I still remember it like it was yesterday. Maybe, in this life, it was yesterday, or even today, or even years ago. Either way, the memory is still vivid in my mind of that cold winter morning. The day I still don’t understand, completely.

I had been sick off and on for years. My family, from what they could tell off of occasional visits, seemed to get more and more concerned, but I saw no real reason for concern. The illness itself started small, just a cough like one gets when he gets into a dusty room and it irritates his breathing. Nothing out of the ordinary for me, it had started just after my travels, which had taken me to some places that could have used some better care. But it progressed, slowly that is, over the years. Day by day I didn’t see a difference, which is why it seemed so minor. The progression was so slow that I began to adapt to it as time went on, making it always feel just like any other day as my body forgot how it felt to be healthy. But on the outside, I was obviously deteriorating.

It finally got bad that winter, so bad that I found it difficult to do just about anything. At times, it was all I could do just to walk across a room. My family had pushed me for a long time to see a doctor, but the closest one was a day’s journey away, as I lived in a very remote area of the country. And like I said, I didn’t feel much difference from day to day, and was only in my early fifties of age. Finally, when I woke up one day finding my strength almost gone, I realized I wasn’t as bad as my family had thought…I was worse. The next day, I was on a train bound for the city, as there happened to be one final stop on its path through the countryside that was somewhat near my home.

It was a long ride, roughly seven hours to my destination. The train cars were not heated, and I quickly found myself very cold, and tired. Because it was the middle of the week, not many people were traveling that day, and I was only one of a few people on the whole train, allowing me a whole car to myself for the most part. The one I sat in had a seating area and a sleeping area, for those who would be on for several days, as this route would eventually cross parts of several continents. So I moved to a comfortable looking bed, and laid down for a rest.

The ride was peaceful, quiet, and passed through a lovely area of the country for this time of year. I found myself relaxing to some extent, but only felt a little better for short lengths of time. After some time had passed, I felt I had gained at least enough strength to make my way to the refreshments car that was only one car back. We were on a long, straight portion of track that extended for miles, and was usually very smooth and comfortable. So I got up, slipped on my shoes and coat, and made my way to the hallway.

From this point, most people would assume I would not remember anything. But I do, surprisingly well I might add. As I made my way down the hallway I grew very weak, and almost could not stand. I was almost to the door between the cars, and felt I could not stand to return to my bed, as I figured I had been mistaken about having rested enough before. I simply stood there, coughing some as my breathing grew more and more difficult, trying to ignore the intense pain throughout my entire body. My legs collapsed from exhaustion, like they just gave up on me for the last time, and I fell to the floor like a child who becomes dizzy from spinning.

And suddenly, as quickly as it had all started, it stopped. I no longer felt weak, nor pain, and my breathing went back to normal, even better than before. It was like my body renewed itself in that moment and I suddenly felt fine. Standing up was suddenly not so difficult, and I found it much easier to breathe. But at the same time, it was like something was missing. And for a moment I figured out what it was, I had left my wallet by my bed. So I walked back, the whole time thinking about what had just happened, trying to make sense of it all. It didn’t matter though, I felt better, the means by which I did were irrelevant to me.

And then it dawned on me: I don’t need my wallet, I have cash in my pockets. Even if it’s not much, train refreshments were rather well priced these days. I stopped where I was, about half way back to my bed, and returned with the intention of getting my long awaited soda. Boy, was that one crazy ordeal for one small trip. When I made my way back up to the front, there was a man, lying still by the door I didn’t go through. I ran up to him, to see if he was alright or if I should call for help, but upon closer examination found myself surprised at what I found.

That man was me.

That couldn’t be. It’s not possible to be lying on the floor and standing at the same time, is it? But to my continued surprise, the closer I got, the more I recognized the body to be my own. I had heard stories about life after death, but never believed it to be true myself, it all seemed like children’s fairy tales. Yet it was, my body was dead on the floor, yet I still existed in some form. I could think, I could see, and I could move. And it was nothing like I had ever heard of before. My existence was very much, undeniably, real.

About that time I heard a noise from behind. The conductor was making his way up to the engine from the back of the train, just checking to make sure everyone was alright. I felt the intense desire to stop him, to make him not come, as I didn’t know what to expect next. I was scared, confused, but yet found myself with no control over the world around me. All I could do was watch as he walked in, closed the door behind him, and came running past me to my body. It was then that I realized: He never saw me.

