“Where do we go when we die?” It’s a question people have been asking for ages. Nobody quite knows the answer, and, well, it’s something they’re never going to find out, because the dead don’t speak. At least they usually don’t.
My mother was a medium, but I never really believed in any of that stuff. I knew the truth behind her business, and it was all a sham. There’s nothing you can’t find out with a quick Internet search if you do a little digging. Public records hold a lot of information.
I don’t believe in ghosts, I don’t believe in vampires or werewolves or any of those ridiculous creatures that Hollywood made so much money off of back in the old days. I’ve been around to several different churches, though I don’t think I’ve felt much in any of them. If there is a God, I don’t think He’s anything like what they say.
I guess I’m what you’d call a skeptic. I have to look up anything anyone tells me, and then I spend a while making an informed decision on what I want to believe. In truth, there’s not very much that I *do* believe to be true, other than that we are all human, and we all have to die someday. Whatever happens in between is up to your own interpretation.
I’m a professor of thought at a nice college, the youngest to ever have this particular job, which my admiring students like to remind me of so often. I’m twenty-eight, never married, and I never plan to. I don’t fancy men or anything like that. It’s more that I don’t fancy anyone at all. Women seem like much more trouble than they are worth, if you ask me. And don’t even get me started on children. The last thing I need is some snot-nosed little brat always poking into my business and taking me away from my work.
I live alone, in a nice apartment, but not too big. I try not to be materialistic, because all that stuff is just going to get sold off at an auction anyway on the day that I die. We really are but dust, which is something that I’ve heard the Catholic priests say when placing ashes on people’s heads one Wednesday a year. Even though I’m not religious myself, there’s a lot of religious sayings I like, that one especially. It shows the futility of life, how miniscule man is in the great scheme of things.
I don’t own any pets or plants, because I don’t need any other things to take care of aside from myself. I have a small, flat-screen TV, but all I ever really use it for is watching the news. I don’t much like movies. I don’t get a lot out of fiction. Sure, sometimes an author may put forth interesting theories, but how much weight do they hold in the context of a fantasy world? I like the real minds, like Socrates and Aristotle. They were far before their times. There’s got to be a reason we still study them today, and it isn’t because of any dinky little fairy tales they may have told. Even their myths had points. I have a decent set of bookshelves, but of course all they house is non-fiction.
I think people who believe in superstitions are fools that lack common sense and a well-working mind. Everything has some reasoning behind it, and if you can’t find out why something happened, well, then, you’re just not trying hard enough. It might have done in the old days to be superstitious, but in the modern times, with all the information at the tips of our fingers, well, it’s just plain stupid.
I wouldn’t really say that I have any friends, because what’s the use of making earthly connections if all that’s going to come of them is people showing up all in black to talk about how good so-and-so was, without ever really knowing much about them at all. I’m sure many of the infamous killers had nice funerals with pretty flowers and women wearing little black-veiled hats. What a laugh the deceased must have had, assuming that there is, indeed, an afterlife, though this is also something I tend to doubt.
But I was not long to hold all these beliefs. Funny things happen when one comes across the man in a black robe, carrying a scythe, though I’d like to add that this description is perfectly inaccurate. Death isn’t some scary, skull-faced creature that lurks about. No, he is just one of us gentlemen, set out to do his job.
It was a Tuesday, if I remember correctly, a few days before Halloween. I’ve never much liked holidays, not only because they’re mostly a corporate scam these days, but because they’re just plain ridiculous. A holiday is like no other day of the year, we only say it is special, and do a bunch of extra things to make it so. I’ve never quite understood, or cared. I never celebrate, just spend my days off work writing or poring over some old sage’s manuscript.
I was headed to the university library that day, going to browse around for materials on a class I planned to teach next semester. I had one class that day, but it wasn’t until the afternoon. It was a class I hated, an introductory course. The young minds– if you could really consider them such— only came as it gave them credit, not because they actually cared to open their eyes to the many different ways of seeing the world.
It was cold, as is common for this time of year, so I put on one of my heavier trench coats and headed out the door. The air was crisp, and leaves that the city workers had yet to clear off the sidewalk crunched under my step.
I know how to drive, but I don’t often use my car. I prefer walking, as it’s good for the body and the mind, and leaves me more time to think. I can’t stand people who walk around with AirPods or those ridiculous looking headphones all day, which I see so often on campus. They’re not engaging with the world around them, and it’s a good way to get killed. Everyone hears those news stories about a girl getting raped and murdered after she took some back alley. And of course, those are horrible things, but there would probably be less instances of them if people ever paid any damn attention to what they were doing and where they were going.
By - rosepriestess26
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