Sunday dusk, I was sitting on the wooden bench at the plaza near the town's cemetery. There was this man, an elderly man, who came and sat on the same bench as me. Something slightly felt off with him, but I couldn't tell what it was, but all of a sudden, we started to talk.
– How do you say a tree is dead, trying to guess just by looking at it? – he asked me.
– Uh... I'm not sure... Perhaps it's devoid of leaves?
– The autumn strips the trees out of their leaves, yet they're still alive.
– Yeah, indeed. I don't know, perhaps a dead tree becomes dry, it stops growing? – I replied while trying to think of a better response.
– There are lots of species of trees which are well-known for their dryness, and trees often stop growing after a certain age just like animals do.
– Good point. Well, then I'm really not sure how to determine whether a tree is dead or alive. We can't see souls.
– Do trees have a soul? – he asked
– I'm kind of a non-anthropocentric animist so, I kinda believe so, but I see it as a broader fundamentum spanning all across the spacetime continuum, just like all the cosmic matter is cosmic energy...
– I see. Are you an atheist?
– I'm not atheist, but I have a complicated relationship with my own spiritual beliefs. Lately, I've been kinda apatheistic myself. When nihilism meets spirituality, that's what one would expect, the belief that those things exist but their existence doesn't really matter to the grand scheme.
– I can see it on you. Existential burden, you seem very tired and weary, yet you're younger than me, you still have plenty of energy left to burn.
– Thanks. Sorry for asking, how old are you?
– I'm really old, very old. Older than people could guess.
– Interesting.
A few minutes of silence briefly interrupted our conversation. I tried to think about his sentence, "older than people could guess", trying to decipher it to no success.
– Do you have anything off your chest, something that you've been holding to yourself, a secret? – he asked me
– I have some stuff, but I often try to not think about them.
– I see.
– What about you?
Then, he gazed at me – the entire conversation was going on without any direct eye contact, until now –, and I felt this chill sensation. He started replying:
– I died a long time ago. The thing that used to be my body, it's buried right there. – he pointed towards the cemetery.
– Hahaha, nice one – my skeptical side replying in laughter.
– You know you're there, too. We're both dead.
Deep inside, something clicked, I could feel like it was actually true. Still my skeptical side kept denying.
– But there's this difference between us – he continued – I died a long time ago, and you died a while ago. You're pretty new here.
– So I'm a wandering spirit, a ghost?
– Not really.
– What am I, then?
– It's up to you to determine a definition that better fits your whims, because we aren't, we ain't a thing.
We kept sitting on that bench, staring at the dusk behind the walls from that cemetery. My body was somewhere there.
– Do you want to know how I died? – he asked me.
– Sure.
– So there was this little, military secret experiment, when they were researching the grand-grandfather of surgery. They brought my deceased mother back in one piece through some kind of magical genetic reengineering, akin to a golem. They tried to fit me inside her womb, back to where I was conceived, in order to punish me for treason.
I froze in confusion. Then he smiled.
– Just kidding. You know, I still got a sense of humor. I got to know you do appreciate dark humor, don't you?
– Yes I do, perhaps a coping mechanism to the absurdity of existence.
– I see.
– So how exactly did you die?
– Actually, I don't really know. If you try to answer it to yourself, how did you die, you'll realize you don't know either.
– Indeed, I can't remember. I didn't even realize I was dead, although there were those... tells... Signs that I have been dead. Such as this dusk, and my sudden daily visits to the cemetery...
– Do you remember when you sat here, on this bench?
– I don't.
– That's because you've been here since you died.
– I remember seeing you arriving, though. – I pointed out one of my recent memories
– When?
– I'm not sure... Since dusk.
– It's been dusk for a while, you know.
– Yeah...
Silence reigned again, while we kept sitting on that bench, staring at the dusk behind the walls from that cemetery. All of a sudden, he disappeared from the bench, only to reappear near the tree, walking towards the bench. He came and sat on the same bench as me. Suddenly, we started to talk.
– How do you say a tree is dead, trying to guess just by looking at it? – he asked me.
– Uh... I'm not sure... Perhaps it's devoid of leaves?