Afterlife

I had a dream last night that I was dead. For the first part of the dream, I was getting ready to go to my uncle's funeral. We were living in Portland, but it was warm, and by the ocean, and people were coming down to see us, but then it was also like Moses Lake because I think we went to visit my aunt and uncle's house. It was odd because I remember talking to my uncle, and he was supposed to be dead, and this didn't seem unusual to me.

I spent some time swimming in the ocean, because my uncle had left me a whale. I had met the whale before, and it would let me hold on to its tail so we would swim around together, and it was amazing.

Then I had to go back to shore for the funeral and my dad sat me down and tried to explain something to me. Then I saw my aunt and uncle and I could see that they were both looking young and perfect and terribly beautiful, and it dawned on me that the three of us had been in a car accident together and that all three of us had died, and I was still clinging to life. My aunt hugged me and told me I had to let go, that there was something amazing to look forward to, and then I found myself lying down, frozen, and people were gathered around me, worried. And I could see in my mind's eye the most beautiful sunset and feel that wonderful things were just around the corner.

So I laughed to let everyone around me know I was happy I was going to a better place. Then I was briefly standing with my beautiful aunt and uncle by the lake at sunset, and I saw my mom. And I was so happy to finally see her again, and it wasn't at all bittersweet; it was as though she'd never left me. And then I had just a moment to wonder when my dad died, how it would be for him to see both of his former wives, and the spell was broken, and I woke up feeling confused.

I then lay in bed, fully awake, trying to puzzle out if I could logically conclude there is an afterlife based on my dream. I wish I knew.

Cemetery

It's always unnaturally quiet getting in the car after visiting the cemetery. The cemetery itself feels quiet, but the difference between the noise of the wind, the birds, and the insects that carry on unnoticing and the empty silence that presses on your ears in the car is unnerving. Thoughts of life and death that took over conscious thought as you brushed grass clippings from the headstone are displaced by the need to locate the correct key, turn the ignition, put the car in gear. It seems wrong, somehow, yet equally wrong to interrupt the new silence with the radio or a conversation. But of course, that feeling of displacement can't last forever. Eventually you start driving away.

Murder

Crime captivates the world. Crime fiction and dramatizations of real crime take up rows upon rows in the bookstore, hours on the television every week. Some people disdain pat whodunnits, while others (like myself) find their predictability and cheerful acceptance of the facts to be comforting. Others prefer true crime, delighting to stare death in the face and ponder the existence of criminals among us. I recently finished The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. Whole courses can be given on crime fiction, focusing on the phenomenon of popular culture (I should know, I once took one). This particular book is quite perfect in that it reproduces the comforts of a nearly bloodless whodunnit but with the upsetting notion that perfectly well anybody--even somebody we feel intimate with--could murder.