“Sir, sir are you alright?” he yelled, shaking my body gently as I watched. I had not fallen forwards or backwards, but rather collapsed in that spot, leaving my body in a bit of a curled up ball on the floor. He rolled me over and, realizing the reality of my death, made his way quickly to the front of the train. But I didn’t follow him, even though I could. I simply felt the need to remain there for a time, I couldn’t leave myself behind.

It seemed as if hours went by before he returned with the engineer. Though it was probably more like a few minutes, I would later come to realize that I now lived in a dimension where time is irrelevant, almost non-existent in a sense. But as for now, time was unimportant to me. I was busy enough figuring out what to do next, and didn’t know what would come in the near future. I even found myself not at all concerned with what would happen with my body that I left behind. During life, people are all concerned over where they are buried, how they are handled, and many other tiny details. But when you leave that world, and join another which is merged with the first, you realize that there are much better things to be concerned with than what happens to that which you have no more control or influence over. It’s like the world was running itself, and even if you wanted to say or do something about it, you could not.

The engineer looked at my body for a moment, with a sad yet concerned look on his face. Our next stop was in a busy metropolitan area, one of the largest and busiest stops on the line. If a lot of people boarded this train and found a dead body on board, the news would spread uncontrollably and people would begin to think twice about this particular line. So the two men loaded my body on to a mattress from one of the beds, and carried me to the back of the train while I followed closely behind. And all of a sudden, I found the sight of my own body to be very unpleasant; so much that I could no longer bear to look at it, and left towards the front of the train.

We arrived at our stop very soon afterwards. I had not realized the amount of time that had gone by since we had left; I thought for sure we were still a few hours away. I figure things must have been timed rather well, almost as if another unseen but intelligent being was coordinating the universe. Had we not been where we were when I died, I could have collapsed in the city with many people and who knows what would have happened to me from there. The quietness and loneliness of the remainder of the trip allowed me much time to think, though the only things that would come to mind were my many unanswerable questions. Like what to do from here, what would happen to me, and if I would be like this forever or eventually fade away into non-existence, like a ghost that has fulfilled its final purpose. Though I had nothing left that I, personally, needed to complete, so it made no sense that I should still be existing.

When we stopped, I figured I had to at least supervise the affairs of my body, regardless of its sickening sight to me. To my more pleasant surprise, I found that it had been covered with a white sheet sometime after it was placed there. So I remained by its side until two men dressed in black came and carried it to a long black car and loaded it…me…into the back. I found myself trusting these men to properly care for me, so I stepped off the back of the train into the station, and realized just how radically different of a situation I was in compared to real life. I might still be existing in the same world as before, but I was a part of a whole new dimension that surrounded me, and yet still had knowledge of the previous one. The station was very busy compared to the last time I was here, but I soon noticed that many people were able to walk anywhere, even right up to a person, and not be noticed. They were just like me, the remains of other lost lives, trying to figure out what to do for themselves as well. Or at least, that’s how it appeared.

I left the station to explore the area. Obviously, I had no need to make my doctor’s appointment anymore, so I was pretty much free to do whatever. The city had not changed much, except for all the extra people not being noticed, existing in the same dimension as myself. Though I could not communicate with them, and they could not communicate with me. Almost as if we knew of each other’s presence, yet did not know at the same time. We were all just concerned with our own affairs, though maybe some of them actually knew what they were doing, that I may never know. But I felt a strong urge to go be with my family, and the only ones within reasonable traveling distance was my older sister and her family who lived on the other side of town.

So I made my way over to their home, which was in an area of town that pretty much acted as a community of its own. Their home was nice like the others, made of brick with a porch that wrapped around two sides of the home, providing a nice place to relax after a busy day in the summer. The house backed up to a river that formed the outside border of the city limits on the west side, and there was a garden in the back where my sister and her husband grew all kinds of crops, flowers and interesting plants. There was also a small play area for my young nieces and nephews, and I always enjoyed watching them play, wishing I had taken the opportunity to have children of my own.

Nobody was home when I arrived, but I figured I would try the door anyways. When I went to grab it I could not, my hand simply went through it as if it did not exist, I couldn’t interact with the living world at all. I walked down the porch, looking for maybe an open window I could go through, as I was starting to get rather cold in the snowy weather. But I could not find one, and on my way back off the porch, I slipped on a patch of ice and fell backwards, finding myself inside the house. That’s when it occurred to me, I didn’t need doors and windows, I could go through anything. While I still had no control or influence over the living world, it also had little influence or control over me.

