I don’t know where we are. It looks like a cheap motel room, but I wasn’t around for the arrival. June is curled up on the bed, still in her clothes and on top of the multicolored polyester comforter. The TV is on with no volume, bathing the room in a depressing blue light and keeping true solitude at bay.

I’m not sure why June would choose to stay in a place like this. There are burn holes in the carpet, a lacquered, stuffed fish mounted on the wall, and bed linens that can’t be bleached. Money isn’t a problem for June, so it must be for some other reason.

There’s a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the desk, and from the deep, raspy snores coming out of June, I know she’s the one who drank it. She’s a drunk snorer.

I want so badly to wake her up, make fun of her for being such a cliché—cheap motel, bottle of whiskey, passed-out drunk. I’d make her laugh, forget everything that’s hurting. That’s what we did for each other, take the hurt away, but now I’m the reason she’s hurting and it was never supposed to be like that.

There are some important-looking papers on the bedside table. All I have to do is focus on that part of the room and suddenly I’m there, beside the bed, looking at things from a whole new perspective. Not a bad party trick.

A copy of my will sits under a cloudy glass from the bathroom that still holds a sip or two of straight whiskey. I know I’m dead, but the sight of my own will is not easy to see.

It’s evidence that the world is moving on. That everything I’ve accumulated in life will be legally scattered about, sold, donated, hopefully at least some things treasured. My only mark on the world will be a passed-on vase or dining room table. Makes all the careful collecting I did seem pointless. The large sums I spent to have items shipped home from my travels, the hours I spent choosing just the right dining chairs—all meaningless.

I shift my focus to June to get my mind off the will. Am I allowed to use those expressions when I’m really only atmosphere now? Get my mind off, my heart skipped a beat, can’t believe my eyes … There should be an instruction manual for this kind of thing—being dead.

June is still lying motionless with drunken sleep. Her skin shines with a film of sweat. I can imagine the itch of the polyester comforter against the warm skin of her cheek, the uncomfortable cling of her jeans against her legs and her T-shirt against her sweaty back. I’d open a window if I could, or turn on the air conditioner, which would chug loudly in a place like this.