Emily woke up from having been murdered to find herself lying on a heap of trash in what seemed to be an alley in a big city. She flinched from the two men bending over her, but it turned out they weren't her assailants. She could see blue sky at the top of the narrow brick canyon; it had been dark outside when she was attacked.

The two young men introduced themselves as Mormon missionaries--they both had the same first name, Elder--and as they helped her up they asked if they could be the first to welcome her to Spirit Paradise, the land beyond the veil where departed souls await their Resurrection. This confused Emily. She felt as if she had awakened at the end of a long car trip which she had mostly missed by being asleep. She could hear city traffic close by, and she gingerly felt the back of her head. It was fine, perfectly solid, as was the rest of her. She didn't feel like she needed to await resurrecting.

Emily let the handsome young missionaries assist her to the mouth of the alley; then she slipped away from them and lost herself in the crowds of pedestrians moving along the sidewalk. The first thing she noticed was the clothing people wore. She had never been very good at fashion, but even she could see that most of the clothes were years out of date. And that was just among the people wearing Western fashions. And they weren't a clear majority. The cars and trucks and taxis in the street seemed even more behind the times--as in decades.

The city itself seemed to resemble New York, which Emily had visited a couple of times with girlfriends early in college. Before dropping out to marry Dick, of course. Or the Dick, as some of her girlfriends had called him.

Emily laughed hollowly as she realized that she had no idea how she was going to live, now that she was dead. Where would she stay? How would she eat? At the thought of food, she realized she could smell meat frying, and other things as well, and she realized she was hungry. She followed her nose through the crowd to a vendor selling hot dogs, falafels, gyros, and knishes from a shaded stainless-steel cart. She searched her pockets vainly for money.