It's a rather chilly night, chillier than the cold shoulder I was given at the highly boring function I had to attend. One negative aspect about a funeral is that it's anyway a rather depressing affair. What's even more depressing is that I'm dead and invisible to the human eye (hence the cold shoulder). And I'm attending a funeral of some other deceased.
Did that send a chill down your spine? A dead man attending funerals? Decipher on...
I was married at 22. I settled down in life rather quickly. I had a good job at a reputed bank and made a decent enough salary to keep my wife and me more than just afloat. We loved each other to death, which in my case was literal! I used to have a strange, recurrent dream of attending funerals. Every night I would dream of attending the funeral of someone or the other. Little did I know that my dreams would one day mirror reality. The dreams just seemed so random.
My encounter with death began one fine morning on 27th August 2000. I was crossing the road casually when a truck at lightning speed came and knocked me over. I don't recollect any pain. I just remember being transported to a scary yet spectacular world of shimmering lights and haunting sounds. The ambience was bright yet subtle; I hadn't seen something like this before.
I heard a voice. It said 'Welcome Max. You're no more. You've lived an overall good life, albeit with a few grave mistakes. You need to redeem yourself. From now on, you must attend the funeral of every person who dies, and bless them for a peaceful journey but you must also suck the blood of one person at the funeral in order to keep your dead existence in bodily form. Your victim will be preordained, someone who has lived an impure life. You will continue to do this until your wife too breathes her last. It is then when you'll finally unite in heaven'.
My wife is still young, so I don't see that happening soon. But hey, next time you're at a funeral, and your heart isn't clean, just remember I'm around.
Rohan Pasricha
