A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife: On the Other Side Known Commonly As "the Little Book" - Couverture rigide

Q. What am I doing here? I feel totally  disoriented and helpless.

A. This is normal for the newly dead and will  pass. Your circumstances have changed as drastically as it is possible for  circumstances to change. Every single one of us felt this way initially. Every  single one of us eventually learned the ropes and regained our sense of  balance and self-possession. The Little Book is designed to serve as a  ready first aid to this objective.
Q. What's wrong with my legs? It's as though they  were made of rubber.

A. You have what is popularly known as the staggers, which we all have when  we arrive in the Afterlife. You'll be back to  normal in a few days.
Q. Exactly where am I?

A. In life, it seemed to you that you inhabited  a universe of stars, galaxies, and so on, and you located yourself as an  individual on the planet Earth, on one of its continents or islands, perhaps  in one of its cities. In your stay in that universe, this seemed "normal." A  quick look round will convince you that you no longer inhabit that universe.  It's said that we inhabit "another dimension" or "a parallel universe," but  these phrases have no precise meaning. Basically, you're somewhere  else, and this somewhere else will soon seem completely normal to  you.
Q. But everything already looks completely  normal.

A. Our environment is locally psycho-reactive,  which is to say that it responds to our individual expectations in ways that  are not explainable in ordinary causal terms. If you are, let us say, an  American urbanite of the 1990s, your surroundings will almost certainly look  and function like a sort of idealized American city of that era. If, on the  other hand, you are a Kayapo Indian of the 1990s, your surroundings will look  and function like a rain forest in the interior of Brazil.
Q. Is this heaven then?

A. Some believe so. Some argue that it cannot  be, since no divine presence makes itself felt. Some believe it to be a  purgatory from which some or all of us will eventually be delivered. Even in  the Afterlife, questions remain.
Q. Why do people call this place Detroit [Nepal,  Havana, Beijing, Hong Kong, Sheffield, Nebraska]? It isn't at all the way I  remember it.

A. Place names in the Afterlife are not subject  to any objective standard. Several large French cities are named Paris, and  they are not all in the same general area (not, in other words, all in  "France"). Shades in your area (or at least some of them) have adopted the  habit of calling it Detroit (or whatever). It doesn't mean much of anything.  Humor them--or  call it whatever you please (maybe you'll start a new trend).
Q. Are maps available?

A. Yes, and they are delightful to look upon. Maps as small as your thumb,  maps as large as the landscape. Minutely detailed maps with names of  places you've never been. Glorious maps, filigreed, flagged, annotated,  and totally impractical.
Q. Why is it always overcast? Doesn't the sun ever shine?

A. It isn't "overcast," and there is no sun to shine. The light (and the  alternation of "day" and "night") is assumed to be our environment's  response to our expectations of it. Finicky speakers say that we  experience light (and the rest of the Afterlife), not that  light (or anything else in the Afterlife) exists. If you would  prefer to pass your time entirely in the "day," you will want to search  out one of the so-called Northern Cities, where "the sun shines  twenty-four hours a day."
Q. What is my body made of?

A. The nature of matter in this continuum (including the matter in your  body) is as mysterious as the nature of matter in the continuum we knew  when alive. Clearly our bodies are not as "substantial" as in life--not as  heavy or impermeable.
Q. I thought memory was a brain function, pure and simple. How can I have  memories if I don't have a brain?

A. You clearly do have a brain, just as you clearly have arms, legs,  eyes, nose, hair, and so on. All the organs are there, though their  function may or may not be.
Q. I don't have any feeling of hunger, but I've seen people eating. Will I  get hungry later?

A. Food is not a necessity in the Afterlife. "Eating" (it has to be  enclosed in quotation marks) is an experience quite unlike the one you  knew in life. Try it, and spare me the necessity of describing something  you will inevitably experience for yourself.
Q. What about sleep? Do people sleep here?

A. People rest, doze, tune out, power down, and, yes, sleep (though  neurologists insist that none of these states actually correspond to what  the living call sleep). Some find they have no need of it, some spend as  much time at it as they can. It continues to provide a handy means of  ending a tiresome visit: "I have to go home and sleep now, thank you.  Auf Wiedersehen!"
Q. What's the proper way to talk about things here? Do you call people  ghosts or spirits or what?

