Vida Futura

I died on July 22nd, 2016.

My mother cried and cried, and then she just stopped talking altogether.

My father spent two hours searching forum posts on how to arrange an international corpse transport and last-minute funerals in New York. He then spent the next five hours reading articles and marathoning through NHK videos about Japan from the food to robot restaurants to the train suicide rates.

My brother had a beer in a bar he’d never been to. There, he went through our intermittent text messages throughout the years and then deleted my contact information from his phone.

They each coped in their own way, as always. 

The alpaca plush doll I’d given my mom my senior year of college sat on my old piano in the living room like a reminder that I had once been there playing for them, that I hadn’t been forgotten.

I woke up on August 22nd, 2016.

But it wasn’t in my bed in Queens. Or huddled in my futon in a cramped apartment in Tokyo. I was in a small, single room wooden house. I was sitting in front of square oak table. There was a window facing an endless green field like the one from Sound of Music. In the distance were snow-peaked mountains and the stone-lined reflection of a massive lake.

This was Vida Futura. Or at least that’s what it said on the welcome pamphlet on the table. In a cream-colored envelope was a ‘REASSIGNMENT CARD’ with an awful photo of me I didn’t remember taking and a contact card with a list of five names and phone numbers.

Faye Voestra, LIFE COUNSELOR — (555) XXX-XXX

Sophia Voestra, JOB COUNSELOR — (555) YYY-YYYY

Sherry Oshford, SOCIAL LEAD — (555) ZZZ-ZZZZ

Cyril Beeton, TRANSPORT LEAD — (555) AAA-AAA

There was a phone hooked to the wall and underneath that was a framed painting of a green field that looked just like the field outside the window.

There was no bed, no food, no water.

I picked up the phone and dialed the first number. The line rang three times before someone picked up.

“Welcome to Vida Futura!” an ear-busting voice announced from the other side.

“How did I get here?” I asked, staring out the window at the snow-peaked mountains. I fought back the urge to ask if this was actually some high cost mental hospital/rehab center in Europe.

“You’ve died! Congratulations!!” the woman shrieked cheerfully. I pulled the phone away from my ear, her shrill voice drilling into my head. “You are the newest resident of the green zone.”

I flipped through the welcome pamphlet but there was nothing but photos of nature and a two-page photo spread of people smiling in front of a fountain that reminded me of those terrifying old people tour groups in China. Above the people in bright white font read “Welcome to our family.”

I tried hard to remember if I had dabbled in any hard drugs the night before. But I couldn’t remember where I had even been the night before. Who had I been with? What had I eaten? There wasn’t a trace of hangover, no headache, no sour taste in my mouth; my head was the clearest it had been in months. Like I'd just woken up from a long and restful sleep.

“Are you still there?” the woman asked, concerned.

“Yes, I’m sorry. Um, Ms….” I glanced down at the contact card. “…Voestra? When you say ‘you've died’ does that mean…”

“I’m sure we will have many conversations from here on in, so please, there’s no need for formalities. Please call me Faye.”

“Ok, Ms Faye…”

“Faye is fine,” she insisted.

My hand tightened around the phone. “Sure, Faye,” I hated calling strangers by their first name, as if an suddenly we were on needlessly friendly, lets-get-lunch together terms. “Can you please explain what happened to me?” I asked.

Faye did not beat around the bush as I expected: 

On July 22nd, I had been pushed into the train tracks at Hodogaya Station, into an oncoming Shonan Shinjuku expression train bound for Takasaki. Death was instant. As my body slammed into the first car at 160 km/hour, many of the commuters in the front car had questioned why that had not been them splattered over the front window. This was the second bloody accident that train conductor had seen in less than five years. My parents received a call at 9PM EST from an English-representative of JR company — right in the midst of sitting back to enjoy their nightly marathon of Chinese dramas, full tea cup in hand. Two weeks later, they received a bill for 6M yen to cover the cost of cleaning my remains off the train, tracks, and platform as well as damage to the front window of the car. My death was ruled a suicide, and that’s what they told my parents. No investigation was ever launched, and I was half-thankful my parents wouldn’t be caught up in a hunt for revenge for the last few decades of their life, only to find someone mentally unstable, drunk, or plain stupid. My mother hung up Buddhist mirrors around the house and spent her days staring at her Chinese dramas in her silent catatonic depression. She ignored calls from her sisters and made passing comments about seeing a ghost in her room, which made everyone else too scared to go inside. My father had started meeting any Japanese people he could find on craigslist to learn a language he never had interest in when I was alive. My brother started visiting them every weekend and talked to my mom even though she never answered him.

