So it was in a state of personal and ontological crisis that I wandered acrossthe ceiling to the location of an old pneumatic message tube, removed andplastered over some 50 years be-fore. I fell from the seventeenth to thetwenty-fifth floor, and I learned a lot in the process. Shaken, startled, andalready beginning to assume the wariness that the afterlife requires, I went toa window to get a glimpse of the outer world. When I tried to touch the glass,my hand went right through. I jerked back. Cautiously, I leaned forward so thatmy head stuck out into the night.

What a wonderful experience Times Square is when you're dead! There is ten timesthe light a living being sees. All metal things vibrate with inner life.Electric wires are thin scratches in the air. Neon sings. The world is filledwith strange sights and cries. Everything shifts from beauty to beauty.

Something that looked like a cross between a dragon and a wisp of smoke wasfeeding in the Square. But it was lost among so many wonders that I gave it noparticular thought.

Night again. I awoke with Led Zeppelin playing in the back of my head. Stairwayto Heaven. Again. It can be a long wait between Dead Milkmen cuts.

"Wakey-risey, little man," crooned one of the Sisters. It was funny howsometimes they took a close personal interest in our doings, and other timesignored us completely. "This is Euphrosyne with the red-eye weather report. Theoutlook is moody with a chance of existential despair. You won't be goingoutside tonight if you know what's good for you. There'll be lightning withinthe hour."

"It's too late in the year for lightning," I said.

"Oh dear. Should I inform the weather?"

By now I was beginning to realize that what I had taken on awakening to be theCorpsegrinder's dark aura was actually the high-pressure front of an approachingstorm. The first drops of rain pattered on the roof. Wind skirled and the rain