The Afterlife

It’s that day of the month again, the day I pretend to be Matt. The ritual begins: I sit at my desk, open the drawer, and take out a pen, a notebook, and a blank postcard. I scribble a few words in the notebook, over and over, until I’m satisfied with the shape of the letters. Only then do I finally put the tip on the postcard itself and start writing the real thing.

I first met Matt one year ago, not far from here, on the same beach shown in the tacky picture on the back of the postcard. We stayed in neighboring guesthouses, both of them favorites of newly arrived backpackers, and bumped into each other on the street a few times before we ended up talking. Right at the beginning, when I asked him where he was from, he snapped: “It doesn’t matter anymore. I ain’t going back there—or anywhere else.”

I pretended that his reply was as commonplace as my question, and moved on to other topics without asking what he meant. But it got me thinking endlessly, and made me go out of my way to get closer to him over the following days. However, I could find no opportunities to continue the conversation, as Matt was always surrounded with people who seemed to be magically drawn to him. When we finally had a brief moment alone with each other, I had to act quickly. I suggested the first thing that came to my mind: hiking to the local attraction together. He agreed.

It was an easy walk through the forest. Every now and then Matt picked up a stick from the ground, examined it while walking slower, then stopped for a moment and forcefully threw it away into the thick vegetation.

“So are you going to stay in this area for long?” I asked. “Or are you planning to move up north soon?”

“Neither,” he said.

“There aren’t any other options.”

“Well, I may end up doing one of those. But not because I want to. I don’t want anything.”

“You did want to come here, though.”

“No. I just came. By default, I guess.”

We reached a clearing, walked unprotected under the glaring sky, and finally arrived at the ruins. The temple halls were empty. The idols had all been looted decades earlier, but they belonged to an extinct religion, without any devotees who would restore cosmic order by creating new representations of the lost deities. A beam of sunlight penetrated through a hole in the roof and touched the floor just in front of a massive barren pedestal. Matt stood in the light, closed his eyes, and smiled at me.

“It’s so pleasant,” he said. “Try it.”

I walked up to him and entered the bright circle on the floor. There was barely enough room there for the two of us, and I had to stand so close to him that our bodies nearly touched. Warmth was radiating from his skin, and now I was getting warm too. Then I took a step back and the temperature dropped.

“Feels good, huh?” He said.

“Yeah.”

“Much better than any damned god that ever stood here, I’m sure.” He opened his eyes and stepped out of the light too. Now, in the dark, he was hard to see clearly.

“So you’re not on your way to any place,” I said, waiting for my eyes to readjust enough to perceive his features again. “And you’re not staying here or going back to any place. How is that possible?”

“There’s just nowhere I want to live in. I hate this world.”

“But you liked being in the light. Isn’t it also part of the world?”

“I hate having to live in this world as a human. The rest is beautiful, yes.”

“So you want to die? I’ve often felt like I wanted…”

“No. I told you, I don’t want anything. I’m sick of having to want things.”

“But there must be something. Everybody wants something.”

“If you forced me to pick one thing, I’d say nonexistence. Never being born in the first place. That would be ideal.”

“Well, you exist. So that can’t happen.”

“Right.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I’ll have to settle for death.”

“I hope you’re not serious. Something is keeping you alive, after all. It means you’re stronger than you think.”

“It’s not something. It’s someone.”

“Who?”

“The one that took my nonexistence away from me.”

In the evening, back at the guesthouse, I spent a while studying the map I had marked with dozens of destinations, places to stay, and convenient routes for going everywhere. Beyond this town there was a whole country, a whole civilization, to explore, but none of it seemed important anymore. The only attraction that mattered was right here, across the street. With sudden urgency I ran downstairs and asked the staff at the front desk to extend my stay indefinitely.

The competition for Matt’s time became fiercer. His shared room was always crowded now. He showed no sign of wanting that attention, but also did nothing to make it stop. Most days, there were so many people in the room that I could only stand by the door and listen in. What I usually heard was some variation on our own conversations. But one time he said, in an impassioned tone, something I hadn’t heard before: “I’m not a murderer. To kill yourself is to murder those who love you. I could never do that to my mom after everything she’s done for me. I can’t repay her with a parent’s worst nightmare.”

“But you can’t go on living just for her, either” said another voice.

“I have to, until I find a way out that won’t hurt anyone but myself.”

