What Happens When We Die?: Best Case Scenarios
Finally get cast as Yorick in your community theater’s production of Hamlet!
Get reincarnated as a rat. Live rent-free.
Haunt a bagel store. Eat bagels constantly.
Have a cowboy ballad written about you. Have a bunch of kids at a summer camp become obsessed with the ballad and make a series of poorly shot videos where they lip-sync to the song while in a canoe.
Be dug up by a grave robber and the grave robber, upon seeing your body, says, “Damn! She had good taste in shoes!”
Go to the underworld and get a free boat ride.
Get composted and finally successfully grow some basil.
Be displayed in the Bodies Exhibit and have your nervous system inspire countless passersby to make jokes on the theme “The nerve of some people…”
Be summoned by some of your descendants at a seance and get to weigh in on some important topics, like where you buried the family inheritance or who murdered your family’s butler or where your descendant’s lost keys are.
Be summoned by some 9-year-olds using a Ouija board at a sleepover and get to weigh in on some important topics, like does Mrs. Nelson eat boogers and are boys made of farts.
Have your grave be one of the subjects of an annual cemetery tour where a volunteer dresses up as you.
Get reanimated by a mad scientist. Subsequently, share your experience in a world-wide speaking tour where your intro music is “The Monster Mash.”
Donate your body to science and have med students compliment your spleen.
Go to heaven. Say, “It’s like I died and went to heaven!” and have everyone laugh because they’ve never heard that before.
Katie Brookoff is a writer, cartoonist, and former children’s birthday party entertainer whose work has been featured in McSweeney’s, The Southhampton Review, and a book that only exists in a library in the video game Thimbleweed Park. You can find her on Instagram or Twitter @katiebcartoons or at katiebcartoons.com.