I took a deep breath, less sad than I thought would be. “So…if I’m dead, why am I here?” I asked.

“Upon termination of your past life, you were deemed Fit, so you’ve been sent here for reassignment.”

I heard a hollow tapping, as if Faye was drumming her finger on an oak table that looked just like mine. Her chair squeaked as if she were leaning back on an un-oiled office chair. For a moment, I could see a line of cubicles facing a massive 15th floor window looking out onto Tokyo Bay and Rainbow Bridge. Was this some scam to make people think they were already dead before they were harvested for organs? Where had I been going when I waited at Hodogaya Station. I couldn’t remember.

“How do people even get sent here after dying?”

“Unfortunately that’s not something I’m equipped to answer,” the chair squeaked again. “Trains, planes, boats, who knows right?” she laughed and I pulled the phone away from my ear again. “Let’s focus less on how you got here and more on what you’re going to do from here on. Stay positive! One in ten new residents attempt suicide in their first week in Vida Futura. Can you believe it? Already dead and… It’s just such a waste of precious opportunity! Most people love it here after the first month. Everyone here in Vida Futura is essential, and I’m sure you will also be great here.”

I looked down at the photo of the smiling people in front of the fountain and then closed the pamphlet. In ten seconds, I was sure I would have a full-fledged panic attack.

“There’s no bed or food or water in this house,” my voice cracked.

“Ah yes! I’ll get to that. No worries," the chair squeaked again. “Wait, are you worried? You sound worried. Shall we do some breathing exercises together? That will help you relax! Just count with me, heeeeee-huuuuu”

“No, I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“I’m fine.”

“But you don’t sound like your usual self.”

“How would you know what my usual self sounds like? We just met.”

She made a doubtful hmmm noise from the back of her throat.

“Are you sure you don’t want to just try it?” Her resolve was weakening.

“Yes, I’m very sure.” I was more irritated than panicked now. Maybe this woman was a genius at therapy.

“Alrighty then,” she cleared her throat. “So first off, let me explain the rules of Vida Futura. Don’t worry about writing them down, you’ll remember them right away, everyone does!

#1 — If you die in Vida Futura, you cannot return. Where you go, we cannot say.

#2 — Everyone must have a job. You will be assigned one shortly, based on your preference and skill sets.

#3 — You cannot switch zones without significant reason (this may include suicidal tendencies or civil unions with members in other zones)

#4 — Make friends, but avoid asking other residents about their past lives.

All the other details should be explained by your job counselor.”

“Why can’t we talk to other people about their old lives?” I asked, not mentioning that I couldn’t remember what had happened to me in the past week or even my own name.

“Past lives,” she corrected. “We call them expired memories here. While they were wonderful, vital components for living in your past life, they cannot sustain their shape and cohesiveness here. They will decay and be forgotten shortly. We simply suggest easing the process so you can more quickly enjoy your new time here.”

She paused, and I tapped my finger on the table.

“You’ll get your name soon,” she said finally.

At that moment, I thought how silly all of this was. Out the window, the sky was a perfect, saturated blue like it was in all those Instagram photos. Not a creature in sight. There was no clock in the room, but I guessed it was around noon.

“What was my old name?” I asked, trying to memorize the sound of my own voice. I tried to remember what my face looked like, but only a watery shadow with no solid lines surfaced in my mind that I couldn’t even begin to sketch if asked. This had to be a dream.

“I’m sorry but I don’t know,” she said. I knew she was lying, of course, she had to be, but it didn’t matter. I was convinced it would be over soon. The bubble would pop and I'd wake up shivering in my in Tokyo with the AC turned too high and the first blue of dawn edging in through my curtains.

“Ms Voestra,” I said, being petty. “Can I request my new name?”

“Unfortunately-“

“How did you get your name?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not equipped to answer that-“

“Whole lot of stuff you can’t answer, huh? Not a very good life counselor, or was that just your poorly decided reassignment too?”

"I'm sorry, but if you-"

I hung the phone up and stared out the window again. The view was surprisingly relaxing. I tried to imagine the last thing I had listened to on my iPod, Madeleine by Konstantin Sibold, the space-like sound in the beginning of the song like an opening chasm of light or a black hole growing larger and larger. Wasn’t that closer to my vision of death? I thought I could hear birds chirping, but it was just silence.