Mia cara famiglia,

If you’re reading this, my body is lying embalmed in Pasquini’s Funeral Home, no better than a jarred frog in formaldehyde—and my dying wishes have been totally ignored. Don’t try and deny it, Mamma, I told Pasquini’s sweet son to deliver this to you only if my body showed up at his mortician father’s door—I described my birthmark, so he’d know it was me. You can imagine how glad I am now that I had the foresight to write this letter, seeing as my suspicions were completely correct and my entire family does think I’m an idiot. Hopefully now that I’m dead, my opinion will weigh more. Maybe on paper, just a memory, I’ll be able to convince you to see my way.

I am not “sitting in heaven” like you imagine me to be, safe and sound grieving in your brightly-lit kitchen, dabbing at your dribbling nose with father’s neckerchief. This moment I am staring through unfocused eyes at the ceiling of some dim-lit, metallic morgue through a low-count cotton sheet. As you read this I try to make out individual fibers in the fabric, praying for Pasquini’s son to bound in and accidentally bump the cot I rigor mortis on just for a change in scenery, even if it’s only the concentration of light filtering through the sheet. I am grateful only that my dead body’s eyelids are not closed.

Soon I will have the pleasure of being tipped into a casket. I will count the tiles of the funeral home’s ceiling as they skirt across my vision, let out an unheard sigh of relief as I see the dark green awning out front. The outskirts of my eyelids will cut short the sky’s infinity. I will imagine I’m feeling the rumble of the car as it bounces over gravel, pretend I’m feeling my body vibrate along with the car’s exhausted shocks. Facing the familiar stucco of our home’s ceiling, I will wish harder than I’ve wished for anything that I could scream and release the panic pressing against lungs up for lease to grubs and fungi. But I remain silent. Discomfort does not register on my smooth, clammy features, turned a color of beige a few shades too green and blue and purple to be human. I stare up at the inside of my future prison, the bronze casket lid, propped up on a stake for now, but not much longer, and imagine staring at worm-eaten blue velvet for eternity. Imaginary tear ducts beg to cry, and all I can do is pray that you read this letter and—after cursing me for putting these images of your rotting youngest son in your head—listen to me.

You may have conveniently forgotten, as you like to do, Mamma, but I know Papá, you remember. We talked about it just a week before the accident. Giorgio mocked Martinella about the traditions in Napoli for the dead, how if we were back in Caserta Vecchia like she always talks, she would have to tend to Papá’s body when he dies. I told Giorgio those traditions were ridiculous—unlawful, unclean—and it all erupted, Giorgio challenging me to a brawl I countered with incensed words. Papá, you sat us down and asked us what we wanted our deaths to be—Giorgio demanded his eldest daughter tend his body, roughly pulling his wheat-shell wife against his broad chest like she agreed with him.

I asked for my body to be burned. Cutting off your protests, I said you could show my body to friends, family, strangers from the street who saw the posters announcing my death plastered to the outside of the YMCA—but then say goodbye. I said I did not want to be buried beside the gaudy, overblown headstones of Neapolitan relatives I never knew. I told you I wanted my ashes tossed into the wind, half in Pittsburgh, half off La Cositera Amalfitana, so the part of my soul that was American could roam the still-unsettled plains, and the part that was Italian could spiral up and down ancient staircases overgrown with moss. Papá, you sighed and rubbed the wrinkles on your face smooth, and I could tell you were unconvinced. But you thought I had years to be convinced otherwise by my Italian wife and my large Italian family—and maybe I would have been. But as it is, I died in this stage of my life, with this resolve. Please, Papá.

Martinella, you and Fiametta spent hours arranging the flowers into the gates of heaven, a half moon and star. You asked Dottore Salvi my time of death, so you could set the hour and minute hands. But this way, I will never get through the gate. My clock will have stopped, but my soul will never fly in the right direction.

Nonna and Nonno, you sprinkle salt under my plush, velvet pillow and scatter it on the doorstep as I leave to protect my soul from witches and demons. In your mind, these are the only evils to conquer. Please, try to understand, in my mind eternity is the obstacle to overcome—I do not want to live forever in a metal box. You know I was always the black sheep of the family. I did not want to work in Papá’s store, and I did not want to inherit the house when you and Mamma and Papá died. I wanted to go my own way, and after much fighting—after much letter writing, just like this—you always let me go.

Faces begin appearing above me. Mamma, you are there, crying on Papá’s tatty bowtie and smelling of mothballs. No one has died in a long time, so you haven’t bought new funeral clothes in years—you were too distraught to think about buying new ones. Thank you, Mamma; there are very few occasions you don’t think about clothes, and I’m glad I’m among them. You both kiss my forehead and shuffle on. Martinella, Fiametta. I can tell you’ve been crying from your puffy eyes—Martinella had the sense not to wear mascara, but Fiametta’s makeup runs down her cheeks. You are still beautiful, sister. Giorgio. Will you cry? It would be all right, you know, if you do. I’ll miss you, too. Nonno, I envy your white hair and wise, happy smile. You’ve lived a good life—but so have I. We all have to die sometime. Nonna, I’m sorry Giorgio and I always called you a skunk. What we were trying to say was—stop dying your hair. We are taught to respect our elders, but you should respect yourself, too.

You all pass over me, somber, crying, kissing my hands, my forehead, my cheeks, my lips. My body does not show how moved I am to be so loved. Then the lid snaps shut. Giorgio and my cousins carry me back to the car. I hear the muffled speaking of the priest and wish to God I could hear what he is saying—what is he saying? What prayer will I spend hell with? The only way I know I’ve been lowered into the ground is the sound of dirt spraying and thumping the top of my casket. Thump. Shh. Thump. Shh, the dirt tells me. It will all be over soon. But I know it won’t. I know there are other bodies with other pairs of eyes wide with the horror of realization, and I am just one in a deserted battlefield of ignored wishes and terrible mistakes.

As I am, I have two eyes, forever open and staring upwards at the inside of a coffin, six feet underground and disintegrating every moment further into inexistence. Perhaps the priest will put coins on my lids; then I will be trapped in darkness. Cremated, I will have a thousand eyes. Every char will give me a new perspective on the world, a new discovery, a twist on life I would never realize in my human, size eleven shoes. You know how much I wanted to leave home and travel the world—had I known I was going to die, I would have left sooner. Give me my chance in death. Have your bella fugura. Kiss me, get your closure. Then let me go.

Ti voglio bene. I love you.

Alessandro