When I died, it took me by surprise. I didn’t even immediately realize it happened. I was walking down the street and I turned for a second to call out after a friend. Then I felt a waft of wind at my side, I lost my balance for a bit, and my vision went black for a moment. I thought I was just dizzy, or maybe had a sugar crash, but it turned out I was hit by car. Just like that, I was dead. No pain, no last words.

When I opened my eyes again, after what felt like a second, things around me weren’t all that different. I was still on a street, granted it wad a bit darker and dirtier, but similar enough that I didn’t immediately realize I was somewhere else entirely. I turned again to see if I could spot my friend, but there was no one. Slowly I began to realize my body wasn’t exactly there anymore. I was there, but I had no physical sensations at all. I was weightless, neither hot nor cold, not hungry or thirsty, tired or rested. It was strange.

What’s even stranger about the first few days of being dead is that you still once in a while get glimpses out of the corner of your eye of what’s happening to your body. To your actually body back on Earth. Throughout those first day I saw the inside of the ambulance. The friend I had turned to call out to. The faces of family members passing by, one by one. I didn’t exactly feel anything about what I was seeing. Being dead is a bit like being numb in that way. But I knew they were sad and that was hard to see.

While all of this was happening, I had my own afterlife to figure out. First, I had to figure out where I was. As I said, the place looked a lot like Earth, but it was decidedly less nice. No sunlight, no trees, no birds. The first person I met was a mean looking old man. He seemed to enjoy the fact that he got to tell me that I was in hell. Actual hell.

It’s strange because I’d never given the whole afterlife thing much thought. I didn’t go through the phase where people usually make up their minds if they believe in all that heaven and hell stuff. But if I had to make a judgment, I’d have (humbly) admitted I would probably go to heaven. I was a good enough person- I paid taxes, was a good friend, took good care of my cat and house plants, donated to charity and tried to help out in whatever way I could. I was no saint, but my sins where, I thought, minor.

The first few days I just went about discovering this strange place, feeling rather frustrated that I’d been misjudged. Fortunately there was an easy way to register my complaint.