Maybe this is why I sleep only a few hours a month. I don't want to die again. This has become clearer and clearer to me recently, a desire so sharp and focused I can hardly believe it's mine: I don't want to die. I don't want to disappear. I want to stay.

Is this muteness a real physical handicap? One of the many symptoms of being Dead?Or do we just have nothing left to say?

I want life and in all its stupid sticky rawness.

It's more eerie to be alone in a city that's lit up and functioning than one that's a tomb. If everything were silent, one could almost pretend to be in nature. A forest. A meadow. Crickets and birdsong. But the corpse of civilization is as restless as the creatures that now roam the graveyards.

You know things are moving. You're changing, you fellow Dead are changing, the world is ready for something miraculous. What are we waiting for?

She hugs me. It's tentative at first, a little scared, and yes, a little repulsed, but then she melts into it. She rests her head against my cold neck and embraces me. Unable to believer what's happening, I put my arm around her and just hold her. I almost swear I can feel my heart thumping. But it must just be hers, pressed tightly against my chest.

I feel an unfamiliar but pleasant sensation in my lips, tugging them upward. This is... new.