The dead body of Ruth Clark turned slowly in the pulses of wind.

She’d known she was dead very early on, and it had surprised her. She hadn’t felt anything strike her, she’d just been flying through the air with her head perpendicular to her neck. Then she hit the ground and realized it.

A gust of wind stirred her hair, dark strands twisting over her neck. She wondered vainly how she looked in her death. She felt that she was fifteen pounds to heavy to be called ethereal, but perhaps she looked haunted and mysterious—as haunted and mysterious as she could be with the name Ruth Clark. God, she’d hated that name. It fell off of her tongue like it was so much mud caked to it.

Ruth wasn’t as concerned about the actual death as she knew she should be. She had a vague knowledge of the afterlife, in that she knew up was good and down was bad. But she didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Just staying here, letting cold snow blow across her face.

She wasn’t even sure who had hit her. It didn’t really matter at this stage. It was interesting being conscious of your body after death. Was it like this for everyone?

You didn’t expect to be struck by a car crossing the street. You assumed people would stop, that people would wait.

The air smelled like crushed rose petals and rust. Engine oil from the car.

Where was her life flashing before her eyes? She was supposed to get that, wasn’t she? She felt that she deserved at least that.

She felt that she deserved somebody telling her what was going on. It was tiring, just waiting. She almost understood how that car had felt—waiting was difficult. Her body felt very cold now.

Would anybody talk to her? Could you expect an interview? With Saint Peter, perhaps. The five step guide to being dead. The twelve step guide to curing yourself of addiction to life. How to Make Friends and Influence People, For the Late Ruth Clark. God knows she’d needed those the past sixteen years.

She’d had that book, actually. How to Make Friends and Influence People. She’d read it cover to cover and started trying to apply it. It hadn’t worked particularly well, but it had been a fun experiment. It got taken away from her eventually. She never found out what happened to it. Never asked. You didn’t ask when people snatched books from you.

People were yelling somewhere close by her, but she couldn’t see them through a film of snow over her eyes.

“What happened?”

“Some dumb kid got herself hit!”

“Is she okay?!”

“For God’s sake, I don’t know!”

Gotten herself hit. Ruth would have laughed at that if she could. She’d stepped out into the road and gotten herself hit. Gotten herself killed. Played russian roulette with an automatic, didn’t bring a backup parachute, swam with sharks, took a stroll on the road. Crossed the road.

If she’d known it was this easy, she wondered why it hadn’t happened before. If it was this easy, the streets would be stacked with so many cadavers lined up in a wall. They’d have to get the street cleaners out.

Gotten herself killed. Talked back to her father, said something wrong to her friends, overdosed on cold medicine. Walked along the road.

You killed me, Ruth Clark wanted to say. She didn’t know how true it was, and she couldn’t speak anyway. The snow dusted across her wet face.

She wanted to sob in a sudden agony of loss, but as for what she had lost, she could not remember.