Afterlife Insurance (Short Story/Fiction)

Woman Causes Fatal Accident – Sweaty Feet To Blame

That was the headline of the article that ran in the newspaper the day after my death.

Yes, I’m dead.

How, then, am I talking to you? I’m not sure. I guess you’ll have to die to find out, but I wouldn’t recommend it because so far, death is boring and unfair.

Now you ask, what happened? I’ll tell you.

It was a normal day and I was walking home from work in the most uncomfortable shoes. Actually, the shoes that caused my death weren’t uncomfortable so much as constricting, and after a full day of sitting in these shoes I realized that my feet were suffocating.

It’s true that Plantar Hyperhidrosis, or sweaty feet disorder, runs in my family; however, I had not been diagnosed mainly because I have dainty, adorable feet which make it impossible to believe that I could ever suffer from such a thing. Besides, my foot sweat always smelled good, kind of like a strange, but delicious combination of nutmeg and dill.

I briefly remember thinking I should remove my shoes and walk barefoot because my feet were slipping and sliding like clumsy fat ladies on ice. What happened is somewhat unclear, because death will do that to you, but the next thing I remember is meeting with a surly insurance representative. Apparently this is the first thing that happens to you when you die—you meet with an insurance rep who tells you the details of your death and confirms your pre-existing conditions before allowing you into the afterlife.


“What-what happened? Where am I?” I asked.

A middle-aged woman in a beige, polyester suit, sitting behind a desk looked up from the newspaper she was reading.

“You’re in the pre-afterlife phase, you won’t even remember this, so that’s all you need to know for now. Let’s see…hold on while I get your file,” the insurance rep said. She was surrounded by overstuffed filing cabinets and stacks of paper covered the surface of her entire desk. “Aha! Here it is…Okay, apparently you were walking on the sidewalk when you bent down to remove your shoes and wipe your feet off in the grass and—Ewww!”

“Ew? Oh! No, no, it sounds grosser than it is. You see, Plantar Hyperhidrosis runs in my family and—”

“Oh really? I see...Please hold while I update your pre-existing conditions chart.”

“My what?” I asked.

The insurance rep pulled some papers out of a manila envelope and held it over the paper so that I couldn’t see whatever she was scribbling down.

“Don’t worry about it. Look, I literally have a busload of people coming in for their appointment in about ten minutes. Do you want to know how you died or not?”

“Yes, of course, tell me everything,” I said.

She turned back to my file and rifled through the contents before pulling a newspaper out.

“All right, where was I…okay, it says here you put your sweaty—ugh, god, I’m sorry but that’s just really gross,” she said with an exaggerated gag. “Anyway, you put your sweaty shoes back on and continued walking but you slipped, because of your sweaty feet, and fell into a lane of oncoming traffic.”

“So a car hit me?”

“Um, no, actually, a bus hit you.”

“Oh my god.”

“Yep, pronounced dead at the scene.”

“Was anyone else hurt?”

“Look honey, I’m really not supposed to get too far into the details, but you seem sweet, despite your sweaty feet—”

“Excuse me! But you’re being extremely unprofessional here. Please stop talking about my sweaty feet.” I was about to put my feet on her desk so she could smell them and realize they weren’t that gross.

“Right, of course—ha! Where are my manners? Yes, of course, other people were hurt. After the bus driver hit you, he swerved into another lane and a trailer hit him head-on. Everyone on the bus died—not that many, only about six people—but, like I said, they are going to be here any minute now, so…”

“So my sweaty feet killed not only me, but other people too?”

“Yes. Look, sweetie, don’t beat yourself up over it. After you fill out this paperwork you won’t remember any of this and you can go on to whatever your destiny is or wherever your path leads you, your fate, your—ahem, your ‘God’—whatever you believe.”

The insurance rep handed me a stack of paperwork as thick as the Bible.

“So, then, does this mean you’re dead too?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“How did—”

“Cancer.”

“Why are you—”

“Why am I here talking to you about afterlife insurance instead of enjoying some kind of paradise or heaven like they show in the movies? Ha! God lord, you’re all the same…listen, sugar, it doesn’t work like that.”

