Thank you for joining us. Let me just ask you, first of all, are you...would you describe yourself as...no, let me rephrase the question. When you get up in the morning, do you breathe? Do you get up at all? Have you passed on? Are you truly...dead?
- Oh yes, you bet I am. I'm a corpse, alright. Stone dead. As stiff as they come. There's no life left in me whatsoever, I can assure you that.
Ah, good. Well, uhm, not that I'm implying that it's good that you're dead, that I am indeed happy with it, which I'm not, though I have to say it really is a bit of a scoop to have you here, answering questions. That's what I mean.
- Most certainly.
Haha. Yes, indeed. So, tell me, do you, being dead, remember anything concerning the actual nature of your death? Do you have any memory of it, how it happened?
- Yes. Yes, I do remember, not that there's that much to talk about, really. It's not terribly exciting, to be honest. A few weeks in the hospital - that's old age for you in the western world - and one minute you're breathing and the next you're not.
Ah. Haha. Very witty. But really, that doesn't sound too bad. Not a lot of terrible agony, it seems, or am I wrong here?
- I can only speak for myself.
Oh yes, of course. So, tell me instead...this is a question which I'm sure has been bothering many of us living for quite some time...oh, do you mind me talking about 'us living' as opposed to 'the dead'? Am I stigmatizing you?
- No, I certainly don't mind. I wouldn't want to be counted among the living. I've passed that phase, you know. Was that your question?
Haha. No, sorry. My question is this; do you dead people watch over us living? I mean, do you follow our every move, do you know our most intimate secrets?
- You mean, can we spy on you from the other side?
Well...yes.
- Yes. We can. But what's the point in that? Seriously, who'd want to die AND watch reality shows ever after? You tell me!
I see. So tell me then, is there Heaven and Hell?
- Sure. There's both, and there's Purgatory too, if you want to get technical, but most stiffs these days couldn't be bothered with all that. They prefer to just stay in their coffins. You know, somehow that's just more life-like.
That sounds a little boring to me.
- Oh no, not at all. It's a blast, I tell you, it really is. You should try it, well, you will, sooner or later, but still I swear by the old truths - die young and stay dead longer.
Copyright: Ras Bolding 2004