She stared at me with an ironic, prissy frown. “Please go to the boy’s room and button yourself.” There was something triumphantly cruel in her voice, and it withered me. I looked down. My corduroys were open at the fly, unbuttoned. I heard a snicker from somewhere behind me, the snicker of a female voice…

Immediately I was back in Limbo. I was alone, standing in front of my oak chair, looking down. I am always in faded jeans here. They never wear out, never become dirty. Their fly was properly zipped, as always. I sighed aloud with relief and sat down. I was still shaking. I felt, in some obscure way, a victim.

***

There is a progression of time here. There are nights and days even though there is no visible sun, and I count them and remember the count. That is how I know it is seventeen years since I died. I do not know if I will be here for eternity or not. There has been no judgment of me, no communication from any god, devil or angel. Nothing has been promised, nothing explained, and I do not care. Yet I have come to believe that there may be a way out of Limbo. I have begun to feel that if I properly edit and rectify my former life that I will be able to pass on from here and be reborn. I sense that I await reincarnation and another life. I feel hopeful. Change is frightening to me and yet I feel hopeful of change.

After my first experience of return I marked off ten days while I thought of various things in my former life, as I often do, or merely counted numbers in my mind as I also often do here, and then I decided to try going back to Miss Ralston’s class on that same day. It would be interesting to find myself alive again, even in that dreary schoolroom, and to be among people again. Yet I am not really bored with being dead. I could stay in Limbo for eternity. There is no pain here, no fatigue; there are no appetites. There is no danger. There are no misunderstandings.