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and it would save him the hassle of finding a new tenant.”
    “We had to collect all your stuff,” Dad put in. “I don’t know if the flat’s been re-let yet, but it’s certainly been cleared out.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Mum assured me. “You can stay with us as long as you want. I’m not having you going to any hostel. There’s no rush about finding another place of your own.” If you can , she was careful not to add.
    “I suppose they sent you all my stuff from the office as well,” I said.
    “There wasn’t much,” Dad said, as if that might somehow be of comfort to me.
    “No,” I said. “Well, I’ll be reapplying for my job as well. I’ve got the experience. In an open and fair competition, I’d be bound to get it.”
    “There’s no rush,” Mum repeated. “You’ll need a rest first. I’ll take a few days off myself, until you’re settled. I’ve only got four days owing, mind, and I can’t afford to lose pay. There’s a program, though—the social worker explained it all to us. You’ll be able to go to the local Afterlife Center every day—it’s the old Salvation Army Hall, so it’s only a short walk even if your Dad or I can’t drive you. You’ll get physio and counselling, and you’ll be able to meet….” She trailed off, but then added: “The nurse seems nice.” There was no ambiguity as to which nurse she meant.
    “A veritable Pearl,” I said. Nobody cracked a smile. “I passed the psych evaluation,” I pointed out. “I’m certified compos mentis . Once I’m out, I’m out. Nobody can stop me trying to get my job back—and the flat.”
    “You can’t get another flat until you get a job, son,” Dad told me, sadly. “Even if we stumped up the deposit for you, you couldn’t get a flat until you have a bank account, and you can’t get a bank account until you have an income to feed it. The dole won’t stretch, and the bank won’t give you an account on the strength of a dole slip. I’m not sure you’ll even be able to get a new phone, unless you get a pay-as-you-go model.”
    “All that may be true,” I admitted, “but let’s look on the bright side—my student loans have been cancelled along with my credit rating. How many people of my age can say that they’re debt free, eh?”
    “That’s right,” Mum hastened to agree. “You’re better off than a lot of….” Again she left it at that.
    I was better off than a lot of the recently reborn. Not many of the older afterliving had parents young enough to take them in and lend them support—and some of those who did were refused, even if they hadn’t tacitly insulted their families by topping themselves. If Mum and Dad hadn’t been willing to take me in, I would have ended up at the former Bail Hostel on South Street, which was now an Afterlife Hostel, conveniently located only a couple of hundred yards from the old Salvation Army Hall, now the local Afterlife Center—which was itself, presumably not entirely by virtue of coincidence, only half a mile from the Royal Berks Burking Unit. All very cosy.
    “Anyway,” Mum added, “you don’t have to worry. You can stay as long as you like.”
    I knew, and she knew that I knew, that she wouldn’t have said that if I’d still been alive, having just recovered from a conventional operation, because we’d all have taken it for granted, so it wouldn’t have needed saying—but it didn’t seem to matter. The fact was that it did need saying
    “I feel fine,” I assured her. “According to the internet, that’s normal. Zombie convalescence is only protracted if there’s been substantial neural reconfiguration. In my case, there hasn’t. Clean death, clean afterlife, as they’ll probably say once I’ve had time to establish it as a proverb.” Nobody laughed, so I pressed on: “I passed all the tests. I’m okay—and I’m still the same person I always was. Top goalscorer, wicked wit.” Head over heels in love , I didn’t add—but not