Before time began, I was as nothing; there were no thoughts in my mind, no blood pulsating through my veins, no throbbing heart, no pale body to contain my soul and my spirit; I was nothing.

And then I was born, and became. I became so many things during my lifetime; I was a child, a daughter to a man and a woman, a sister to two brothers.  I was a student, then an author, later a lover, wife, mother to a child…. And death. Death came quickly; I never even got to look the coward Death in the face, but then again, I don’t know if I would have liked him, had I seen him. I’ll tell you one thing, though; death is a cold murderer.  I was all these things in life, but in death, I am so much less.  I am not nothing; never again will I be nothing, for my spirit was burnt into the memory of existence at the moment of my creation and will never be extinguished.

          I have no place, I do not know what I am.  Most would call me dead, but I do not know how to respond to that. Dead.  When I was alive, “dead” was always cold and unfeeling, unfamiliar.  It was dark, it was nothing.  And clearly, I am not nothing; I am something.  I very much have a life here, a life very much focused on life and regaining it. So, would you call me dead?

Ha. I suppose you would. You. Who are you, anyway?  You do not know me; you know so little about me, I would be insulted if you said you knew me. But you know something of me at least.  What do I know of you? Nothing.

          Let me ask you a question, though. Am I really nothing?  I would argue that I am not, but then again, a few sentences ago I was trying to argue that I am not dead. Which to you, I obviously am. Does that make me nothing to you as well? Well, here is my quest to begin something.  If I can pick up the pieces of my life and make them into something, I suppose.

          Isn’t it silly that so many people think that life is over once you die? Where did they get that idea, anyway? It’s utterly ridiculous.  Is a good book dead once you stop reading it? No. You still think about it, and try to make sense of it. A good life is the same way.  Those living who do not lead a good life… Well, they are better forgotten.  They are nothing.  Really; nothing. They do not exist anymore, and cannot have another life, as I may. Well, regardless, what stupid fools think that once they die their life is over and done with and they never have to bother with it again?

          Perhaps I am being too harsh, just now. Admittedly, the idea never crossed my mind in my first life, but it made perfect sense once I was dead. If only the living had the sense that the dead do, the knowledge that we now possess. I assure you, the world would be a better place for it, even if the realm of the dead is not.

          The morning sun was horribly harsh in my eyes. I woke up and couldn’t bear to face the day.  I had only been dead for a week, but even so, I had learned the ropes, I knew how things were.  And I knew what I had to do. This was the day that I would have to present myself to Lord Death, and hear what he had to say. None would tell me what to expect, so I had quickly stopped asking.  All I knew was that I would find some sort of sense in his words.  Not that I didn’t expect it to raise questions as well, but I needed to hear whatever he would say about me so I could begin working toward another life.  Lord Death’s realm was not a particularly pleasant one, though it wasn’t an unpleasant one, at that.  Unpredictable, I suppose. I’m used to it now, I can tell you, but the sudden changes that overtook the land and the people frightened me more than dying had. 

          The first thought that crossed my mind when I awoke was of my death. Not a particularly unpleasant one, but not calm and peaceful, either. There was conflict in my heart at the time I died; I was unhappy with my life, unhappy with my relationships, unhappy with everyone. You know, I didn’t even care that I was dying when I slipped through the ice.  It was a boring death, I admit; walking across what I thought to be a completely frozen pond when the ice broke. No one came to help me. Not until I was blue and frozen. I watched from the lip of the broken ice once I was completely dead; it only took a few minutes for me to drown. So I stood there, watching over my body, until it was as white as alabaster.  Finally, our neighbor’s son came racing along the ice. I thought he was going to slip in for a moment. And frankly, I didn’t care; he was an annoying brat, who at nineteen had sired at least three bastard children. But he saw the broken ice, and ran back to the village. For half an hour I waited and waited, wondering if he would come back. Half the village came back, actually; not just him. So they somehow managed to hoist my body out of the water. I had lost interest by then, I’m not sure how they did it, but no one fell in or anything. Nothing like that. 

          When I came here, to the Kingdom of the Dead, I was pretty annoyed at having died. I had finally comprehended what it meant, and I was furious that whoever was in charge here had let me just slip through the ice and die, as simple as that, before I could finish whatever I had been doing. Before letting me figure things out. I’m still bitter, don’t get me wrong; it’s in my nature to be bitter, I can’t simply let it go as easily as that. But oh well, I don’t think I would have ever figured my life out without a wake up call as violent as death. Very few people ever do, I learned. There’s a man here who’s been dead for three hundred years—three hundred years!—and he still hasn’t earned his new life yet. I don’t know what he did, or what he is doing, but I’ve seen him around here, and he looks pretty upset, let me tell you. I’m sure if I’d been rotting away in death for three hundred years, I’d be even more upset, though, so I can’t say I blame him.

          My small house, the small place I had been set in when I came here; it was the only place I felt safe in. I walked out into the garden that morning. One moment I had been wondering what would happen to me next, now that my body had been recovered, and I was looking across the icy expanse; the next, I was standing in a garden. I guess that was the reason I felt so sheltered in the garden. A golden field surrounded the house, and a perpetually warm breeze made the heads of wheat sway gently. It always seemed to be that time just before twilight, when the sun’s rays saturate everything with tawny gold, and the world is tired and sleepy from the day, but excited for the night to come. So technically, you could say it wasn’t really morning.

          I walked to the small wooden gate, and pushed it open. It scratched an arc in the dirt path. But as soon as I moved to set my foot on the path, I was not standing in the midst of the field, on that trail; I was on a dark gloomy street, surrounded by larger buildings. Inns, storefronts, and whorehouses surrounded me. The idyllic home I had been given was not for me to keep; it was a solace, of course, but that was not the realm of the dead. The Kingdom of the Dead was full of such illusions, but the reality was harsh. What world is perfect though, right? Anyone would be an idiot to think that death would hold perfection.    

          A pair of drunken men stumbled down the street. I pulled my skirt away from them and hopped off of the small, corroded brass plate that was embedded into the sidewalk. Unfortunately, the door to my house—that brass plate—was in a bad part of the realm. I hurried down the street, trying not to look to either side. I was not in the mood to be assaulted by the drunkards coming out of the inns, or by the whores who jeered from the rooftops. After about ten minutes or so of walking, I reached the bridge. The water rushed below it quickly. I wondered what would happen if I jumped into it; could I die a second time? A shudder passed through me, and I continued into the dark forest that separated the edge of the city—the district I had just walked through—from the buildings of state and the palace.