The world is so loud.  I can hardly stand it.  So many voices...all 
the time...murmuring, screaming, yelling, laughing, crying, all 
around me.  It is the souls of the living bustling about in the every 
day dance of life. I don't remember being bothered by the noise 
before.  Not when I was apart of the dance, when I was alive.  But 
now its positively excrutiating. I can't make it stop.  I can't make 
it go away.  My mind has concluded that the living cannot "hear" 
their inner selves.  The part that is not flesh, but still always 
talking, thinking, feeling, experiencing.  It is fascinating that now 
I am dead, I can, even though it is painful and I don't want to.  I'm 
not sure if pain is the correct word for the experience, but it is 
the closest my mental recollection can come up with.  So it will have 
to do.

I can remember when the evil one's hold on me was lifted.  One minute 
I was standing there in the humpfa, beside the alter, staring at a 
decomposed counterpart of myself.  We were slaves to the evil one's 
will.  We could do no other than what she commanded of us.  The 
creature I stared at was pitiful.  I say that only because I have no 
other words the living might understand as a proper description, not 
because I pitied her.  I don't remember how to "pity." Still, she and 
I were the same.  We were not supposed to be here, yet we were 
trapped.  Held captive by the evil one's suffocating will.

Then, in an instant, that will dissapated.  I stood there for the 
longest time, not knowing what to do.  There was no one to tell me.  
I felt alone.  A devestating lonliness that yawns before you like a 
terrible, unimaginable beast fixed on devouring you.  Yet there is no 
end, no death, no release as there would be with someone who had 
died.  We were already dead.  How does one die again?  The 
decomposing one laid down on the floor.  She tried to escape from her 
fleshly prison.  She banged her head against the floor repeatedly for 
some time with great violence.  Black liquid oozed from out the back 
of her skull onto the white-washed flooring, but nothing happened.  
She got up and walked to a wall, proceeding to bash her head against 
the wall, but still she could not release herself. A thought entered 
my conscious that this was sad, but somehow I could not remember what 
that felt like.  

This nuance that I could not remember how to feel intrigued me.  
Looking down, I managed to command my own arm to raise itself to 
hover in front of my face.  My fingers rubbed against each other and 
a memory of touching skin that my dentist had numbed with Novicaine 
as a child flashed in my mind.  This was the comparison my conscious 
thoughts made to the sensation of touching my fingers together.  
Mentally I knew my fingers were touching, but I could not make my 
senses "feel" them touching.   The connection I had known in life 
between thought and physical sensation had been severed.

A loud click reverberated in the sanctuary and I turned my attention 
again to the decomposed one's actions.  She had found a weapon and 
raised it to her head.  She pulled the trigger and a tremendous 
explosion shook the walls, filling the room with fetid smoke.  As if 
once wasn't enough, several more shots were emptied from the weapon 
until it clicked empty.  Once the smoke from the weapon cleared, I 
found that the decomposed one's physical form was still standing 
where it had before.  She still had the weapon in her grasp, but an 
entire side of what was left of her face had been blown away.  It is 
true that her body no longer decomposed while she was trapped inside 
it, but neither did it heal from the wounds that were inflicted upon 
it.  She was a dead person trying to commit suicide.  My mental 
capacity suggested that this idea should be amusing, but I have 
forgotten what if feels like to be amused.

After several more moments of us staring at each other in silence, 
the decomposed one dropped the weapon from her hand like a forgotten 
toy and turned towards the door.  She walked until the door itself 
hindered her and she could move no further.  Still her feet kept 
moving as if she were making some sort of progress.  A memory flashed 
in my conscious that one had to open a door to keep going without 
hindrance, so I moved over to stand next to her and reached out to 
turn the handle and open the door.  Without a word, the decomposed 
one, began to move on past the door and because I had nothing else to 
do, no other directions to follow, I walked through the door behind 
her.  We wandered mindlessly up through the non-descript white 
corridors, and then through another door to more elaborate 
furnishings of what I thought must be a prosperous home.  Finally, 
there was a huge ornate oak door that led to the outdoors which we 
passed through and still we kept walking because there was nothing 
else to do.

Thus we walked for a long time.  I say that because I do not remember 
how to measure time.  It doesn't seem that important to do so 
anymore. I can remember that as we approached the living ones, there 
were several stunned by our appearance and had differing reactions 
from terror, to anger, to horror.  They all moved aside however, and 
let us pass without incident.  Finally we reached an area that had 
many tall buildings which we stopped and stared at for a long time, 
unmoving.  As we had gotten closer to the tall buildings, the noise 
had increased.  First it buzzed around me similiar to the song of 
mosquitos in the evening air, then the white noise of a cafeteria 
that jumbled conversations and thoughts together in an unintellible 
mass.  Now it fairly whooshed over me like standing in the wake of a 
mighty propulsion engine of a plane, thus making it very difficult 
for my mental capacity to concentrate.  What I was concentrating on 
however, I do not know.  Still it seemed important to be able to 
concentrate, and therefore I suppose I could describe the noise as 
irritating.

Suddenly, the decomposed one started walking again and I followed, 
opening the doors that hindered her path.  It seemed important to do 
so as she would only bump into the doors if I did not.  We plodded 
into a tall building and towards the stairwell.  Once again walking 
for a long time, we went higher and higher and higher.  I discovered 
that I could detect the change in air pressure as my flesh prison 
seemed to expand in the thinner air.  Eventually, we reached the top 
of the tall structure and found sky around us.  My instincts suddenly 
surged forward, reaching for the sky, wanting to be released from the 
flesh that held me captive.  My physical form no longer seemed to fit 
as it had in life. I felt disconnected from it and didn't belong to 
it anymore, yet there was something tying me to it and I could not 
despite all my best efforts be free.  I was wrestling with an unseen 
jailer and defeat weighed heavily on my mind.

The decomposed one felt it too and I heard her spirit scream in 
frustration against it.  She fought viciously with the invisible 
demon that anchored her to her body, moving precariously closer and 
closer to the edge of the building until in a breath, her physical 
form went over the side.  If there was an audible noise, I was not 
aware of it.

I remember my conscious thought was to lie down on my stomach and 
crawl towards the edge.  I peered over the side and saw her rumpled 
and mutilated body where it lie, broken beyond repair.  I could hear 
her screaming desperately, pitifully, mourningly begging to be 
released.  Her fleshly prison would no longer obey her commands, so 
she could only lie there and plead. I do not know who if anyone was 
listening.  Gradually the living ones came and scooped up her broken 
body, placing it into a black bag and depositing it into an orange 
and white vehicle with flashing lights.  Some of the living ones came 
up to see where she had fallen from, but I did not let them find me.  
I did not want to be put into a bag too.  Freedom seemed important to 
me.  My body still worked.  More or less.  The two mens mouths moved 
as the conversed with each other while they noted the point of her 
fall, but I only heard one thinking of his wife and how similiar the 
victim's hair color had been to hers and that he would have to call 
her when they got back to the station.  The other one was hungry.

Once they left, I remember concluding as I huddled in the shadows 
while the darkness closed in around me, that dying again did not seem 
to be easily attainable.  Therefore, I would have to discover a way 
to live again.  To try and remember what that felt like.