Being dead can throw up all manner of problems; the biggest, of course, would be that pieces can have a somewhat irritating tendency to fall off. Then there’s the smell.
You do have a lot of time to think, though. An awful long time to think, in fact, mostly about what went wrong, what you could and should have changed, and what you regret the most after a lifetime of wrong turns. Dying in the first place being chief amongst them, I’d imagine.
Unfortunately, such Deep thoughts rather keep one awake while warding off any hope for that long sleep in the process, meaning that you’re left to twiddle your thumbs an awful lot to pass the time (presuming you still have some, anyway). It also means that you’ll have little else to do but toss and turn, try to ignore the racket being made by the insects next-door as they chomp their way through your eyeball or gaze up at the ceiling helplessly, which, in all likelihood, is a few inches from your face in the form of a dirty coffin lid.
Eventually, you’ll probably decide that enough is enough.
Pushing the heavy lid aside with gammy fingers that bent and crackled unpleasantly beneath it’s weight, I was met by a wall of light as it poured in to froth about me like a wave; a grubby man six foot up paused with his spade stuck in mid air, mouth falling open. I, meanwhile, pulled myself out with the creak of arthritic limbs - which, at least, weren’t quite as painful as they had once been considering that the dead don’t tend to do pain - brushed a few worms from my rotting blouse and addressed the silent crowd as kindly as I could. The priest’s Bible fell from a limp hand with the most definitive thud.
‘I’m so very sorry, my dears,’ I said, clapping my hands together in apology and trying to ignore the finger that had just spun off onto someone’s lap. ‘But this just isn’t working for me. Shall we try again next week?’
