Dear Gabriel,

I died two years ago and I’m still inside my damned coffin. The only thing I have to make death bearable, aside from the silk lining and plush interior of my container (okay, it’s a nice coffin) is The Beyond Times, which appears daily beside my satin pillow as if by magic. I particularly enjoy your advice column and the fashion news from the “other side,” i.e., the land of the living. Other than that, all I have is a small hand-held mirror, and that brings me to my question. To my horror, my skin looks more cracked and decomposed every day. Do you know of any skin care products I can have delivered to me along with my paper? Maybe my “breakout” moment will never arrive and I’ll be stuck inside this box forever, but it will help me to pass eternity if I can eliminate any signs of decay, especially facial ones.

Rotten in Denmark

Dear Rotten,

I can’t be certain, since our computer system is down for retooling and I’d be hard pressed to put my finger on your Permanent Record in our hopelessly out-of-date card catalog, but it sounds to me like you’re being punished. Were you a bit of a narcissist when alive? If so, that might explain the nature of your penance. I know what you’re thinking: since when is looking one’s best a sin? But the rulebook lists personal vanity as a form of pride, and as such, definitely a transgression. So I hope you’ll understand when I tell you that skincare products are out of the question for you right now. But don’t despair: your situation will likely be reviewed in the next several millennia, and then everything could change. You might even get that “breakout” moment you desire and ascend from your tomb to the Isle of the Hot. Meanwhile keep your chin up, chafed and unattractive though it may be.

Dear Gabriel,

What can I do about noisy neighbors? I know the Beyond includes the damned and the saved alike, all jumbled together. I get that. But I just found out the hard way that the people in the apartment next to mine are damned. They dress up in black and blast death metal music all night, stuff like Styx and Megadeath. I’m blessed and have to get up at six each morning for work, and nothing I say to these souls makes any difference. I’ve spoken to the landlord, but he says the rental agreement I signed prohibits me from complaining about noise. Don’t the good have any rights here?

Sleepless Down Under

Dear Sleepless,

Sorry, but none of your rights override the sacred contract between landlord and tenant. But why not drop a hint your tormented neighbors will notice? Next time they’re asleep, crank up Heavenly Harp Hits, a truly mystical and soul-satisfying CD. That’ll grab their attention, and good things may result. Who knows, they may bring you some homemade cookies and place a memorial wreath on your mailbox, and even start meditating.

Dear Gabriel,

I’m traveling dead with my mother, who was ninety-three when she passed away, and we’re supposed to take a ferry next week from our house, where I left the oven on with my head in it, to some otherworldly destination. What I’d like to know is, is this like a cruise? Can we get special non-smoking accommodations, and how much will I need to tip?

Not-So-Accidental Tourist

Dear Not-So-Accidental,

It is just like a cruise, except that you and Mama may be asked to row a few miles and be whipped a little. That’s a joke, but seriously, there are cruise lines almost that bad. I recall one I took off the Ivory Coast in 550 BC that was attacked by pirates and there wasn’t even a masseuse on board. That said, if you and your mother are redeemed, you get to sit in lounge chairs the entire time and can visit the buffet and bar as often as you like. You can gamble, too. Do remember that the sprites and imps waiting on you count on your tips to support their families.

Dear Gabe,

I just got here after my car crash on prom night, in which I died while my date Jennie was miraculously spared. Yeah, I know, almost like in that driver’s ed flick. Anyway, I was wondering, where can I go to meet cool dead chicks? I need to get things moving up here.

Fast Lane Eddie

Dear Fast Lane,

There are regular mixers for deceased teens in the innermost circle of most major cities. Consult the high-speed rail schedule in your town if you don’t have wheels. Be aware that the music, disco from the 1970s, shuts off at midnight, since the city managers have determined that it’s just too nerve-wracking to the damned and blessed alike to have it blaring all night. And please, dude, it’s Gabriel, not Gabe.

Dear Gabriel,

I’d like to register a complaint about your paper, The Beyond Times. Every morning for the first ten years after my death, I would stroll out my front door, waft over the sparkling, gently rolling silvery plain where I have come to reside, walk past the smiling, two-headed dogs and luminous cats to my mailbox, and there find my Daily Heaven. Now I find The Beyond Times instead, and I prefer the Heaven. Somehow Heaven seemed written just for me and my angelic friends, whereas the Times could have been written for anyone, even devils. Is there any chance my favorite paper will return? I know you’ll put this down to the lunatic ravings of a corpse, but I want my Heaven back.

Goodie Two Shoes

Dear Goodie,

As I hope everyone knows by now, The Daily Heaven, and its sister publication Hell’s Beat, were recently merged into one newspaper, The Beyond Times. This change, made after much soul-searching, enables us to conserve much-needed resources and best utilize our reporting staff. It also allows us to avoid using terms like Heaven and Hell, which many find insensitive and objectionable, and simply refer to the Beyond, which indicates either or both of those afterworld alternatives. I know it can be confusing, but in general the Arts and Entertainment and Society sections of the Times continue to feature your favorite writers and photographers from the late Heaven, and for our less blessed readers who enjoyed Hell’s Beat, the Business and Politics and Sports sections retain the talented crew from that publication. With that as your guide, I know you’ll come to love the Times as much as you formerly did the Daily Heaven, which, alas, will not return until the start of our Apocalyptic Promotional Days.