“Well, what am I supposed to—”

“Ah, stop! How could you possibly have more questions? Go fill out your paperwork. That’s all you’re supposed to do. That takes you to your next step. Usually, if you don’t have too many pre-existing conditions, you move on to your afterlife right away.”

“Well, I don’t think I have any—”

“Let’s see. Whoopsies! Looks like you do have quit a few, actually. Well, you might have a bit of a wait period, but nothing too extreme—not like eternity! Hahaha!” She had a wild laugh, and I imagined that’s what a hyena might sound like, but I can’t be certain because I didn’t live long enough to ever hear a hyena laugh.

“What does it say? I didn’t think I had any pre-existing conditions!”

“The good news is that you had insurance—crappy insurance—but you had insurance, which means your afterlife won’t be spent paying off the debt you acquired like a certain "Man in the Mirror." Yeah, I hope you didn't like his music because I'll tell you right now that you won't be hearing much of it in the afterlife, sham on! Ha-ha!"

"Uh, okay...and the bad news?" I asked.

"What was I saying...oh, right, the bad news, all right. So the bad news is that your pre-existing conditions, like your sweaty foot disease and the fact that you’re a woman, will make it harder for you to start your afterlife right away, and you probably won’t be able to get new insurance…”

“What? New insurance? I’m dead! Why would I need insurance now?”

She looked at me and sighed, as if to say, I’m sorry you’re too stupid to get this but that’s not my problem.

“Oh honey, the private insurance companies have been collecting from the dead since the early nineties when they realized they’d have to deal with health care reform eventually. And now that reform is actually, well, almost happening, they’ve become even more strict about enforcing afterlife insurance.”

“But-but…I don’t have any money, I-I don’t have anything,” I said.

“Hahaha! Oh, you are silly! Of course you don’t have anything, you don’t need anything here—you’re dead, honey! Money doesn’t have meaning in the afterlife, so the insurance companies use time as currency—they take a small fraction of your afterlife, which you haven’t been to yet, as payment for the afterlife insurance. Ugh, you know what? I’ve said too much. Look, sweetheart, it’s complicated, and I don’t have time to explain it all to you now, but basically the dead have to have insurance in order to get to their afterlife, which will happen as soon as you fill out your paperwork and your application is processed. But, this is all explained, in detail, in your paperwork,” she said, slamming my file closed. “I’m sorry, but I really must go because my next appointment is here.”

Suddenly everything was dark, but it didn’t feel dark—it just felt like nothing. There was the sound of a slamming door and when I opened my eyes, which I didn’t know were closed, I was in an all white room with the same florescent lighting as the insurance rep’s office. For a moment I thought it was some kind of heaven, but there was a long table with one chair and in the center of the table was my bible of paperwork and two pens.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here but I know it’s been at least several days in the living world. At one point a loud, booming voice from above told me nothing would happen until the paperwork was finished—I thought it was God until I realized there was an intercom system. I’ve been testing things out here. Sometimes I run full speed into a wall, or I pinch myself until I think I can almost feel something but I never really do. I used the pens to draw a picture of mountains on the wall, it reminded me of pictures I've seen of Switzerland. As I was putting the finishing touches on my mural, I turned away for just a second and when I looked back the mural was gone; it just disappeared.

Eventually a newspaper appeared on the table. It was dated November 10, 2009—the day after I died. The front page was splattered with headlines about health care reform, and just when I was feeling grateful for something to read I noticed a tiny Post-It sticking out from the center section of the paper. The Post-It read: This is real. You are dead. Finish your paperwork. Afterlife is waiting. It was stuck on top of my obituary.

They (whoever they are) thought I was in denial but I know I have to be dead because my feet aren’t sweating, and they don’t smell like nutmeg and dill anymore—they smell like nothing like everything else.

I can’t explain why I can’t do the paperwork because I don’t really know. But I do know someone is watching me, waiting for me to hurry up and be done, I feel nothing but the presence of something or someone—I can sense frustration. I suppose I like to think of it as my own personal form of protest, like Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” only different. By refusing to complete the paperwork I’m denying the process completion, I’m debasing the system. I could be a hero, I think. But then I remember, dead people don’t become heroes.