ADD ON NOVEL --CHAPTER 3 (1 and 2 below)

Chapter 3 by me-- Who wants more? Write chapter 4!

Gorgeous and fat-- Ah.... It was for my cousin that I first found myself in that sweltering bunghole of a town in rurul Uzbekistan. We were lost in the market and surrounded by incomprehensible men in caftans who flocked to the rare Americans to peddle their desert doodads.

I began to regret that little white lie that I had told Megan, my relation both lovely and plump, that I was fluent in Arabic. It seemed so harmless at the time, and when she cooed about how brilliant I was, I couldn't admit that I was only joking. So when she asked me a month later if I would take her to visit her friend in Khiva, I was off to the library to check out the "Complete Berlitz Arabic", "Arabic for Dummies" and "common Arabic Phrases for Lying Scumbags." I never could say no to Megan. Besides, I certainly wasn't getting famous selling running shoes in Iowa. And I hadn't done anything as interteresting as visiting a former Soviet republic in... well, ever.

Now for those of you who don't know, Uzbekistan is famous for 4 things: camels, oil, torture and the CIA. Camels aside, one might expect oil and the CIA to go together. In the old days of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan was an infamous KGB outpost-- infact the governor there was a former head of the KGB. Because the KGB presence there was an "open secret," the small state became a hotbed of agents and nafarious organizations of all kinds. Today, the former KGB head, turned governor has declared himself the glorious father/god/leader of that nation. Now, for those of you who don't know, the Uzbek president has a passion for 4 things: camels (don't ask) oil, torture and the CIA. So today, as in the past, the nation of Uzbekistan remains a confluence of rottenest, most secretive, and exclusive organizations on this planet.

Pardon me, but it is a a certain cliche that the dead spend too much time living in the past. It is also an inherent flaw, as it is impossible for the dead to live in the present. But I will soon throw off this tired tradition of laying around inactive and rise from the grave, in serious voodoo style, to get to the bottom of this mystery. But first, I have to tell you one more thing about that day in the market. We were there surrounded by camels and arabs, and I was trying to be brave, so that Megan wouldn't know I was about to sob outloud, when a voice from behind us stated in the clearest Brooklyn accent:
"Hey, you guys lost or somethin'?"

I turned around expecting to see a gleaming American face in the sea of mediterianian complexions, but I saw only more caftans. However when I looked down, I was certain that we had found someone who would be able to help us, someone we could trust. Amid a sea of sandled feet, we had found a pair of white Nike crosstrainers. Size 11 1/2 to be exact.

And though we were in a nation full of ruthless agents, true believers, barbarians and madmen, I fear that this one man in nike running shoes had more to do with my death than any other.

Except perhaps for that neigbor in the Speedo.

Chapter 2 submitted by Je Suis

Despite all the inventive slandering and ceaseless shouting, the Muslims hadn't killed me, I was pretty sure about that. They seemed to be a pretty angry bunch, those ones, especially the more radical Muslims, who appeared to have grudge against me for being one, white; two, western; three, breathing. But the various terrorist squads out there had always remained a little outside of my social circle, you know? Ditto the Chinese, Egyptians, Starbucks baristas, Marxists, and people who shopped at Wal-mart. Also, my parents, seeing as they were dead. This, by the same logic, means Mark Twain did not kill me, Francis Ford Coppola had no hand in my death, and no member of the Ghandi clan or the French Revolution ever conspired against me. More's the pity, because if no one famous killed me, that meant my chance of being famous after my death was quickly diminished, possibly beyond all hope of restoration. I would like to be famous, even now, when I’m dead. Curious desire, this. I had never been remarkable for very much outside of my private circle of acquaintances. There was the time I auditioned for the post of weatherman down at the local television station. Those people probably still had my demo tape somewhere, probably filed under W for "We Are Absolutely Never Going To Hire This Idiot". "Looks like rain," I remember declaring confidently on that tape as I stood in the sun-warmed spray of the sprinkler on my neighbour's front lawn while his kids screamed and chased each other around me. "Pervert," their mother had yelled at me as she ran down the steps, and, after I had reasonably replied to her charge, "Yeah, well you can go to hell yourself, Speedos are NOT pants. And get off my property." Well, maybe she killed me. Which would have been unkind of her. I would never have touched her kids. Everybody who knows me – dammit, knew me - knew I only liked either gorgeous women or fat women. And also my cousin. But she was both gorgeous and fat.

Chapter 1

"Darn it! Why can't I move...."

That was my first thought when I learned that I was dead.

At first, when the pictures all stop coming, the thing that gets you is, you know, being dead. But after a while, it's the little things: not breathing, not drinking, not seeing, well not exactly anyway, because it's not like you can use your eyes.

But I guess being dead is the kind of thing you get used to, I mean, you have a long enough time to get used to it...

Being dead is like having all of the fabrics of your life folded up, and placed in the closet. All of the different textures that make up living fade away. There are no more folds, no unclean little nooks-- everything is just sort of evened out. All of the things that consume the living are irrelevant now-- I'll never get the things I want, but I will never fail again either-- I don't even have to worry about where my next meal is coming from. All of that is gone now. And that is what being dead is supposed to be like. But for me it was different. For me, there was this one little thing that wouldn't go away. For a dead person, it really was a very small thing, since nothing really maters anyway....

But, even though it was the littlest thing, just by the fact of it's existence, it became huge to me. With all the colors of life faded away, this little tiny little spot on the canvas began to give me meaning again, it gave me definition again, and so it gave me life again.

It was a small, small thing. If I had a heart to feel with, it might feel like a doubt. And now I need to find out how I died-- not to find out who did it...

but to be sure of who didn't do it.