Dear Gabriel,

Man, I’m having the time of my life here, or I guess I mean the time of my afterlife. I never thought the Beyond was a real place, but now I’m a believer since there are fireworks every night and the discount stores are open 24/7. My only complaint is, where are all the neat people I thought I’d find here? Where’re Christ and Gandhi and Einstein and Socrates and people like that? Most everyone I meet is someone I used to work with on the electrical grid in Chicago.

Missing Persons

Dear Missing,

All those great people are here, and having the time of their immortalities. The thing is, they’re super-busy on special projects, and so you’re not liable to run into them. But, for our faithful readers of The Beyond Times, this column will showcase a new format beginning next week. I, Gabriel, formerly your humble advice columnist, will be going one-on-one with some of Heaven’s most desirable citizens, asking them the question: are you in the right place? Their answers will astound you! First up: Whitney Houston! The following week: Andy Griffith!!

And for you residents of the place formerly known as Hell, don’t worry, I won’t neglect you. On alternate weeks I’ll be asking some of the best-known denizens of the lower realm the same question: are you in the right place? You won’t believe their responses! First up: Colonel Gaddafi! And the following week: Uday and Qusay Hussein in an exclusive double interview!!

Till next time,

Gabriel

Name’s Eddie Sharp. Thank you for visiting with me today. Sit down and I’ll talk about my sex life for a couple of hours.

The first woman I made love to was a stage performer. Her name was Betsy and she had more sex appeal than you’ve had childhood diseases. It was 1934 or 35, I was all of thirteen. I met her in Chicago, where she was a contortionist on the Orpheum Circuit and I was an usher. I was supposed to be in school that day but none were built yet. This was before condoms were invented, and Betsy showed me how to protect her with a cornhusk. That’s how she did it back in Ohio, where she had a happy childhood with few abortions. I still remember how the corn silk felt cool inside my shorts, and the sweet taste of the kernels in butter that Betsy and I lunched on that day. Her table manners were exquisite. She did things with her toes and vegetables that I thought only arboreal apes could do. But that was her act.

I remember the first time I had sex it was with a silent screen actress. She wasn’t a major star but she had “it” all right. Crabs. This was back before there was radiation treatment, so the way you cured crabs was to jump off the roof of a three-story barn into a creek. It worked, but it didn’t lower your cholesterol one bit. One of the little-known facts about Mary Pickford is that she invented the telescope. She was also the first woman to see Io on a cloudy night. The actress I’m talking about predicted there was a tenth planet beyond Pluto, but I still think Galileo had it right when he said the Pope was biased.

I lost my virginity to a little bank teller in Cleveland. She had more charm than Wall Street had fifties. She was a big movie fan and I took her to see all the greats: Bow, Pickford, Chaplin, Chaney. I wasn’t the best-looking guy in the sea but I could do tricks with my face. Often the crowd wondered if there was more, but hopefully not until tomorrow. Sad to say this girl gave me the clap, and this was well before fluoride. We had to stand in a thunderstorm wearing copper bracelets and brush our teeth three times. I guess that worked because to this day I haven’t had irrepressible gas.

The first girl I ever made love to was a young nurse. She had just shaved me for an appendectomy. I stayed aroused all the time I was under the knife, the first time she’d seen that. Do you think you’d like to see that? Oh, to be young and a sanitation expert again! It was too bad she contracted paranoid schizophrenia before there was saltpeter to restore the roses in her cheeks. The good news? The hallucinations were all in her head. She was a commoner but I never held prehistoric goodness against her lowlife family or the rest of that clan. I can still see her bare feet and her head shaved from lice and the towel she shared with twelve others. She had more charisma than you’ve had dumb ideas. I’ve often thought that if she’d been a bit older, and me a bit wiser, it would have made no difference.

You may not think so to look at me but I was quite the ladies’ man in my day. I could do things then I can’t do now, like skin a mule and pilot a steamboat. I used to screw, forty, fifty, a hundred times a week. Sometimes ten women a day didn’t satisfy me, and I mean all kinds of women without number and in every position. This was before and after my hemorrhoid bypass surgery. The ladies used to call me Luscious. Ha, can you believe that? It was because in my running shorts I looked like breakfast. I wasn’t the handsomest guy in the gene pool but I had a trick knee. My rear end looked like two solid grapefruit, and my front like two boiled eggs with a side sausage link. That was but one of my winning ways! I still wear those shorts because they make a lot of mouths water after they’re washed.