A. You may call people people. People are called ghosts or shades only in a  semi-jocular or casual way, except when referring to their former status,  as in, "Today I met the shade of my second cousin Alf." (Most people,  however, would simply say, "Today I met my second cousin Alf.") You will  seldom hear people refer to us as spirits. Most people think of spirits as  bodiless beings (which we are clearly not).
Q. Do people refer to themselves as dead?

A. We often refer to ourselves collectively as "the dead" but as  individuals seldom think of ourselves as such, since we are manifestly  alive (though in a somewhat attenuated form). We say, "I live two streets  over," "This is not a bad life we have here," "I live for my work," "I  prefer to live alone," and so on.
Q. I worry that, being a newcomer, I may inadvertently violate some custom  or give offense to someone. Are there guides to etiquette and good  manners?

A. Such guides exist, though they were more in evidence in the  seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. In general, the good  manners you practiced in life will serve perfectly well here. Special  customs do not seem to arise among the dead; if you think about it, you'll  see that the conditions and occasions that fostered the development of  customs in life are largely absent here.
Q. I heard someone talk about "losing his head." What does this mean?

A. Losing your head is a sort of jocular euphemism for dying; the reference  is of course to decapitation. When in a few days or weeks you have  recovered from the shock of "losing your head," it will be said that you  "have your head on"--in other words, are once again whole.
Q. An awful lot of people I see in the street look and act like lunatics.  Many of them tell me they don't know who they are. What's the story  here?

A. To answer briefly: Standards of normalcy are somewhat different in the  Afterlife. For more on this, see Chapter Three, "Neighbors in the  Afterlife."
Q. But I've heard people talk about a Bedlam here in the Afterlife as if it  were a real lunatic asylum. Is there such a place, or is this just a  rumor?

A. People who in life inhabited Bucharest or Baltimore "wake up" in the  Afterlife in a place that seems to them very like Bucharest or Baltimore.  The same is true of people who in life inhabited London's Bethlem  Hospital, the madhouse known popularly as Bedlam. Thus Bedlam is as "real"  as any other place in the Afterlife; its inhabitants tend to be lunatics,  just as the inhabitants of "Dublin" tend to be Irish. Since their  environment is psycho-reactive in exactly the same way ours is, Bedlam is  veritably a bedlam, operating under its own chaotic and delusional  laws.
Q. Where should I go? Should I "check in" someplace?

A. No, there is no special procedure or induction for newcomers.
Q. But where am I supposed to stay?

A. You will eventually want to find a space of your own, of course, but  your present-felt need for shelter is more psychological than physical. I  mean that you're not in any danger (as you might well be in the  same circumstances in life). You don't in fact need protection from either  the elements or the people around you.
Q. Can I just go where I please then?

A. For the most part, yes. No one "owns" the Afterlife or any part of it.  On the other hand, people tend to make the space around them their own,  and this is something you will want to respect. For more on this subject,  see Chapter Three.
Q. How do I get around? Is there mass transit? Cabs? Bicycles?

A. Mostly by means of bipedal locomotion. Look around you and you'll see  few if any vehicles. A bicycle, perhaps, yes, but no cars, or if cars,  then doubtless Phantasms, invariably blue in color, which vanish when  approached. Carts, wheelbarrows, and rickshaws are seen, but their  function is probably ornamental since one seldom sees them in use. For the  most part, we walk. And walk and walk. "Where are you going?" "Down the  road." No one says "up" the road. We walk, sometimes fast, sometimes slow,  occasionally we run. In the streets, in the so-called malls, on the road.  We walk and walk. But as often, simply stand. Stand and stare, or not  stare.
Q. Will the clothes I have on eventually wear out?

A. Yes, but that's not a cause for worry. Stores (in the sense of  "accumulations of goods") are found everywhere in the Afterlife, and you  are at liberty to take what you want from them. To be honest, you may  never find the clothes you like when you're looking for them. For example,  you may want to wear dungarees but can only find, in your size, an evening  gown, albeit a quite lovely one. In the end, what you wear simply doesn't  matter; soon enough you'll lose your self-consciousness about such  things.
Q. If I had an addiction to, say, coffee, sweets, cigarettes, illegal  substances of a variety of sorts, will my addiction still be with me, and  if so, how will I satisfy my need?

