Like just about everyone else, I went to see Ghost, I don’t know if you remember it, a box-office hit, with Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg, the one where Patrick Swayze gets killed and his body is left lying on a Manhattan street, or in an alley, maybe, on dirty pavement, anyway, while in a special-effects extravaganza (special for the time, anyway) his soul comes out of his body and stares at it in astonishment. Well, apart from the special effects, I thought it was idiotic.
But when my turn came, that was exactly what happened. I was stunned. First, because I had died, which always comes as a surprise, except, I guess, in some cases of suicide, and then because I was unwillingly acting out one of the worst scenes in Ghost. Among other things, my own experience has led me to believe that American naiveté can sometimes be more than it seems; it can hide some- thing we Europeans can’t or don’t want to understand. But once I was dead, I didn’t care about that. Once I was dead, I felt like bursting out laughing.
"— Roberto Bolaño, “The Return”
