Someone once told me that the reason people cling onto life as desperately as they do is because they don’t know what comes after death. Humanity instinctively fears the unknown. And let’s face it, in the words of Mark Twain, “The average man’s a coward.” This is not to say that everyone is. After all, I’m sure that everyone is aware of someone who has sent themselves on that journey. And then of course there are those who would simply prefer not go alone. I was neither. Rather, I was not entirely unaided in my passing.

I was what people around here call a speculator. I wondered what was after death, pondered what death would feel like, and several times considered discovering that information first hand. I never told anyone about my musings, and, as I had yet to kill myself, no one was ever the wiser. It’s not like there was anything wrong in my life. It was pure curiosity. I guess one could say that I know how the cat felt.

It was on my last day alive that I met him. I was filling up the too small bathtub with hot water and bubbles when I felt someone watching me. Turning around, I was met with the sight of a stout man in a bowler hat smoking a cigar. There seemed to be only a dark smudge of shadow where his face should have been. Completely terrified that a strange man managed to find his way to my bathroom undetected, I stumbled backwards, bumping a drawer open in the process. I must have asked him who he was because he then tipped his hat and said, “The name’s Dante. Do you want to play?” It was about then that I realized his motion with his hat had removed part of the shadow shrouding his face. Sordid gray eyes stared back at me. A voice echoing in my mind stated that once upon a time gray eyes symbolized that something was missing from someone’s soul. Of course, this information was hardly useful in escaping him. He was, after all, blocking the only exit. Seeing as I was wearing only a towel, I resorted to reaching into the drawer for the first thing I could use as a weapon. I was dismayed when that turned out to be a hair dryer. Those eyes glinted with amusement upon seeing my weapon of choice, and with a single careless flick of his cigar the plug wedged itself firmly into the open outlet. Another flick and I felt my body moving toward the overflowing tub without my consent. A final flick and I turned on the device. He tipped his hat once more and vanished in a Cheshire Cat fashion, only this time his eyes were the last things to leave. I was left alone in my bathtub holding my own personal doomsday device when I realized what was going on. I did come to my senses, though not in a manner which broke the spell. Actually, I simply realized what the spell was. It was all that curiosity I had built up in my musings, every bit of interest on the subject which had held me captive. I realized that this was my moment to answer all of those questions. Six hours later, the police had determined that it was me in the bathtub with a hair dryer.

That was the last moment of my life that I remember with any clarity. Actually, that’s the only moment. Apparently, all suicides have their memories wiped of any personal specifics when they enter the afterlife. Thus, I can’t remember my family, my friends, where I lived, even my own name. There is nothing left except general information and the occurrence of my death. And that’s just the beginning. Every suicide is given a job which they can only quit once they regain all of their memories. I was assigned as the attendant to Lust. Joy… The first time I met him, he was hanging around with Wrath. While Lust would have been perfectly fine with calling me something along the lines of “Hey, you!”, Wrath was not. She recommended either “Muerta” or “Shi”. As if I needed anyone to rub in the fact that I’m dead now. Lust, the lazy bastard, picked “Shi” because its shorter. Honestly. Sometimes I think he’d be better suited as Sloth.