Oh, and but the Dead Man actually did have another near-death experience, almost died another time, too, let me tell you about that. It was sunset and he was out driving with three others. He was in the backseat, next to one friend, while the other two were up front. The two up front were bickering – the driver, the owner of the car, decided that he wanted to drive in the hills outside of town, which was not part of the initial plan – while the two in the back sat in silence, lost in thought. But as they got closer to the hills, the two bickering forgot their argument, falling into silence, and were also soon lost in thought. The sky was golden and cotton candy pink and, if there is an astral plane, it felt like this was it, the plane was open to enter, the path clear, here was your chance – though none of the boys in the car were conscious of this and, at best, felt it subconsciously. Music played but so low that it was unclear what it was – no, all of them, the Dead Man included, were lost in thought. They were passing through a small neighbour at the base of the hills when, suddenly, the driver, maybe becoming bored, maybe not even thinking, accelerated hard coming out of a turn, the back wheels slipped, and they ploughed into two parked cars. The Dead Man got out of the car without even checking on the others, stretched his back and neck then inspected – literally checked, one after the other – his limbs. There was blood on him, but he couldn’t quite tell from where, not realising it wasn’t even his. He listened for pain, anticipating, waiting for it to come, like the rumble of a faraway storm; the air was filled with smoke and the smell of burnt rubber. The Dead Man, slowly regaining clarity, finally remembered his friends, all of them still in the car. They would be OK – all of them, some soreness and some bruising, but OK. But it was only the Dead Man who, for some reason, escaped without a single scratch. 

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Tristan Foster is a writer from Sydney, Australia. He is the author of three books: the short story collection Letter to the Author of the Letter to the Father, 926 Years with Kyle Coma-Thompson and Midnight Grotesques with Michelle Lynn Dyrness.