When you're dead, you get to notice everything. No longer limited by having a brain or eyes, the universe opens itself up to you. You can feel everything at once. You can see everything at once. You can exist in past, present, and future. I think this is why our lives are said to flash before our eyes as we die. It's the hors d'oeuvres of how the dead taste time.

Religion is for the living. When my heart stopped beating, I was not transported to pearly gates or reunited with lost relatives. I became a cloud of consciousness spread across the known universe like stars.

Funerals are for the living. I watched every tear fall in mourning. My mother never cried. She just slumped in the second row of the church, touching each expletive and cartoon penis carved into the backs of the pews like braille. I followed her through all her years until her own death, but she never cried for me. She anesthetised the pain with bottles of prosecco and woke up feeling feverish each morning.