Excerpt: Fearing For Company

There is a closed casket where Minase sleeps, along in a padded cell. His eyes are closed there, in what people say peace, but he is disturbed and afraid I know, for I can sense his disdain and contempt on the tip of my tongue as if it were my own. He is frozen in an expression of eternal bliss, but I am not sure why, because life is not always peaceful, and certainly a sinful person would end up in Hades, right? So why bother with an elated expression when the destination isn’t even clear yet? This is where all the dead lay to rest (the ones who wished to be buried, anyways); this is the closed casket.
There is also an open casket, beckoning all of us to step it. At first there is only a foot, but then we sink until our legs, and then deeper and deeper until we seem to be completely surrounded. For those living we all stand in an open casket, watching as the lid is made and slips ever closer to us, and how we sink or raise up from the wooden frame with every deed or choice that we do or make.
There is a closet casket where dead sleep, and there is an open casket where we all jump in to meet them.