The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

The year is 1990, and Maali Almeida is dead. Maali thinks about all the things he’s quit in his life and what his gravestone will read. He knows what life after death looks like.

Maali believes he is in a dream. He finds himself in a line in a lobby, and he’s yelling at a woman. He notes that many other people in the room are wearing hospital gowns or have missing limbs, and the room looks foggy. Maali registers with a woman in the lobby, who asks him about his religion and cause of death. The scene is chaotic, with other dead people asking questions and trying to register. Maali takes pictures with his Nikon camera.

A familiar-looking woman tells him everyone has seven moons, which marks a week. He doesn’t understand what she’s trying to say. He figures that many of the other dead people in the lobby are victims of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Maali is a photojournalist and explains that he is needed by society. He realizes that the woman is a university professor named Ranee Sridharan, who was murdered by Tamil extremists in 1989.

Maali figures that “The odds of the soul surviving the body’s death are one in nothing, one in nada, one in zilch” (10), so he must be dreaming.