I don’t believe in the afterlife; it has brought me much comfort to think that once I’m gone, I won’t know I’m gone. Who wants to hang around and watch other people live while you can’t? Who wants to sit there and think for eternity? Not me, thank you very much.
But while a real-life afterlife is an unnerving concept for me, the idea of continuing to exist after you die does make for excellent stories, especially when you become some new thing, as in the following examples:
Driftwood
“Driftwood” by E.M. Linden
When you die, you find yourself looking at a vast sea, countless sand dunes, and a large beach dominated by driftwood sculptures, new ones arriving and old ones vanishing every day. They intimidate you with their beauty and monstrosity, but at least you have company. On the horizon, the sky is full of stars, the place where you must go. The longer you stay on the beach, the more difficult it becomes to remember colors, things, names. If you don’t want to be turned into driftwood too, you need to move on. You need to be brave. Are you?
A tree
“The Tree in the Back Yard” by Michelle Yoon
Mariska lives on the mountains-turned-islands in what used to be the countries of Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, now mostly under the sea. When people die, their loved ones often send them to the Tower of Eternity Pods, where their spirits linger. Making a tree out of a person is a way of giving back to the planet after taking so much from it.
When Mariska’s mother had died, they’d scattered her ashes in the sea. She isn’t ready to do the same with her father’s remains, so she sends his body to the Tower instead. But when she finally visits the place and finds his spirit among the thousands of the others—something not everyone can do—she is hit with a feeling she’s only experienced once before, when her mother connected to her grandmother through a medium back in her childhood. Now she needs to consider if it’s always a good idea to be able to hang on to the ones you lost.
A while ago I read an interesting article about the digital reminders—social media profiles, voice notes—that people leave behind after their deaths, and what their families do with these remnants of their loved ones. Yoon’s story looks at this same question in a world in which technology and spirituality co-exist.
A spirit to remind people of their promises
“Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls” by Richard Parks
There’s a dry well outside Hiroshi’s village and he is pulled towards it, because from the well comes sweet music he can’t ignore—music that he knows is coming from a spirit and seems to exist specifically for him. His uncle tries to tell him that the underground—the realm of the dead—is not a place with which the living should concern themselves. But when Hiroshi seems determined to follow the music, his uncle tells him how no effort at exorcism has worked—and so Hiroshi must be the one to free this spirit. But whose spirit it is, what form has it taken exactly, and why?
An artificial intelligence
“Confession #443 (Comments open)” by Dominica Phetteplace
A group of friends were hiking along a particularly tricky part of a trail when they encountered Professor Gemain Mangleman, who was coming from the opposite direction and, because of the unexpected traffic, fell into the canyon below. The friends didn’t try to help or tell the cops. Now everywhere they go, they are haunted by the Professor’s image: the AI art generator app always returns his image, they get banner ads for his books, their smart glasses superimpose his face on other people they’re talking to.
It turns out that the Professor was a controversial figure and was attempting to merge himself with an AI, which now claims to be him. How will the friends navigate the world when the Professor follows them everywhere? Will they confess? Will the ways other people have hacked into the AI perhaps frame them as guilty, or will it prove to be their salvation?
A restaurateur
“Amma’s Kitchen” by Rati Mehrotra
When Amma passed away, the Shadow Man gave her a job—to mind the diner people visit after they die and before they move on. But the position comes with restrictions: Amma must serve whoever comes to the place, she can’t eat what she makes, and most importantly, she can’t leave. Stuck here, Amma now tries to serve both the newcomers and the regulars. She likes being useful, but she also regrets the bargain she made with the Shadow Man. She doesn’t remember why she made it and even what her name is (although she likes being called mother). But she longs to remember. Will she defy the Shadow Man to get the answers, or stay here forever, helping others?
