Your end is unlike any other death that you’ve read about in obituaries. From time to time, you would read them out of morbid curiosity and hear about how so and so died surrounded by their family and friends. But not you. Unexpectedly, you die alone.

  Not in bed beside a partner, who’d wake up to find you lying stiff and not breathing. Not in a hospital with a nurse on the 10th hour of her 12th hour shift coming in to check on you and seeing that you’ve flat lined. Not in your cubicle at the office, where a worker drone would see you faceplant into the keyboard before hurrying off to the copy machine hours before a lonely janitor finds you ice cold in the same spot.

  Instead, at 4:00 p.m., you die on the couch in front of the television. Before that, you get yourself a bag of chips, a can of soda, and your pack of smokes. You turn on the TV, flip through the channels before stopping on a loud, flashy game show. Then a tingling sensation trickles from your head down to the tips of your toes. A soothingly familiar wave of exhaustion washes over you. Overcome with lethargy, your eyes become heavy, and your heart slows down.

  You try with all your might to fight it off. After all, you want to watch your show. Your head slumps to the side, and your body goes limp. You stop breathing.

  But the game show goes on.

  Your weight presses down on the remote between the couch cushion and your right butt cheek. The volume turns up. The crowd cheers louder and louder! The host screams for the contestant to spin the wheel harder and harder!

  “What do you get?” the host shouts. “A brand-new microwave!”

  The contestant’s beaming face shines in your glazed, blank eyes.

  The neighbor’s boy smells it first. He’s in the kitchen with Mom baking a cake for his little sister’s 5th birthday. A peculiar odor has seeped through the walls. At first, it’s faint. A hint of stink, like a fading fart.

  The wall where it’s coming from is the wall that you and the family share. The boy sniffs the air and follows an invisible trail of stink to the wall. He presses his nose against it. The smell strikes his nostrils like a punch on the nose. Stumbling back, he gags and pukes on the table, on the cake, on his apron, and on Mom. The chunks of pancakes and sausages he ate for breakfast intrude on to what was, until then, a peaceful family moment.

  The elderly lady, with whom you share the living room wall, wonders why her Pomeranian won’t stop barking at the wall. With a little treat in hand, she approaches the dog, coaxing him away from the wall. That’s when her nose twitches.

  “That’s a funny smell,” she mumbles as she draws closer to the wall. But as she sniffs the air, she staggers back in disgust. Her stomach churns.

  She can hear that your TV is still on. It’s always that same game show. The same mindless crowd cheering. Today, a new contestant has won a brand-new, double-door top-of-the-line steel refrigerator.

  The man in the apartment below you notices the light brown spot in the ceiling. A few days ago, the spot was only a speck, but now it has grown, darkened, and is leaking steady droplets. And that pungent stink... he can’t recall a time he’s ever smelled something so horrific before. The closest memory he can think of is from last summer, when the sewer pipes in his squalid neighborhood block suddenly burst and flooded the parking lot.

  But even that noxious stench is no match for this. This stink is like no other. The blackish liquid leaking from the ceiling tastes like the bitter, caustic sap of some god forsaken tree from the underworld.

  You’re found on the couch in front of the TV, still sitting on the remote. The game show host greets the Investigator who has kicked your front door open. He tells the Investigator that the contestant has lost the chance to win the brand spanking new car, so— the plug is pulled, and the screen shuts off.

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  Judging by the sludge on the floor that was once your skin, guts, and muscles, the Investigator estimates that you’ve been dead for over a month or so. What’s left of you is a shadow of your former self— the few tendrils of hair, your painted fingernails, and your yellowed bones and teeth.

  Your apartment isn’t an apartment. It’s a maze of looming towers of books and newspapers, and turrets of ornaments and emptied food cans. With gloved hands, the Investigator rifles through your things on the dining table—passed due bills, brochures and pamphlets, crumpled tissues, crushed pills, and cigarette butts and ashes.

  He determines you were a recluse, a turtle that hid in its shell whenever someone passed by.

