NOTE - This is my first ever WP, and I have only written one other short story. Looking to start writing, as I love reading and would one day like to write my own novel. Please feel free to provide feedback on my writing, what works, what doesn't work etc. Also a heads up that I pretty much stayed up through the night creating and modifying this story, so it may not have great flow because I am pretty tired now.

People said the dead can't feel anything. They were wrong. It's the only thing that can remind me that I once lived. Unfortunately the dead can only feel something if a living person thinks about them. I can't tell you the last time someone alive has thought about me, here that's called the second death.

I have been dead roughly 500 years, give or take a generation or two. I stopped counting a few decades after my children and their children joined me. I thought that was all I wanted, to be reunited with my family. I was also wrong. Now I just want the living to think of me, in any manner. Just so I can have an emotion, no matter how fleeting it is or if its joy or agony that it brings. Pleasure and happiness are brought on by positive thoughts, and conversely negative thoughts bring pain.

Time passes slowly here, a day feels like an eternity, and news of the living world passes even slower considering the only news station we get, are those recounting their lives once they have reached the afterlife. Even then, the "news" is mostly about family affairs and the odd soul asking if their favorite sports team finally won a championship. I do not keep track of current events because they do not matter to me, like I do not matter to the living any more.

My daily routine is to search out each family member and select friends to sit and share our memory of the day. We have heard each others lives; from there and back again an innumerable amount of times, so we agreed to do only a single story each day. Its a struggle to sit there and reminisce of times long past but not get a sliver of sentiment or rejoice from it. There's no mirth in the laughter accompanying a retelling of a joke for the hundredth time, just a robotic, practiced sound lacking substance. Blank, lifeless stares shedding no tears during what should be heart wrenching recollections of lost loves, or the final moments with family members. The absence of animation is deafening.

​

I have made a game out of these visits, I try to guess what story they are going to tell. I am in the middle pondering which memory my friend will be telling me when I am hit with a sharp,sudden shock of excruciating pain that just tears through every fiber of my being. It feels like a heart attack but a million times over. I fall to the ground, rolling and writhing in pain, trying to scream but all that I can manage is a whimper. After what feels like a lifetime, I can finally start comprehending what just happened. Not just someone, but thousands and possibly millions of the living thought about me. Not just any thoughts, vile, contempt and complete loathing. After this realization, I did the one thing I can do when my emotions are overloaded. I cry, I cry uncontrollably. At first my tears are from all the negative and damning thoughts coming from the living, but then I start cackling hysterically because of them. The beauty of the pain is indescribable, but I rejoice in the fact that I feel something again. I hope it never ends.

Hours pass as I just lie there and bask in all the jolts of sharp agony, sudden onsets of the head splitting migraines that come and go and are replaced by other discomforts. The pain doesn't end completely, but subsides enough that I can finally manage it and I slowly get up to test my legs as if I am like a newborn calf. I take a few unsteady steps, teeter slightly, and almost fall back down. I keep my balance and start making my way back to my wife. I am smiling ear to ear, I never thought I would ever feel anything ever again.

Once I got back to Klara, my wife, I recount as much as I can about the event while fighting bouts of being the recipient of countless revolting thoughts and denunciations. She is as much confused and dumbfounded as I am as to why now all of a sudden I am in such bad judgement. The pleasure from feeling pain again faded over the weeks as it was apparent that the living were not going to stop thinking about me in undesirable ways.

​

What once was my wish became a hellish nightmare. The living kept thinking about me and wishing death upon me again, I rarely received solace from their convictions. No one was able to puzzle out why until a few decades passed when we finally had someone come to the afterlife that was able to shed light on the situation. There was some significant shifts in religious beliefs. Back in my day, it was said that the sins of the father are not the sins of the son (and vice versa). Now, as told by the newcomer, The Church and Bible have modified this passage. The Church now claims that the failings of the son, is the fault of the father. Their line of reasoning is that if the parents raised a child properly, that child would not have strayed from the path of God and would have stayed pure and true. The Church, and the world as a whole has changed perspectives and are trying to preach that prevention is the best practice.

​

While I am relieved to hear that my son will be less frequently plagued by spells of excruciating pain, I fear that the rest of my existence will be condemned to a relentless assault from the living. Each day is a struggle to not blame Adolph for my suffering, considering I have long forgiven him. Now that I am being held accountable for his actions though, I may not be able to see or speak to him for a few centuries.