About that time their family arrived home. Only one of the children, the oldest one in her teenage years, was with them as the rest would be in school for the next few hours before coming home. They were laughing, joking and having a wonderful time, just happy. They retrieved some bags from the back of their car, and made their way inside where my niece went upstairs to where the bedrooms where, and my sister started cleaning the counters. They seemed so happy, which was hard, because it pained me knowing what news would soon be coming to them.


So I just watched them for a while. I could not talk to them, and they could not see me, but I could see them. Things went on as this for some time before the black car I saw my body taken away in arrived in front of their house. They had figured out who I was, and they knew who to tell. My families lives were about to be changed for the bad, and there was nothing I could do but watch as the two men made their way up the front stairs, and knocked on the door.

It was my brother in law who answered, and upon request showed the men inside to have a seat in the living room as my sister joined them. It was obvious now by their expressions that they were getting concerned at this point. Like me, my sister’s family were very quiet, and didn’t really interact with other people very often, so it was rare for anyone to visit them, much less someone they did not know. It was like they knew something bad was going to happen, and I felt as if my sister knew what they had to say before they even said it. The next several minutes were horribly saddening, as I could only watch as they were told terrible news and their wonderful, happy day was turned upside down. The two men offered their comfort and sympathy, and then said that they would assist in any further arrangements, and make them as easy as possible. Then they left without another word.

I felt horribly trapped. I knew what was happening and observed it, but I could do nothing for them. I just watched, and realized that in this new world I was in I still had feelings and emotions. I could be happy, I could be sad, and I could be angry and scared. I sat down, thinking in my mind how much I wished there was something I could do for them, and how I could do anything to comfort them if I could. I just wanted them to be happy, at least for a moment, but I knew that was a lot to ask of, and began to face reality that it was probably not possible.

And then they stopped grieving, almost as if in that very moment in time a peace came over my family and they felt a little bit better. They were still sad, yes, but peaceful and capable of moving on with their day, which made me happy. They talked about me, how they admired me and enjoyed their time with me over the fall months when they came to visit me. The told stories, even laughed at times when recalling something funny that happened when they were with me, and all the happy times we had. They didn’t say anything bad, nor anything sad, and instead dwelled on the good things, bringing a light of happiness and warmth to me as well, giving me a more positive outlook on what I faced now.

I stayed for some time as I listened and then left, just as I had arrived. The black car was gone, but I somehow knew where it had gone, even though I didn’t know the area extremely well. It had driven to the other side of town to an old brick building, that didn’t look like anyone had been inside it in over a hundred years. I found it easily, almost as if something, or someone, was guiding me there like the internal instincts of birds as they travel south for the winter. I somehow knew right where I was going, and exactly how to get there.

They had my body lying on a shiny silver table, covered with a white cloth as they examined me. I won’t go into detail on everything that happened there as it would take too long, and maybe even not make sense to some readers. But I read their reports afterwards; it wasn’t known what killed me, like my body just gave up on life that moment on the train. To my knowledge, nobody has figured it out to this day. Maybe people don’t have to have a reason to die, or die due to certain reasons. When it comes time for us to leave the world, we don’t have any choice at all, we just leave. With the reasons why being unimportant to us afterwards, as we continue on living even though our bodies do not.

It took several days to finish preparing me for burial. They did some preserving, and loaded me into a nice casket that my family had bought for me with their savings money, which I kind of wish they would not have done. But even if it meant nothing to me in this life, it certainly meant something to them, and if it made them happy then it made me happy.
In those days I saw many beings that were somewhat human, but still not quite the same as us. Some of them were good, some of them were bad, and their presence was not known among the people of the living world, but they didn’t do anything to me. Just moved as if they lived for the same reason as me, though they had more power over both worlds than I even knew existed or could describe now. I watched the last days of what happened with my worldly body, and when all was said and done I knew why I had continued in existence. My family had needed me that day, and they needed me in the days to follow. When I felt confidence and happiness for them, and wished for it in my mind, they felt better. When I was sad over something, they too were sad over what was usually the same thing. My emotions in this world were affecting theirs to some extent, and I was able to, indirectly, help them through this time.

Then, when all was said and done and their need for me was no more, I found myself suddenly in a whole new world, instantly changed from the one before. It looked different, felt different, was different in all aspects and all the people living in my dimension. The good ones, the bad ones, and the average ones like me all living in it with me, though they had arrived before I did. I could now interact with those around me as I could not before, and was no longer in the living world. I was in a new world, of a whole unimaginable dimension, that I still have yet to find words to describe.