A. Desires come and go. Desires fade. One hypothesis, avidly promoted by  Professors Burroughs, Bradley, and Lee, is that the Afterlife is in itself  a kind of addiction, a hallucinatory high with no side effects. Appealing  as this hypothesis is to some (and you're welcome to it if you wish), it  bears little relationship to the facts.
Q. You mentioned "professors." Are there universities in the Afterlife?

A. No degree-offering institutions exist. Titles such as Professor or  Doctor are usually carried over from one's previous existence, though you  may of course call yourself whatever you please.
Q. What is the smoke I see on the horizon?1 Are those whales? Is  that an ocean?

A. If you see the "whales," you're rare. Few people do, but enough  "sightings" have occurred to warrant extensive study of the subject. No,  what you see are not whales or smoke or even an ocean, though that  withdrawing roar does resemble the sound of waves receding from a shore.  Pozler theorizes, in a manner reminiscent of Hoyle's Steady State theory  of the universe, that this is the primordial matter from which the  Afterlife takes its sustenance. The most advanced hypothesis put forth to  date is that what you are seeing are tachyons, particles that travel  faster than light. Physicists are proposing that if they are tachyons and  tachyons form the base matter of the Afterlife, then we are traveling  faster than light, thus accounting for the fact that no one grows old  here. Husks decay, yes, and skin falls off the bodies of some; but in  general nothing truly ages.

1There is no true horizon anywhere in the  Afterlife. The  horizon we perceived in life as a line dividing earth from sky was a  perceptual construct forced upon us by the curvature of the earth. The  Afterlife gives every appearance of being a plane surface extending  indefinitely in all directions. At a distance of about a hundred  kilometers from any viewer, dust, moisture, and other particles in the  atmosphere combine to create a more or less impenetrable haze, and objects  within this haze are said to be (and are experienced as being) "on the  horizon."

Q. Can death occur in the Afterlife, and if so, is there a life after  Afterlife?

A. Many of the deceased would like to believe so. See Chapter Five,  "Religions of the Afterlife."
Q. Does everyone who dies come to this place?

A. If infants and small children arrive here as Husks, then presumably yes.  The fact that you may not be able to find your great-great-grandmother  doesn't prove she isn't here, somewhere; on the other hand, there is no  way to prove that she is here, unless you find her.
Q. My apparent age is about x. Why didn't I arrive in the Afterlife  younger or older? Will I stay this age?

A. Most people seem to feel that they arrived in the Afterlife at their  peak (though many will admit that this may be a rationalization). It's  true, for example, that the shades of athletes tend to be "younger" than  those whose achievements depended on maturity and experience. No answer is  forthcoming for those who ask why they couldn't have been translated to  the Afterlife younger or older; a few years ago I was informed that this  was "just the way the cookie crumbles." You will not age or grow younger.
Q. Why am I cold?

A. Because you are dead, and the prana (rosy light) that  cascades through your remains, though beautiful, offers no real warmth.
Q. Who's "in charge" here?

A. No one is in charge. There is ...

The guide of choice for anyone who plans to die someday--are YOU ready for the AFTERLIFE?

To find out, take this simple quiz:

1.  Like Earth, the Afterlife has celebrities, outcasts, deadheads, losers, and busybodies.  

True
False

2.  Is there an Afterlife after the Afterlife?

Yes
No

3.  When you first arrive on "the Other Side," you will be given:

a) a set of wings
b) a toaster
c) a copy of A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife

Don't worry if you're not sure how to respond. A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife has answers to these questions and more--and if you're lucky, some of them may turn out to be right!

An irreverent, one-of-a-kind compendium from the award-winning author of Ishmael, A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife can be read as a parable, an allegory, a work of fiction--or exactly what it claims to be: a helpful handbook for the recently deceased.  It is filled with uncommon wisdom, bizarre imaginings, uncanny perceptions, and unexpected humor.  Is it fantastic escapism or a seminal event in human history? Read it and find out....

Face it.  The Afterlife is the ultimate test.  You might as well study.