When I'm stressed out, I have very vivid and emotional dreams about the people I love. I had a dream the other night that I think could turn into a really cool paranormal short story. I've never written anything about the paranormal and I hate short stories. However, I can't let go of this dream! It's been haunting me and I think if I write the story, maybe I'll be able to let it go. The problem is that I don't know what the story is. My dream was basically a conference of all the people I loved, dead and alive, move toward the afterlife after my own death. The ones who were alive were telling me goodbye and that they'd be ok without me and the ones who were dead were there to answer my questions and take me on. On to where I don't know. Basically, I thought I'd died and I woke up bawling before a story came about. Or maybe there was no story. Any way, what I've come up with is kind of a personal essay that's actually quite depressing.

I didn’t remember what happened before I was climbing the stairs to the attic above Paulyn’s Dance Studio. I hadn’t been in the studio since I was fourteen. I didn’t even know they had an attic, and really, maybe they don’t, but I know that’s where I was. Funny how that’s the place my soul decided to go when I died. I wasn’t even good at dance.

I climbed the stairs and it was dark and everyone was waiting for me at the top. Even the ones who weren’t dead yet. That’s still the weird part, I think. I mean, I get that when you’re going to the party to help you cross over into the afterlife that all your dead loved ones might be there, but one’s who’re still alive too? That’s a little odd. But, I guess, who am I to question the laws of the afterlife?

“Grandma!” I cried when I saw my mom’s mom. I barreled over to her and she tinkled over on her little tiptoes to me, pulling me in for a hug and huge smacker on the cheek. My grandma is dead. I hadn’t seen her for three and a half years. Damn that hug was good.

Crappy couches that looked like they’d all come from various Goodwills around town, like the First United Methodist Church’s youth group room, squatted all over the attic. Floral ones, ones with ripped pleather, ones with stuffing coming out—you know, classy stuff that obviously belongs in the attic of a dance studio, at the top of the stairway to Heaven.

Grandma held my hand and sat me down on a fuzzy pea green couch that I’m pretty sure could have been the hide-a-bed that used to be in our cabin. I ran my hand along its cushion. I wonder how Paulyn’s got this couch, I thought. Didn’t we throw it away, like, in the nineties?

I cuddled up closer to my grandma.

“Erin,” she said. “Don’t you want to know why you’re here?”

I looked around the room. My mom, my Uncle Terry, my cousin Darby, Aunt Linda, my cousin Nicole, my old roommate Laura and this child I’ve had dreams about since I was young (I’d been assuming she’s the child I’d somehow acquire when I was old—key word acquire) were all there. I don’t know if maybe you only get a few supporters or these were just my supporters who were available to help me on, but that’s who was there. Maybe they’re the ones most in-tune with the spiritual world. Or maybe they were all sleeping at this time and came to me in their dreams. I have no idea.

“Oh, my God,” I said. “You all died?” My head fell between my knees and vomit that clashed nicely with the pea green couch exploded from my mouth. Holy crap, I thought. Pull it together, Erin. If these guys are all dead, there’s a whole lot people who are going to need you to take care of them

“Oh, Sweatpea.” My mom sat down beside me, sidestepping barf, and put her arms around me sobbing.

“Erin, you died,” my grandma said.

“Huh?” My head snapped up. I looked at my mom, but she just wailed, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to speak anymore. She was wearing a green and purple paisley top with white capris. The outfit I thought looked best on her even though, even in white pants, she had no butt. Thank God I didn’t inherit that from her. I am her from the tips of my toes (our second toes are a tad longer than our big toes. Freaks us both out.) to my love handles to the freckles on my nose, but I have a great butt. Sometimes I think it’s one of the reasons people want to take my fitness advice.

 My aunt Linda sat down to hold my mom. They’ve both lost it. My grandma, stronger than her daughters, tells me that she and my angel are here to take me on. That I can go whenever I’m ready or stay as long as I want.

“My angel?” I asked.

The little girl with soft brown hair and big blue eyes hops off of the arm of a hideous yellow suede couch and holds out her hands to me. She has wings.

