in how they’d do it. Somewhere I had heard that Janis Joplin had left money for a party when she died and I wondered if that would happen for me.
It didn’t. Of course, I hadn’t left any money for a party and, much as I might like to be a first-class hedonist, my comet didn’t compare to Janis’. I do remember being somewhat pleased that I had left . with my Master Card charged to the limit.
In my “new state,” I was always tired.
Not like wanting to go to sleep or being fatigued, but tired like I couldn’t focus on anything for a period of time. I watched the family planning the funeral—my wife, bless her, insisted that my tie be one of my favorites—but I couldn’t stay there. Things would turn to greys and blues and the sound would leave me.
When this happened I’d sense it coming, but I had no control. I remember being surprised that I wasn’t bothered by the “fade-outs” as I came to call them, because several times they occurred when I wasn’t ready.
The worst time was when I was watching myself going into the funeral home.
I was by my body, kind of above it and to the side a bit, and was wondering how they’d fix me up in the casket.
Two men looked at my body rather closely, then one said something and the other laughed. I started to go closer, but then the fade-out began.
My next memory was at the parlor itself.
There were quite a few people there and I started looking for friends.
There were a few folks I had worked with, a couple of neighbors, some friends of my wife, my parents, but a lot of men and women were people I didn’t know. Who are these strangers? Then I realized that while I had seen my parents, my dad had been dead for years. Sure enough, when I looked at him I saw that he, too, wasn’t really there.
He was walking by my mother, but she was crying and talking to someone else, not noticing him. I remember getting a little excited and going over to talk to him.
There were a lot of things that I never said to my dad that I wished I had, once he was gone.
Now was my chance. “Pop,” I said, “guess what?” He turned to me and smiled as only he could smile. Very quickly, then, suddenly, I felt myself beginning to fade.
As only fathers can, he saw me and smiled that “I-told-youso” smile that I’d seen all too many times in our relationship. Everything then went grey, blue, and, finally, black. I didn’t get back to the funeral parlor.
Well, I did, but it wasn’t for long.
My dad was there and I again tried to talk to him, but it didn’t work this time either.
It seemed like he faded when he turned to look at me, but I couldn’t be sure because I faded out. I’ve avoided talking about my wife.
It just wasn’t pretty. It’s not like I felt sad or anything, but she didn’t look good in tears. and all.
She was strong, but I’d expect that. I remember wondering about how strong ‘she’ll look when the Master Card bill comes home to roost. Somewhere in between the parlor visits I found myself in a forest.
It was dark and misty and, although I think I was standing still, trees kept moving past me at a fast rate.
There was no breeze that I could feel, but I knew that I was moving. I kind of enjoyed that.
It rained the day they buried me. I liked rain, so that was O.K. I started out watching cars pull up, but then I noticed a record store across the street that looked interesting. I went to the record store and just stayed around the door, watching kids go in and out.
One young couple was shoplifting, I think.
When they left the store, the girl pulled a record from her coat and they laughed and ran.
After a while I went back to the cemetary, but it was empty except for three workmen filling in dirt on my grave. Actually, two were filling in dirt and one was sitting on the ground reading a magazine.
Originally published in The Paper, September 1983.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1983_09.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
