i am deceased

I kind of thought death as a theme was gone from my life for a little while. Just a short breather between more passings. So foolish am I!  Because, I am deceased.

During a work meeting today, I received a call on my mobile phone. Expecting an important personal call from an unknown number, I answered the phone. The voice on the other end asked: "Is this Jennifer Crakow? You went to art school in Chicago?

To my amazement it was an old mate from school, Arnold. We hadn’t talked in a few years (even that was email) and I haven’t seen him in over 15 years. At the time of his call, however, I was in a meeting  and told him I’d give him a ring in 5-10 minutes. From hearing his voice I immediately picked up that something was very strange.

My meeting wrapped up and  I immediately had the urge to call Arnold back right away. Could this be work related? Is he back in SF? Is something going on with our mutual friend, Tanya, from way back? I was completely enveloped in this curiosity.

After our quick hello’s and greetings, Arnold tells me he had just received correspondence in the postal mail from the schools’ alumni program. In the list of our class’ graduates he saw my name. Next
to my name was the word "deceased".  Arnold said he had felt his stomach sink and could not believe his eyes.  He did a quick Google search on me. Thanks to the interwebs, Arnold found me and called my mobile within minutes (if not seconds).

It makes me wonder. I called the alum office at school. Sure enough 2 asterisks attached to my name in the db. 2 asterisks means deceased.

Who killed me? When, exactly, did I die? And perhaps, most important, why wasn’t the IRS informed?