Dead Upon Awakening

         You know those days when you wake on the wrong side of the bed? Well, I had one of those days, but I woke up on the wrong side of the afterlife. I woke up to find I had died in my sleep, but I didn't wake up on the other side of the light. I woke up next to my body, staring at my lifeless corpse.
         I was only a twenty-three year old woman of what I had thought was good health, but I wasn't really surprised that I woke up dead. Perhaps my subconscious knew I was going to go. It was probably my heart defect that finally gave in. What did surprise me was that I woke up next to my corpse, and not in some sort of afterlife. I was certain that there must have been an afterlife, because there was definitely not enough space for every dead person to hang around on Earth. There must have been some reason that I hadn't passed through to the other side.
         Thinking further, I realized that there were most likely not very many ghosts floating around. Wait, no, that wasn't right. I was not floating. I was standing solidly on the floor. I could touch material objects, but my senses were all dulled. My hearing was softened, and my sense of smell was mostly diminished. My eyes saw the way that old movies look - fuzzy and quaint. Being dead was a very unusual experience.
         I must have gotten stuck on Earth for a reason. Was there something I had to do before I could pass through? Had I died and left something unfinished? Maybe I would be left as a ghost for all of eternity. I shook my head and walked down to the kitchen, intending to make breakfast. What would I do as a ghost? Wait, no, that's not right either. Ghosts don't eat breakfast. To make it more difficult, I had no idea how much time I had to kill in my current state of being. For all I knew, I could be stuck as a ghost for hundreds of years.
         No, this was not a good way to go about thinking. I was dead. There was not anything I could do about it. I had to be logical about this! I probably wouldn't be able to communicate with any of the living, and they wouldn't be able to help me anyway. But if I could find another ghost, they might have some insight!
         On a sudden flash of brilliance, I dashed down to the front door. An old reflex told me to put my shoes on, but I realized that since I was dead it probably didn't matter. I was headed to the graveyard that was a few blocks away. This was the only time I had ever been glad to live next to it! The graveyard was small, with less than a hundred tombstones. I had never been there when I was alive, and it seemed silly to start going now that I was dead.
         It took me only a few minutes to get to the graveyard, I walked at a very brisk pace. I was in luck! There was a teenage boy sitting next to a maple tree. I waved at him, overjoyed at how easy it had been to find another ghost! I knew he was a ghost immediately; he sent out vibes that gave him away. The boy did not realize that I was waving at him right away. He wore a look of pure shock when he understood that we were in the same place.
         I sat down next to him and introduced myself. I learned that my new companion's name was Johnny, and he had been dead for over fifty years. He had spent most of his days wandering around the graveyard. He watched people visit the graves, and he told me that he had met a few other ghosts over the years. They each disappeared after some time, and never gave any warning. He said that the ghosts did not seem to have much in common other than the fact that they had not crossed to the afterlife.
         Johnny and I talked for a long time about our lives - and deaths. My sense of time was off, because I was amazed to notice when the sun had begun to set. I had spent all of my first day dead talking to a ghost. I hadn't even made sure somebody had found my body. Perhaps that didn't matter, as I was dead and I had found somebody to talk to.
         Johnny told me that he thought I would be around for a long time. He said I could haunt the graveyard with him. He said that we could be friends. We could spend the days scaring people who came to mourn, and the nights guarding the graves. Johnny had a twisted mind, he knew all sorts of cruel jokes. He said he never got tired of doing everything he was never able to do as a poor, living boy.
         It appeared that I would have a lot to do as a ghost. My mind had already begun creating a list of people to haunt. I could go anywhere and I could do anything! Maybe Johnny was a bad influence. Or maybe not getting to the afterlife wouldn't be so bad after all.