After reading “The Department of Newlydeads,” by Katherine G., I was able to imagine life after death. This short, fiction story is about a woman named Lydia Shepsky who was poisoned, and murdered by someone she seemed to know. It takes place in a dark, empty world with “steel giants reaching into a cloudy sky,” which is supposed to be the afterlife. Lydia is given the option to haunt her killer, whom she mentions quite a lot. She reminisces about the way he killed her; about his soft voice as she died and his slender fingers on her face.
    

I must have read this piece ten times just trying to figure out how someone could create something so realistic and thrilling. It was unusually interesting to see how vividly Lydia remembered her death. And how haunting it was for her. The author’s description of this lonely, grey world is a perfect image of what afterlife may be like. I always imagined a happy, colorful place but her description allowed me to imagine something different. I am personally terrified of death. I can’t imagine leaving the ones I love and I especially can’t begin to think of what happens after. But now, I can imagine an afterlife full of revenge and sorrow.