I always knew that darn satellite would be the death of me. It had been giving me trouble for the past two weeks and today, my TV wouldn't show anything exept for static. I didn't want to fix it, but I just had to watch television. I really should have called a professional, but I guess it's in a man's nature to want to fix everything himself. As I climbed up onto the roof to see what was wrong, the old wooden ladder that I was using finally broke. I only fell about fifteen feet, but I landed right on the stone sculpture in my garden, effectively breaking my back and severing my spinal cord. I was paralyzed, but fortunately I felt no pain.
As I lay dying, my neighbor, who had seen the accident from his yard, rushed over to help. But it was too late. My major organs had already started to shut down. A numbness washed over me. He stood above me and I could see his mouth moving, but I couldn't hear him, or anything for that matter. My vision went black.
When I could see again, he was gone. I felt different, weightless. I stood up. I wasn't sad, but I felt very calm. When I looked down, I saw that I was now the one standing over my own body. The sculpture had broken and, ironically, this disappointed me, as it had been a beautiful piece of art. My physical body stared back up at me. I knelt down, and with a brush of my ghostly fingers, I shut my own eyes.
I then felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around, and found myself looking right into the eyes of Death. He was a very tall skeletal figure dressed in a pitch black robe. It hurt my eyes to look at him for too long. He eyed me, and then glanced down at my dead body. He nodded his skeletal head, and started to walk away. I stood up. "Wait!" I yelled. He turned around, his dark robes flowing in the wind. I hesitated before I spoke. Death had a look of annoyance on his bony face. "W-What do I do now? Where do I go?" Death chuckled. "Where would you go?" Upon saying this, he vanished.
That was when I saw them, ghosts, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. They walked around aimlessly, pale skin, pure white eyes that pleaded to be free. Some were wearing clothes from other eras. I saw tattered leather jackets, weathered suits, and torn dresses in the sea of spirits. Some weren't even wearing clothes. Some looked ghastly, like they weren't even human. All I could hear was their moaning. And that was when I realized my fate. There is no afterlife. I now understand that I am doomed to walk the earth forever, without purpose, like everyone before me and everyone after.