Life After

If I’m truly being honest, my life didn’t really begin until I died.

That might sound contradictory. That’s because it is. But just because something is contradictory doesn’t mean it’s a lie.

I’m living – excuse me, dead – proof.

In my twenty-three years of living, I didn’t do anything spectacular. I wasn’t particularly gifted at anything; I wasn’t particularly loved. My parents had raised me, but never given much of a shit about how I turned out. Though to be fair, neither did I.

I barely made it through high school. College was out of the question. At twenty-three, I was working a minimum wage job at a fast food chain, living in an old three-bedroom house with two roommates I’d never had a conversation with for more than ten minutes. I could call them acquaintances, but friends would have been stretching it. One worked the night shift and one had a serious girlfriend whose place he often stayed over at, so I didn’t see either of them much.

I remember January 11th perfectly. It started off like any other Thursday. I worked a double shift at work, came home exhausted, made myself dinner, watched some Netflix before bed. At midnight, I brushed my teeth and headed back to my bedroom, planning to get to sleep at a reasonable hour since I had a morning shift the next day.

Halfway back to my room, I saw flashes of light downstairs. Leaning over the railing, I could just barely see that the television in the living room had been left on. Ryan must have been watching it and neglected to turn it off before leaving for his graveyard shift an hour ago. I could hear it from here, too; some obnoxious laugh track from a sitcom rerun. I almost left it on, but decided it was worth the trip downstairs to turn it off: I’d be able to hear the laughter from my room, and besides, none of us wanted to pay any more than necessary for the electric bills.

Cursing, I turned around and made a beeline for the stairs. It was dark; the lights upstairs were all off, and the only light downstairs was the dim glow of the television. I should have turned a light on, but I didn’t.

Because I didn’t, I didn’t see the books stacked by the top step, probably Evan’s. He was a part-time student, after all. He’d left while I’d been in my room too, to go see his girlfriend, and must have left them there. I didn’t know that then.

One second I was hurrying to the stairs, telling Ryan heatedly that he was a piece of shit under my breath, and the next, I was tumbling down, having tripped over the books. It happened so fast, I barely felt the pain. A few pangs as my limbs and back collided with the sharp corners of the wooden stairs, but there wasn’t enough time to register much.

At the bottom, I was able to gather my thoughts. I ached all over, especially my head. I was laying at the lower landing, and could already feel emerging bruises everywhere. What a fall. It hurt like hell. All because Ryan didn’t turn off the damn television and Evan didn’t put away his damn books.

Groaning, I slowly sat up, then stood. I held my hand to my head. While I was down here, I’d better get an icepack.

Suddenly, the pain was gone, all of it. My back, my knees, my head. I felt lighter, somehow, too. It was an odd feeling. Was this what it felt like if I was about to pass out?

The answer was no. Some sixth sense told me to turn around, and I slowly did. I was greeted with the sight of me. Me, my body, still laying on the bottom landing. My arm was bent at an unnatural angle, and a dark pool of blood was gathered around my head like a halo. My heart sank, but some part of me had expected to see it. I wasn’t entirely surprised.

I sat down on the stair, still staring at my body. When I tried to touch my own arm, I couldn’t; I went right through. I’d never believed in ghosts, but here I was, staring at my own corpse. A ghost, or spirit, or whatever – I supposed it didn’t matter now. Whatever I believed in or didn’t, I was clearly dead, and yet still here.

I laughed harshly. Imagine when Ryan or Evan came home and found me. Would they miss me? Would they realize they had played a role in this? Probably not. Would my parents even care? I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t spoken to them in months.

What a stupid way to die, I thought. You heard stories of people falling down stairs, sure, but who actually dies from hitting their head after a fall down some stairs in their own house? I couldn’t even die right.

I sat there for hours, waiting, unsure what to do. I didn’t really expect to see some glowing light or holy force come to collect me, and I didn’t. No grim reapers or anything of the sort either.

Just me, suspended, waiting.

Ryan and Evan moved out soon after. I watched them go. Evan was first, leaving just days later to move in with his girlfriend. I was hardly surprised; they basically lived together already, except in formality. Ryan left not long after, unable to bear the stain on the stairs that wouldn’t quite leave the wood no matter how it was treated. He stood in the doorway for a long moment, looking around the house but not at the stairs, and whispered that he was sorry. I stood beside him and told him it was okay, I didn’t really blame him anymore, but he didn’t hear me.

Once they left, I was alone. I wandered through the house, but I couldn’t leave it. Which was unfortunate, since the house wasn’t any more interesting than it had ever been, and now it was empty: no television, no books, no pool table. Not that I would have been able to use them anyway.

I was stuck.

After a few months, once the novelty of the event had worn off, the landlord finally decided to rent it again. I saw her put up the FOR RENT sign out front. I watched, too, and waited some more, wondering if anyone would move in, and if they did, if it would even matter. I’d never been noticed or loved when I was alive; why would that change now that I was dead?

The new group moved in at the end of June. I remember because they were all excited, talking about various summer plans and their schedules for the next months. There were three of them; Leslie and Noah were students at the local college, both taking summer classes, and Kyle was working two part-time jobs. I felt like I was prying by listening in to all their conversations as they carried in their new furniture, but I couldn’t help it; how else was I supposed to amuse myself? And if I was stuck here with them, I may as well get to know them.