Sitting beside me in the solarium today are Reverend Williams and the Widow Peyton. The rev’s working on a volume of his collected sermons but really he’s only thinking about mad sex. In a minute he’ll stagger off to that piano in the corner and play the first song he made love to, which is the first I ever made love to, “Love Potion Number Nine,” the original version by Walt Whitman. I have designs on the widow here, but don’t worry — she can’t hear a thing I say. She last had sex so long ago that she’s a virgin again. She grew a new maidenhead last night and blushes like anything. If I say nookie loudly she giggles and downplays her breasts that are leading her on into young womanhood. I have a lot of options here, since women outnumber men five to one, so I hit on whoever reminds me of Scarlett Johansson. I chose the widow for her fashion sense and her joy of living that I can only describe as orthopedic. Regrettably she has a bad heart and that was before there was aromatherapy for that. So nose drops and penicillin aren’t any help at all.

I have a reputation as a debonair ladies’ man, which may explain my cravat and smoking jacket. Like all real men I brush my teeth and shave in the toilet bowl. I never wear shorts since they constrict my tricky spine. Baby dolls come to me for a good time, in some cases their last before they croak of natural causes or malpractice. The head nurse — I call her The Great Unwashed but that’s not her real name — pulled the bed sheet up over the head of my last conquest just as I was making my entrance. I was too late by a minute. Still I don’t know why the nurse didn’t let me go in. The lights may have been out but the door was wide open. And I did knock.

I think that nurse has it in for me, sneaking up on me like that. I almost needed a defibrillator.

Name’s Eddie Sharp. Who did you say you are? I’m sure I never heard of you. Now talk about your sex life, and make it throb.

Most of us, not giving it much thought, would prefer to die with our boots on. That means dying with a sense of purpose and actively engaged in life — impossible for the millions of us who are fated to die by choking on a chicken fajita or contracting Ebola at summer camp. But if you decide to die with your boots on, it’s best to be embarked on a noble or at least not a laughable endeavor when your moment comes. For example, if you are a gardener, you may wish to pass on while lovingly pruning your rose bushes. But if this is your choice, make sure that irritable bees don’t align on your face in the shape of a beard, so that a passing state trooper mistakes you for an escaped convict and shoots you dead on the spot, or that you don’t do a home lobotomy trying to reshape your eyebrows with a hedge-trimmer. Dignity counts, and your relatives want to be able to hold their heads up at your funeral, especially if they’re paying to have it catered. Remember: if you can’t die with your boots on, then die with them off, since that completely removes dignity from the equation. No one expects your barefoot cadaver to show dignity, and to underscore casualness, arrange to have the toenails painted green.

Given the ever-worsening prospects of earning enough to retire on, many of us will opt to die at work. While this is a worthy goal, be sure your occupation warrants this choice. Bus drivers and jet pilots and brain surgeons who opt to die while on duty may risk the safety and even lives of others by doing so, and should have backups standing by to fill in. Waitresses and car mechanics and bank tellers may also seriously inconvenience others by an on-the-job demise. But if you’re a pollster or a tax collector or an artist, go on and break out your rigor mortis.

Most people, after thinking the matter through, decide they want a gradual death rather than a sudden one. Better, they think, to sign off as the result of a long illness than to abruptly cash in their chips while speeding through a red light or sunbathing in the path of a hurricane. This reflects two widely held beliefs: that a long life beats a short one, and that even intense pain is preferable to no sensation at all. People would rather lie around for years in a soiled hospital gown talking to their spouse’s family and receiving hourly injections than have the Reaper sneak up on them and surprise their pants off.

The fact is that most of us want all the life we can get, up to a point. Where that point occurs varies from person to person. For some, no longer being able to play five sets of tennis or climb K2 without oxygen support may bring on a death wish, unlikely as that may sound to the more sedentary among us. For others, life continues to hold meaning even when they must be tied down to a chair to keep them from boarding a bus wearing only pajama tops and they can’t remember to eat unless someone shouts “food!” in their ear and hands them a fork.

What’s key here is setting a “decent interval” for your life. None of us wants to hang onto a meaningless, unfulfilling life. To do so is deemed “indecent” by society, whoever they are. But what makes for a decent interval will naturally vary among individuals. If you invented Facebook and became a billionaire in your mid-twenties, you are unlikely to think that 25 years was a decent enough interval in which to be you, but it’s time to push off and not be you beginning year 26. We can probably all agree that a decent interval has ended when your shrunken spine curves like a question mark and you walk around helplessly staring at your feet. The cost of medical treatment is also a clue. When it turns out you need the equivalent of the Kennedy Space Center to monitor your breathing and your insurance premiums rise to 25 percent of GDP, it may be indecent to draw another breath. That your insurer refuses to cover your third donated heart is another sign that the miracle of life has lasted long enough.

When you have determined that your decent interval is over, naturally you are faced with the problem of dying. Few of us are so fortunate as to be carried off at the last decent second, and so you may need to facilitate the process. Since Dr. Kevorkian is no longer listed in the Yellow Pages, here’s a tip: have a glass or two of soothing wine. My preference would be Merlot, but I’m a red fancier. Any wine will do. Then take your medications, all of them, equal to a six months’ dose. Wait 15 minutes, then crawl into a warm tub and shave with a straight razor.

Alternatively, if you want to go out on a high note, plug in a Marshall amplifier and play “Purple Haze” on an electric guitar while soaking.

If you’re still alive after that, you really are indecent.