1: Happy Returns

 For the newly dead - once acclimatised, and settled - some questions arise: What is it like in the living world? How are my loved ones doing? Happy Returns provides the answers.

To find it you have to go deep into the bowels of Afterwards. (No, not the dive bar; the actual Afterwards.) You must keep going until the streetlights fade out and all illumination comes from guttering torches set in wall sconces. It doesn't have to be this way of course: nothing here has to be any particular way. But the proprietor - Hekate - likes it so. Some say she's never moved on from 340 BCE. But the last guy I heard that from was rocking parachute pants so who's he to talk? 

The caves will close in on you and branch out in a multitude of ways but you needn't worry; polecats and dogs will lead you on until you reach an auspicious opening with the venue's name carved above it. Once you enter you'll find that the inside stretches on forever. It might seem dizzying but, as you have already learned, scarcity - of anything - is no longer a concern. Hell will never be full. 

But nevertheless the dead do walk the earth. Not at first - would be stalkers and pranksters have to be weeded out so Hekate observes usage patterns before letting you do more than witness. Surveillance?! Well yes, but none of it is hidden. Happy Returns' mistress will quite literally sit beside you and watch over your shoulder for stretches. Is it too much? Should you have more privacy? Good questions. Sadly not all things are resolved in death; the age old battle between competing rights is alive and well. 

Similarly you can be cut off. Too much nostalgia for life is poison to a ghost. (There's no profit motive here so - unlike betting limits at pubs - time limitations are rigorously enforced.) Also rigorously enforced? A ban on replicating the Ghost pottery scene. It was very bad for a time. They could never get all of the clay residue cleaned out. (Yes, some materials return with ghosts.)

You won't be a regular for long. The world moves on without you and your attachment to corporeal life will fade. (This isn't true for everyone of course. You know that one aunt who has a subscription to Ancestry.com and a filing cabinet of family notes? That type fucking loves Happy Returns.) But for most life is for the living and death holds fresh appeal.