My Ghost Prevention Plan
The Valley of the Jerseyikes
When you’ve decided to your own satisfaction that life doesn’t end with physical death, what have you got to worry about? That probably depends on where you come down on the age-old questions about ghosts. Do they exist? Are they a possible fate of troubled souls after they’ve shuffled off this mortal coil or been yanked out of it too suddenly? What if you expire peacefully and find yourself waking up in the attic of your own house, somehow tethered to it with no watch you can trust to keep track of time? I know I’ve stopped wearing a watch at all, like almost all of you out there. Are we taking some kind of risk that we’ll miss the departure signal for the trip to the other side?
One side effect of getting old and not liking most of what’s on teevee is that you wind up watching too many paranormal shows, which have the virtue of no politics, no gratuitous sex scenes, and extended stretches of restful watching with almost nothing happening on screen. Great to sleep to. I’ve seen enough of theses shows to believe that ghosts do exist. If all these hows are fake, why do so many of them exhibit the same phenomenon of sudden, irrational terror by bored unbelievers like cameramen and former prison guards? I have as much confidence in my ability to detect real fear as I do in my ability to detect the phony 911 call of a spouse-murdering husband or wife on the true crime shows. My call.
Not tying to convert anyone, just explain why I’m mulling countermeasures to ghosthood. I don’t see any particular danger from the ‘troubled soul’ issue, where slamming doors and scaring people at the bottom of the stairs is some compensation for an indeterminate sentence to self-imposed purgatory. That seems to be a fate reserved for suicides, unparented children, and those whose sense of guilt for sins in life makes them afraid to cross over. Why ghosts occupy themselves with mischief for the most part, both malicious and whimsical. Troubled isn’t a word I’d choose for myself at this point. My life makes sense to me, I’m pleased with what I’ve been able to accomplish, and my regrets, of which I have my share, don’t add up to nightmares and other torments. I could be wrong about the level of guilt I should feel. But that’s not what keeps me up nights.
What keeps me up at night is unfinished business. I’m not talking about a bucket list. I don’t have one. What I still have, despite my advanced years, is a to-do list of writing projects there’s almost no chance I can finish enough of before I die to satisfy me. If you’re a writer, that’s supposed to be a good thing. You’re not written out. You’re just running out of time and stamina, not ideas.
But with whom do I have unfinished business? Not really with friends and family. Ways have been parted with almost all of them by now, which is a natural process. I’ve never much enjoyed trying to revisit old good times. That always seems forced and a substitute for not having anything new to talk about. My experience has been that the most universal consequence of old age is loss of curiosity, which makes the truly inevitable losses seem lesser in gravity. The dead are still alive in my mind and I can visit them at will or in my dreams if that is a different thing. The incurious seem to have discovered it as a kind of immunization against the disappointments of failing physical ability and failing energy to explore new subjects that are way bigger than you have time left in which to pretend mastery is achievable. I understand.
No, my real unfinished business has to do with the future generations I have always known I would not live to see. What the mission of my writing, almost all of it, has always been. When a new generation is born that is not bored out of the gate, unraised by bored parents, uneducated by bored teachers, and unable to establish individual belief in and faith in verities that go beyond anything material we use to count the worth of experience, I want that generation to find what I have left behind. Not because it is better especially but because it was written particularly with the boredom demon in mind, as a way of fighting and overcoming it.
Why I have developed an afterlife plan for my physical remains. I’ve decided (finances permitting, of course) not to be cremated and scattered in the sea off Cape May Point. Instead, I am seeking a place I know exists that looks like the photograph up top, an abandoned sand quarry in southern New Jersey. There I intend for a bargain basement tomb, epic in its own ways, that will remain invisible and untouched until someone discovers it by accident decades from now.
It doesn’t cost much to hire a backhoe for a day and scoop out a deep deep hole in the heights of the packed sand.
It only takes a few minutes to learn how to operate a
backhoe. How I buried Andrew the greyhound years ago.
What goes into the hole? When I was a kid my dad was fond of the story about a man who decided he wanted to be buried not in churchyard but in his Ferrari. The punchline is he actually did it, and the funeral was great fun for all involved. I can’t afford a Ferrari and wouldn’t want one anyway. My absolute preference is for a vehicle that will be at home in the sand. An old, beat-up 2-Dr Land Rover, built for the long haul with a big head start on the longest haul of all.
I know it’s sitting alone in some garage somewhere, waiting for me.
Then they can put me in it.
What goes in the back seat is far more important than what’s left of my body. All my books and a passel of thumb drives containing all my writings and graphic works should be hermetically sealed in a sturdy Ziplok bag protected by layers of weatherproofed fabric.
The whole shebang can be lowered into the hole. No funeral service is required on my part. I’ve said my prayers, and I don’t expect any big turnout. Unless someone spills the secret ahead of time. Which is not a good idea, but it’s out of my hands at that point, obviously.
That way, I won’t worry. Eventually, somebody will dig me up. It will be a curiosity if nothing else. And maybe some smart young reporter will start digging to see why anybody would think it important to leave such a pile of words and pictures and digital sounds and numbers behind. Maybe I’ll find the audience I’ve always been after.
If I come to in the attic, dead and disembodied, I won’t waste time. I’ll go looking for the light straightaway. If there is no light, which I doubt is the case, I won’t know it. Something for all of you who believe there is no light to think about. If there is and you wake up in your attic dead and disembodied, what the hell will you do?
Who’s in better shape either way?
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