I heard a fly buzz when I died.

It was still buzzing, flinging its tiny blue self against the cold window, when I came back the next day.

I had signed away what portion of me I could make assignable—namely, that dim and bottled essence some call a soul, formlessly locked somewhere deep within until Death stops to draw it out with his civil hand, long-fingered and clean.

I had yearned for that Day of Days so long. I had been so eager to taste eternity, I eagerly put my name to the necessary papers that would ensure my return, so that I might be able to reflect on passing through the veil.

While I slept, so I was told, after the last consumptive breath went out and did not draw back again, the shimmering dust of artificial life crept through my sluggish veins. My skin changed to alabaster. Strange oils and liquors coursed through me.

Then, I opened my crystalline eyes. The fly buzzed on. Someone was humming “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

From this side of life, of death, I will say: Exultation is the going.