June

Issue 33

     I don’t know how I died, but I’m certain it happened at some point. I still eat, yes; drink, of course; and take care of business at the other end of the food chain, as my mother used to say. Nevertheless, I am quite dead. There’s no other explanation for...things.

     Take my location, for instance. A boiler room. I am—was—a tenured professor in the history department at Hofstra. My faculty ID card had been in a shoebox along with an empty wallet, some mints, and a newspaper article (“King” Arthur Loses Control in Excalibur Re-enactment—6 Dead) when I arrived here. I think I was one of the six. It would explain my attire as well: a pair of boxers and a hospital johnny with Mercy General on the breast. I was injured at a Renaissance Faire exhibition, died at the hospital, and wound up in Purgatory. From ivory tower to sub-basement in a heartbeat...or lack of one. Sounds like the ironic twists from Il Purgatorio, no?

     This isn’t what I expected it to be. Growing up Methodist, I confess I didn’t expect Purgatory to be at all. Yet here I am.