[section 1]
"Just after dying, Joseph woke up ...
To say that he found this somewhat surprising would be an understatement. He remembered the terrible pain in his chest, the huge fellow who had worked away at him, breaking three of his ribs in an attempt to revive him, and he remembered perfectly well his final thought, which could be summed up as a resounding, “Oh, shit!” Life had not been easy for Joseph ... In fact, it would be fair to say that he had made a complete mess of it. And now that he was waking up in total darkness, unable to move so much as a single muscle, he was beginning to wonder whether he had managed to make a mess of his death as well."
[section 6]
"— What’s going to happen to me?
— You’re going to stay with us and help us find a way to bring this world back to life. We’re good company, you’ll see, and some of us are certainly not short of ideas for making our condition more bearable! You could run a workshop on extraterrestrial anthropology; I’m sure plenty of people would be interested.
— I want to go home."
translated from French: Philippe Tessier (2019), Morts, Éditions Leha, 208 pp.
