( The way she stops in her tracks pauses him. Good. That seems like her intention, to give him a moment to think about his words. )

You misunderstand me, Miss Topaz. ( Clothing is on the to-do list, he knows, but he feels so silly trying to have a conversation of this magnitude in a beach robe. All the same: ) I propose that we're already dead.

Afterlives aren't much of something I believed in, you see. It's a long shot no matter how you look at it. ( And believing in anything really isn't the Fictionologists' way. ) But... Well, it's worth putting out there.