...I lingered around them, under the benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.
-Emily Bronte,
Wuthering Heights

Life is quiet compared to death.

In death, I have found that there is chaos every which way (their voices grow louder and louder in a hectic wave), with spirits lonely trying to find which way they need to go – that place where they will rest at last. People mostly think that you just go to the pearly gates, and the good Saint looks up your name, then you go about your (un)merry way.

Well, that's not how it goes here.

Here, by the way, is called the Midland or the Pale; it's where all of us who are in line for judgment or all of us who are lost wait until we are called or found again. It's not that bad of a place, really; it's just a mass of uncertainty and loss of control – much like the Southland, where the living roam free.

Ah, my manners must have disappeared again - those silly old things! I digress - my name Aspen Blair... And this is my story.