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I'm dead, and have gone to Hell. To be honest, I had considered the option. But it all felt so real to the touch--my face, the feel of air in my lungs..."
    "The brain is a powerful tool," I said. "Even back when you were alive, everything you think you 'felt' came to you through your brain."
    "Ah-hah!" Brad exclaimed. "I still have a brain, thus I am still alive."
    "No," I said. "You aren't alive, and you don't have a brain. You're inside mine."
    * * * *
    It took him a while to wrap his brain--er, his mind --around the concept. It had taken me a while, too, when Robert had collected me. This was not something they taught in Sunday school. When you got down to it, most people thought death resulted in one of several options: (1.) Absolutely nothing. (2.) An afterlife of eternal bliss. (3.) An afterlife of eternal suffering. Maybe even (4.) Reincarnation, or (5.) Entrance into a higher plane of spiritual being, or something.
    No one ever considered (6.) An afterlife in someone else's brain. But I'm here to tell you, brother and sisters, believe . Amen and Alleluia.
    Once Brad was relatively at ease with the concept, the questions poured out of him." If I don't have a brain, how can I think? Or speak?"
    "Because you still have your mind, which is connected to your soul. The brain is nothing more than a muscle. Your mind and soul power it."
    "So Plato was correct in the Phaedo in that the body is evil and impedes our search for the greater truth?"
    "Huh?" I asked. "I'm only trying to explain what's happened to you."
    "Yes, I know."
    "Okay then." I remembered Brad had been a college teacher. Jesus, did I hate academics. Always thinking too damn hard about things, trying to describe the world in the most inaccessible, complex ways possible. I preferred journalism: the pursuit of easily-understood fact. Man steals money. Fire destroys building. Mob kills naive reporter. That sort of thing.
    "Okay," he said, running his hands through his hair. "Here's an easier one. Say I walk out of this room, down the steps, through the lobby and out the front doors of this 'Brain Hotel.' What then? Do I float away and go toward the proverbial 'Light?'"
    "No," I said. "You'd hit a brick wall. The only way out of here is if I allow you take over my physical body. Or if this physical body dies."
    "Who gave you the car keys to this joint?"
    "Funny you should use that analogy," I said. "It's how I think of it, sometimes. Anyway, my collector, Robert, entrusted me with the keys. I am behind the wheel, and the sooner you accept it, the better." I thought maybe I was being too harsh. "Don't worry. I'm a careful driver."
    "Oh joy," Brad said. "What if I kill myself?"
    "You can't. You're already dead."
    "Fine. What if I kill my 'mental projection'? Imagine myself to be absolute nothingness?"
    "It won't work."
    "How do you know?" Brad asked. "You ever want it bad enough to try it?"
    This was all going in the wrong direction. Why wasn't Brad looking at the bright side of this whole thing, like I did when I was collected?
    "Why are you so intent on killing yourself?" I asked.
    "Because I'm looking around here, around this Brain Hotel, and you know what? I notice there's somebody missing. My wife, Alison. Unless you're keeping her hidden away for some reason."
    "No," I said quietly. "She's not here."
    "I thought so."
    I didn't want to go down this particular path yet. I needed him to feel safe, and maybe even enthusiastic about being here. Then we would discuss his wife. And how he was going to help me avenge her.
    "Look, let me show you around," I said. "I think you're going to find this place interesting."
    Brad sighed. "If you don't mind, I think I'll stay here and try to think myself into absolute nonbeing."
    "If you like, you can do both at the same time," I said, trying hard not to sound like a used car salesman. "Our tour begins right here, in this room. At your request, we can craft it into whatever you like--a frontier log cabin, a modern luxury