The professor was explaining that when we die 
we don’t get to watch any more game shows, 
sporting events or soap operas on television. 
Nor do we get to eat our favorite snacks like yogurt, 
Cheez-Its and PowerBars, but that we do get to talk 
with a friend—who’s still alive—via walkie-talkie 
between the hours of two a.m. and five a.m. when a lot 
of people are sleeping: this on Mondays and Tuesdays, 
and only on Thursdays if you were a postal worker 
when you were alive and seldom delivered mail 
to the wrong house, which forced the occupant 
to write on the envelope, “Not at this address,” 
which invariably made the postman or postwoman 
think of suicide, a circumstance that most of us 
have considered from time to time, and really 
is just a part of the human condition…