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When letters arrive from the dead, the postmarks are often in error. Envelopes are backdated or bear stamps from improbable places. This stands to reason; the dead are notorious fibbers. They have reputations to protect or to invent, and certain inconvenient legacies to dismantle.
In the temporary village in which they're housed before moving on, the dead close out old business, study their new obligations, and acquire necessary paperwork. Each has been allotted a certain amount of time to set affairs in order, and most work diligently, if grimly, toward this departure date, though inevitably some linger longer. (So what if they outstay their visas? Who will hold them to it?) For the most part, they remain decorous-yet even those who are, frankly, hooligans do not steal from the living, vandalize heirlooms, or poison food; nor do they murder, make appliances malfunction, shatter glass. The fantasy that the dead do such things is libel. It's not that the dead never wish harm on the living, but that their gestures are ineffective. True, they're capable of visiting the living in altered form, but most choose not to on account of the draining fatigue that results, the inner ear problems that last days, the aching joints hardly...