By Christopher Thomas 

“You said I died.”

“I certainly did, sir. Head trauma from a motor vehicle accident. (Look at my finger now, sir.) The two in the other vehicle are on their way to R&I if they’re not there already. (Focus on my finger, sir.) You held on for nearly an hour before you passed over. (Now hold your head still and follow my finger with your eyes, sir.) Anyone else involved in the accident has either survived or was removed from the scene. (Very good, sir. Well done.)”

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s entirely to be expected, sir. You died, which is outside your direct or indirect experience. Not only but also, you probably have a concussion that doesn’t help with grasping ontology. Sorry, sir, I mean, to be clear: you do have a concussion, and that probably doesn’t help with grasping ontology.”

“Did you save my life? Did you bring me back to life?”

“Yes and no, sir. As I said, you died. Nothing I could do about that, I wasn’t there, and if you hadn’t died we certainly wouldn’t be having this conversation now. However, once you had died I was able to prevent secondary complications. So, yes, I saved your life, but no, I did not bring you back to life. More accurately, I did not send you back, I kept you alive once you had passed over.

“So I’m not dead.”

“You are not dead, sir. You died, but just the once, so now I have the pleasure of your company here. Soon I’ll sign you over to Rehabilitation & Induction and the pleasure will be all theirs.”

“Is this the afterlife?”

“This is real life now, sir. Your forelife has ended and R&I are here to set you up for the real thing. Some people don’t cope well with the idea, sir, but the vast majority find the continued existence of other people they know have died to be quite convincing. So as soon as you’re patched up R&I will get in contact with some next of kin.”

“I died, and I’m still alive, but this is not the afterlife.”

“Please take care, sir. Some of the young people like to call this ‘Life 2.0’; there is no evidence of a ‘Life 3.0’ despite the obvious extrapolation. I did some good work this morning, I’d hate for it to go to waste.”