Introduction to The Eyes of Emiliano Marotta

I suddenly realized I was no longer breathing. I couldn’t feel my arms or legs. Terror flooded my thoughts. I tried to open my mouth, to say goodbye to my wife and children huddled around my deathbed, but I couldn’t. A second later I realized I couldn’t move my eyes. Nor could I focus them, so my eyes remained, staring off into the distance behind my beloved’s face. This must have unnerved her, as she reached out, and, slowly, she pulled my eyelids closed. But, I could still see! I watched as my wife wiped a single tear from her cheek, and moved out of sight. She left her composure at the door, and her sobs were audible from the next room over. It was only then that I realized that I was dead.
I followed my corpse for weeks. I watched as slowly, my family left the room. The next day, a casket was brought in, and my body was laid inside. The funeral was the next day: April 26th, 1357. All of my family came, along with many friends, and a number of prominent merchants and aristocrats from the region. Most notably, the Lord of Padua, Francesco da Carrara himself came, to honor such a powerful merchant as myself. Though, as he ended up taxing away fully one half of my childrens’ inheritance, paying his respects was the least he could do. My coffin was buried in a nice forest grove near the family home in Rubano, and no one came to visit.
After a year of nothing, I began to experiment, and, to my surprise, found that I was aware of everything, yet so focused on the grove that I didn’t notice anything else. I discovered that I could look anywhere, and sense everything that could be sensed. I watched artists paint, minstrels sing, and soldiers fight. I watched lovers, friends, and foes, and often all at once. I watched the world proceed without me. My wife died, my children died, my grandchildren I had never met died. I knew not how to see them, to talk with them, to be with them. They must also be Here, whatever Here is. But I can’t find them.
I have long since given up my search for the souls of my family. The best I can reason is that each one of us has a different Here, in which we exist, in total isolation, for eternity. I have lost all personal connections in the world. I am nothing but an observer now. An observer who observes… everything.