“I dream about you,” I told her.

“I know. You call me Ande Rae Darby. Ande for the Andes mountains of the land and language that you love, Rae for your mom and grandma and Darby for you. You thought I was the child you’d find yourself raising one day. The child that you didn’t want, but would land in your lap somehow and you’d take care of and love her just like you take care of everyone else around you.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you.” I gripped her hands tighter. My eyes darted back and forth between her clear eyes. For as long as I can remember I never, ever wanted kids. However, I did feel that some day one would be, I don’t know, plopped down at my doorstep or something, and I’d rise to the occasion and parent this lost child. She had to know, just because you don’t go out seeking something doesn’t mean that it’s not a blessing when it finds you.

“I know. You would have been a great mom. When we leave here though, you can be whatever you want to be. Everyone is taken care of,” she said.

“What if I’m not ready to leave?” I asked. There are so many things I haven’t done! I thought. I haven’t seen the Mayan ruins, or published a damn book yet. I haven’t been to Spain or Africa or competed in my first Ironman. I haven’t even been to freaking Harry Potter World in Florida! My mom and brother will never survive without me! God, I'll never fall in love. I'll never get to grow old with someone and walk hand in hand on the beach and celebrate 50 years together and find that one person whose screwed up is the perfect match to my screwed up. 

 “You stood on top of Machu Picchu, wrote a novel, helped your brother grow into the person you are most proud of and were happy to wake up every day for the last year. Do you know how lucky you’ve been? You committed yourself to living every day. And you did.”

“But only for the last year. I wasted 23 years trying to figure life out. I’m just getting the hang of things and I die?” I asked.

“Do you regret anything?”

“I just wish I’d figured it out sooner.” My shoulders slumped and I let go of her hands to catch my head before it fell into my lap. “Where are we going?” I mumble.

 “Wherever you want. The afterlife is what you make it. What you believe,” Gandma says.

“I don’t know what I believe,” I said.

“Yes, you do.” Ande grabs my face with her hands and makes me look at her. “You certainly know what you don’t believe. You’re afterlife will accept all people who were decent human beings. It’s simple with good food you never have to cook if you don’t want to. Everyone you love will be there as you need them and there’s a library like in Beauty and the Beast. Music plays fit to your mood whenever you need it and you never have to wear a bra. There are lakes and green grass. It’s essentially Nebraska summer and fall all year round and you can travel to any place you would have wanted to see in this world. This is your definition of paradise.”

“But where’s the passion and the drama? Where’s the randomness of real life? That’s what makes life interesting. What about bad days? You have to have bad days to appreciate the good ones.” I jerked away from her touch. Panic squeezed my heart. I couldn’t breathe. Did I need to breathe? I wondered. My heart was sure banging away in my ears, even in death. For the first time I thought I might lose my composure too.

“It’s all what you make it. The afterlife is a grand story and you’re the author and main character. You can give yourself whatever drama and passion you want,” Ande said. “Now you can make all of those stories and daydreams you used to create for yourself a reality. It’ll be fun, you’ll love it.”

“But it won’t be real. It’s me, for eternity, stuck inside my own head with just my imagination to entertain myself. The people and places I love will just be props I can move about in my own stories. That sounds more like Hell,” I said.

“You don’t believe in Hell,” Ande replied.

“I’m not going,” I said. I looked to the people around me who were supposed to be there to support me and make my transition easier, but none of them would meet my gaze and one by one they faded away.

“You already have,” Ande said and she vanished too.

I was alone now, in my room in the house where I grew up on Sunset Avenue, Norfolk, Nebraska. I knew I could conjure up my mom or my dog or whoever I wanted to sit with me, but I also knew it wouldn’t really be them. I wondered for a moment how I died, but just like in life the past doesn’t matter any more than the future does. What matters is this moment. In life, who knows what each moment will bring? In death, I realize, my one moment is eternity and I’ll never wake up again with the excitement of not knowing what the day will bring.

I lay down in my daybed, pulled the covers over my head manifested an eternity of sleep.