They brought in a new television, a foosball table, a dartboard, bookshelves, beds. They moved in themselves, using a U-Haul, Kyle declaring loudly that moving companies were a waste of money.

Noah had my old room. I was glad about that. He was soft-spoken, but when he said something, it was always the right thing to say. I’d taken a liking to him immediately. The more I saw of him, the more I knew he was my favorite of the three, and the more I wished to be friends with him. I’d never thought much of friends, but I found myself wishing I was alive, so that maybe I could have made my first friend in Noah.

Not that I tried to approach him; I mostly watched from the dark corners of rooms. I knew they couldn’t see me, had no idea I was there, but it felt wrong somehow to just stand among them, or to have them walk through me and shiver at the “cold spot.”

That lasted for a while. Another few months passed that way, with me watching and learning about my new roommates but never doing much more.

A few months, but not forever.

The new school year started in August. By the first week of September, Leslie and Noah were inordinately more stressed than they’d ever been during the summer. They were spending more and more time in their respective bedroom, studying and writing essays and doing problem sets.

Most often, I was in Noah’s room. It was nice to watch him; he was so focused, his concentration displayed all over his face. He tapped his pencil when he was thinking. He played instrumental movie soundtracks while he worked, which I liked. I only knew some of them, but it was fun to guess. I was enjoying myself more than I had since dying, and probably more than I had for most of my life too.

One of those nights, I was into the music: it was a piece he’d played often, a track from Aladdin. Noah was tapping his pencil vaguely in accordance with the beat, sitting cross-legged on his bed, reading from his psychology textbook.

Hardly noticing I was doing it, I stepped out of the corner and strode across the room, swaying my head to the music. I sat cross-legged, mimicking him, on the floor next to his bed, only a few feet from him. Smiling for the first time in ages, I closed my eyes, continuing to move my head in rhythm.

When I opened them, Noah was looking directly at me, eyes wide.

I stared back at him. Surely he couldn’t see me. Was it something behind me? I turned my head to look; nope, nothing new there. I turned back, and he was still staring at me. He rubbed his eyes, looked again, found me still there.

“You…you’re the guy who died here,” he whispered. “I recognize you from your picture. We looked up the story before we moved in.”

I knew they had; they’d talked about it. Still, it pleased me that he recognized me. It also shocked me that he saw me at all. “Yeah, I am,” I said.

“But you’re…still here?” he said. His voice was impressively even, calm.

“Yeah, I am,” I said again.

He nodded like he wasn’t surprised. “I thought this house had an odd feeling about it,” he said. “I thought I’d seen glimpses of you around, in corners of rooms. I assumed I was imagining it, but maybe not. Or maybe I’m just going crazy after staring at this textbook for too long.” He shook his head. “Must be lonely. Why didn’t you show yourself before?” He looked thoughtful.

He had no idea how much his words meant. No one had shown me this much care before, even when I was alive. “I’ve been around the whole time,” I finally answered, after a long hesitation. “I didn’t think anyone could see me.”

He paused, considering. “I don’t think they can,” he said. “They’ve never seen you when I have.”

“But you can.”

He nodded. “I can.” Then he gave me a tentative grin. “I’m Noah, but you probably know that.”

I smiled back. It felt weird, to smile. I hadn’t done it much in my twenty-three years, and not much after they ended either. “Yeah, I do. I’m Oliver, but if you read about me, you probably know that.”

“Yeah, I do,” he said.

I was so drawn to him; I couldn’t explain it. The first person who’d ever been nice to me, the first person I’d ever wanted to befriend – maybe more than befriend, if I was honest with myself – and I couldn’t even touch him. At least I could talk to him. At least he could see me. One step at a time.

Suddenly he reached out and touched my arm. I stared, open-mouthed. His hand didn’t go through me, like everything else did. His hand touched me like I was corporal, like my arm was every bit as flesh and bone as his was. “Oh my God,” I said softly.

He grinned. “Must be a first.”

“It is,” I breathed. And then, overcome with a desire like I’d never felt before, I grabbed his hand in mine, intertwining our fingers. His skin was warm, alive; I could tell mine felt like ice. I wished it didn’t. I wished I was alive again. But maybe this was enough. If Noah could see me, could touch me, maybe it was all I needed.

He blushed. “Oh, uh, you’re very forward.”

Seeing his cheeks redden made me feel giddy. It would have made my heart pound, filled my stomach with butterflies, if I’d physically had either of those things anymore. I didn’t, and yet somehow I felt more alive than I ever had when I did have them.

I tentatively smiled. “But you don’t mind it?”

He met my eyes, then firmly shook his head. “No, I don’t. I…don’t mind it at all,” he said.

“Good,” I said. Keeping his hand in mine, I pulled gently, until he got the hint and came to sit beside me on the floor, bringing his textbook with him. I waited until he was settled, the instrumental version of A Whole New World playing on in the background, before I rested my head on his shoulder. He shivered but smiled. “Now,” I said. “Tell me all about psychology.”

The days only got better from there. Noah was the one who made me happy, the one who made me want to exist. For the first time ever, I felt loved.

Someone finally gave a shit about me, and it was the best feeling in the world.

It had taken me dying to find a life. I supposed that was ironic, but I didn’t much care. I had Noah, and Noah turned out to be all I needed.

I had been dead for months, but really, my life had finally just begun.