  You have one postcard from a friend.

  Hawaii is great! Going snorkeling! - dated 2004.

  And that’s the first and only sign of a connection to someone from the world outside.

  In the bedroom, you had cockatiels and lovebirds in cages. Dozens of birds. All are starved and featherless. In the kitchen, the trash can is overflowing. The plates and silverware fill the sink to the brim.

  The only surviving friends you have are the flies circling above your head, forming a swirling black halo; and the roaches and ants that crowd around a bowl of rotten fruit.

  The Investigator scrambles to a window, though it refuses to budge. He punches it open and as a breeze of fresh air sweeps in, he gasps to breathe it in. His entire body shivers.

  Your remains are taken away to the crematorium in a black body bag. The Coroner has determined that you’ve died a natural death. It could’ve been a heart attack, a ruptured brain aneurysm, or perhaps another underlying health issue. The investigator concludes that you have no family; not even a hint of a distant relative. The friend who sent you that postcard has long since disappeared. Perhaps, he drowned while snorkeling or was swept farther into the sea. Never to be seen again.

  The Cremator shoves you into the furnace. There, the flames lick you from head to foot before engulfing you in its mouth. Your bones are charred by its searing fury.

  Through a small window, you watch yourself—a human who lived yet never truly lived—reduce into ashes. You wander down the corridor, lingering by the Cremator who shivers and turns to catch a glimpse of your shadow as it walks through the wall in front of him.

  She returns to work, unbothered. She is all too familiar with an unseen presence like yours. You’re not the only one in the room. There are other nameless ones. They wander the corridors and loiter in dark corners. They press their mournful faces against the windows, leaving faint traces of their presence in the condensation.

  Without a family or friend to claim your ashes, the Cremator gathers them up and shovels them onto the wagon. She wheels you outside and pours you into a deep pit; the communal plot. This is where you will lie; dumped and buried with the ashes of the other nameless ones.

  Now, you roam with neither a body nor a place to call home. The other nameless ones tell you it’s all right. It’s not so bad to wander the Earth. You’re not completely alone.

  So, for now, you circle your old neighborhood, looking up at the old apartment complex. The old lady’s Pomeranian barks at you from the window. Several kids run up to the gate with presents and balloons. Then, you remember it’s your neighbor’s kid’s birthday. They sent you an invitation in your mailbox, but that was left unchecked.

  You promise yourself that you’ll do differently next time, if you get another chance to live.

  In your former life, you didn’t adhere to a religion, and you’re glad that you never did. Now, you realize that no one knows what happens after death. You wander through the worn-out paths of your former life, following your old daily routine. It’s the familiarity that comforts you in this unfamiliar way of existence.

  But eventually, you start to fade out, and you’re pulled into another plane of existence. The first thing you feel is a sense of tranquility. And then...warmth. You’re curled up in a shell. You can’t open your eyes yet, but you feel safe and protected in this cocooning warmth. You hear your heartbeat, and then someone else’s heartbeat. Then the next thing you faintly recognize is a sweet sound of humming. You realize that the song is for you. The humming offers comfort; lulling you to sleep as it gently rocks you.

  You’re not in the shell for long. Soon, you feel a sudden agony as your body is forcibly pushed out. At first, a bright light stings your eyes, but slowly you open them again. And there, right in front of you, is the tender face of a woman smiling at you. She cradles and kisses you. With a fiercely protective hug, she pours her tears onto you. Yes, she is a stranger. And yet, she seems so familiar.

  Memories of your former life soon begin to blur, like a painting thrown out into the sea. The colors fade, and the canvas deteriorates. You can’t recall your old name. You wonder where you used to live, and what kind of people once surrounded you.

  You cry, desperately wanting to cling a little longer to your old life. But the woman’s voice soothes you. She tells you that it’s all right. And then, once again, she hums. It’s that same soothing tune that you heard her hum while you were in the shell.

  You are given a new name and a new home.

  This is your new life.

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