I didn’t talk with Matt again until a traditional holiday arrived and drained the town of all the foreigners, who flocked to see the famous nighttime procession in the old city on the other side of the hills. Matt told everyone he was planning to stay, as he saw no reason to go; there was nothing over there that would fundamentally change anything for anyone. So I stayed too, although that procession was one of the must-see events on my list. I went to Matt’s guesthouse and found him having dinner alone. I said we could at least walk around and watch how the locals were celebrating.

“I wonder if they’ll even bother to,” he said. “Who would they do it for if all the tourists are gone?”

“The evil spirits are still here, and someone has to bribe them.”

It turned out the locals were not as worried about the spirits as I had assumed. There was just one bonfire, on the beach, and it was attended mainly by elderly women. They did all the hard work of throwing fake money and real food into the flames, while the rest of the townsfolk were sitting everywhere and chatting with cans of beer in their hands, like any other night.

Matt and I backed away from the bonfire and started walking along the shore. Our bare feet sank into the thick wet sand, and occasionally a stray wave rushed at us and the water reached as high as our knees.

“Why didn’t you go with everyone?” He asked.

“I wanted to be with you.”

“Why?”

“I’d like to hear about your mom.”

“My mom? Why?”

“I overheard you saying something about her. That you’re only alive for her.”

“Yeah.”

“So I figured she must be a special person.”

“She is. The best mother I know.”

“Why don’t you go back home and tell her that?”

“She knows how I feel. And I write to her once a month. I promised I would.”

“Why just once a month? I email my family way more often. Messaging apps are too intrusive for this kind of trip, but email…”

“She wants to see my handwriting on real paper. She said this way she feels closer to me.”

“Does she write back?”

“No, I asked her not to, as I’d be on the move all the time. It’s just to let her know I’m fine.”

“But you’re not fine.”

“As far as she knows, I am. And that’s how it needs to stay.”

“Look, Matt, I can’t stand to see you like this. Are you really going to live like you’re half-dead until you come up with some clever plan to become fully dead?”

“I already have that plan.”

“But you said you still needed to find a way to…”

“I don’t want people to know too much. Definitely not a bunch of amateurs like that lot in my room.”

“Amateurs? In what way are they amateurs?”

“They collect thrills. I’m unusual, so they like me. But when it’s time to do something unusual, instead of just looking at one, then they’ll run away.”

“How about me? I won’t run away.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“I am sure. What’s your plan? I want to know.”

“Well, my plan is to fake my life. Actually I’ve always faked it; now it’s just a matter of taking things to their logical conclusion. All I need is someone I can trust who’ll make it look like I’m still there.”

“What do you mean? Where?”

“I’ll only give you the details if you agree to be that someone.”

“Why should I agree without knowing what you’re talking about? What do I get out of it?”

“All the money I have in the bank.”

“Come on.”

“And knowing you saved a life. My mom’s.”

“What about yours?”

“You’ll save mine too. Although in a different way.”

I spent the night lying awake in one of the temporarily vacant beds in Matt’s room while he was tossing and turning in his own. Other than his tortured sleep there was stillness everywhere. But the crowd would be back in town sometime before noon. These rare hours of undisturbed clarity could be the last opportunity to resolve Matt’s stalemate. The longer I waited for morning, the more certain I became. And when Matt woke up I immediately told him to count me in. It took him a moment to see that I really meant it, and then he just lit up all of a sudden, shining more brilliantly than in that beam of sunlight.

I helped him pack a few things and we walked together to the bus station. There was a famous spot up north he had chosen as the location of his final act. It too was on my list, and I knew all about how to get there quickly. Just before he got on the bus he gave me a notebook with detailed instructions. He had written them by hand so they could be used as a model for copying. Now he wanted me to read them carefully, but I insisted there was no need, and put the notebook in my bag. The last thing he said to me was: “I’m really sorry you had to meet me, but I’m really happy I met you.”

Although there’s nothing to stop me from traveling around the country, I’ve remained in this area ever since. My only move so far was from that first guesthouse to a more secluded one closer to the ruins. Here, once a month, I put pen to paper and take Matt’s place writing a postcard to his mother, where I tell her, in the first person, about her son’s latest adventure or share an insight he recently had. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to maintain this illusion. At some point something will necessarily run out—the money that Matt left me, or my visa extensions, or my inventiveness, or my patience—and then I’ll have to do what Matt dreaded and simply go home. But in that case, according to the instructions I swore to follow, it would be my responsibility to hand over the role to someone else. Whatever happens, Matt’s mother will be in good hands; and Matt himself will secretly rest in peace, forever behind the curtain of his immortality.