....Character is waiting...

I died when I was 45 years old. It was a violent beating resulting from a botched burglary attempt. I was not supposed to be home. I randomly left work early and headed home not knowing of my impending fate.

The sun was warm. The kids played in yards. Dogs in the neighborhood barked and the gardeners with noisy lawn mowers cleared the grass. It was like any other day. If at all there was an irony, it was the fact that the sunny daytime masked what was brewing within the neighborhood.

I had taken off work earlier because I did my work and I was ahead most of the time.

I had just finished making myself a smoothie, when an armed gun man in a mask broke my door and lunged upon me like I was prey in the wild. The beatimgs were unrelenting. He used the back of his gun to let me have it.

Because the neighborhood was so noisy noone took notice at my loud cries and calls for help. I drowned in my own home with a stranger pouncing at me. Finally I succumbed as all the body organs shut down on me. It was what seemed like a very long beating which had no explanation. He never said a word through it all. I grasped helplessly at his mask desperate to take a peek at his face. I could not tell his race or the tenor in his voice. I am sure that he was male only because of his firm body and his powerful muscular movements, as he pushed and shoved me around like a ragdoll.

I bled from all parts of my body where he violently beat me. I cried feeling sorry for myself for being alone and helpless without anyone to at least witness my last days on earth.

Finally, I could tell that I was about to pass out. With all my strength I managed to grasp his face mask. He wore a wool knitted cap which was a hat and a mask at the sametime. He grinned and turned even more violent because not only did I not stop fighting him, I also saw his face. I must have left a mark on his face because at the very last minute, he finally decided to shoot me. Finally I was dead.

Laying on the floor used up and with litres of blood marking the spot where I expired, I finally felt no pain. It is true that in death one feels no pain or suffering.

It was days after I was transferred to the morgue. An autopsy was performed. All of my insides were surgically removed out of my body and I was scrapped clean. I was then weighted and measured. The medical examiner kept reciting what she noted on her recorder. And then I was pushed to the freezer until my next of kin could identify me or confirm that it was me.

My soul, tired of witnessing the rituals associated with death, kept lingering around and poking at me as if to ensure that, indeed I was truly dead. Ofcource I was.

What happened next after my mother identified my body was a blur.

It is funny how in all cultures the dead are encountered with tears. It is always sad to lose someone. Even if it is expected that someone won't recover from surgery, a coma or a disease, it is always sad to have someone die or to know someone who has died. I believe that the same was my reality when all of my loved ones finally found out about my death.

It didn't matter if I was a bad person, my status of beig dead eradicated any and all bad feelings that others felt for me.

I am not sure how my skin lost it lusture. I was at some point a bunch of bones. Many visited my grave. I believe it was a grave where I was. Many mourned and left flowers in remembrance of me. I am sure those who disliked me were thrilled and forgot to stop rejoicing. Maybe they even got arrested from partying too much, celebrating my death.

Nevertheless, I regretted all the ill will, the bad language, the many misunderstandings in life which were associated with my being alive. I didn't have time to recall all of my sins. I just knew that my killer did a number on me.

Finally I was at my resting place. There were no grievances, jealousies, sins or unwanted contacts or connections. In death, life was all mine. I finally got a chance to think. I couldn't tell what year it was or what season it was. I did remember that I was married to a woman whom I left behind. I wondered what her life was like since my death. Did the insurance company pay her? Was she still employed? What happened to my kids? Who will die next? How were they managing without me? I felt robbed of something that was of great importance to my life. Yet there was no court or elder to complain to. I was too young to die and leave a family behind. I had money but it was not enough to replace my presence. Will my family face discrimination now that they were an altered family? I wondered. Will they be taken advantage of as many who watched thrive silently cussed at us under their breath? I chose to ignore my faith thinking that running to God at that moment would be cowardly. Maybe once my wife was with me we will be a force to be reckoned with. She was more religious than me. Was our time on earth meant to be that short?Did God send the burglar to kill me because I was not doing as well as I thought I was doing ? Too many questions without answers were just as boring and frustrating as they would have been if I was alive. I figured that since I had all the time in the world, that I should keep wondering about what I had been excluded from.

If and when my wife died, will we cross paths?

Could I wait for her? I decided to wait.