Angelique Rising

Angelique Rising

by

Lorain O’Neil

Chapter One

She didn’t want to do it. But what choice did she have? Her money was gone, her food, the electricity, every single person who’d ever cared anything about her too. The latter long ago. She was the last of her family, the lived-way-too-long one. Ninety-four years old, she’d made it to 1980! But it wasn’t like she hadn’t known this day might come when she’d have to kill herself, she’d just hoped she would wake up dead before today, never have to swallow the pills she’d saved for twelve years (and hoped were still potent ―she’d kept them in the freezer even after they’d shut the electricity off). But no such luck. She sighed.

Barely able to walk, her hearing and eyesight abysmal, she knew she was only an eviction away from a state run nursing home.

No thank you.

Halfheartedly she reached into her night stand drawer for the pills wishing she’d gotten one more thunderstorm. She loved thunderstorms, the roiling, crushing, noisy power of them. Jeez, she glowered sullenly, Florida in the summertime and not one darned thunderstorm. What a gyp.

She lay on her bed and, fumbling, lifted the first pill to her mouth thankful that with what little strength she had she could still do that. Not counting, she swallowed each pill in turn and sipped a bit of water hoping that her hungry empty stomach would keep the pills down.

As she finished and waited, she thought of her life. Never, never, would she have believed it if someone had told her it would end in suicide. Such a sunny childhood she’d had, the beloved treasure of wonderful parents, the perhaps not so beloved treasure but nonetheless somewhat liked sister of one brother, her life had commenced so brightly, in such optimism.

It had toned down a bit when she’d moved into adulthood. Her brother, her friends, all had acquired spouses, children, divorces, but she’d done none of that, it hadn’t appealed to her. In her twenties she’d taken a couple of lovers for a short time but they were clumsy and selfish men, she’d gotten nothing out of it and she couldn’t now even remember what the sex had felt like though she didn’t know whether that was because of the men’s forgettableness or her own faulty memory. She suspected the former. After them, she’d led a celibate life. Seventy plus years of school, jobs, a few houses during good times, a trailer once during a bad time. No big ups, equally no big downs. And now... done. Petering out. Dang.

Her shoulders felt heavy, like a weight had been placed on them, she knew she was sinking like a stone, the drugs kicking in. Should she fight them? Hang onto every last second of consciousness or just go gently into that good night? Tears began leaking from her eyes and she whimpered, she didn’t want to die, but even so, she decided to just give up, let it take her. Her last bleak thought before slipping into unconsciousness was that the world had defeated her. Or perhaps in cowardice she had surrendered long ago, always scared that if she ever rocked the boat she’d be the one who drowned.

*****

She sat up in bed. She felt great. Really great. This was dead? If this was dead then dead was feeling like a seventeen year old girl, the who she’d been so long ago but remembered perfectly. And it felt so right. Nope, this couldn’t be dead, dead couldn’t be this good. But heck, it sure couldn’t be life either, there were no creaks, no pain, no befuddled clogged mind struggling to process even the simplest of thoughts. So what was this?

Well, it was still night for one thing. And she was still on her own bed, in her own bedroom. But there were no long-dead parents appearing to escort her onward, no shining God-light illuminating a path and there sure wasn’t any tunnel (she actually looked around the room for that). No, she was alone. Per usual she frowned, a bit put out. Hopping out of bed she spun around to look ―she had to know.

And there it was.

The corpse of a mortally thin white-haired old woman lay on her bed, its mouth hanging open, sepulcher in its deadness. Her body. Oh yes, she was dead, no doubt about that, and a part of her rejoiced because she knew the answer now, she knew the answer to The Big One. Yes! There was life after death, she was still alive! Wow! And it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t bad at all. But what was supposed to happen now, why weren’t there spirits, angels, heck even a demon or two, someone to greet her to the afterlife?

“Hello―” she called out, “what am I supposed to do?” She got no answer. This couldn’t be happening, she stared, mystified. This was happening.

As the minutes slipped by in silence she began to think about the possibilities of her situation. She was a spirit she reckoned, she could probably go anywhere she wanted, see anything, travel the world. Dive down to the bottom of the ocean with whales, live for a year with an elephant herd in Africa, hang out at the White House. Anything. She sorta liked this dead, this dead was freakin’ lovely. She smiled, warmed by the joy of still existing, still being alive, reborn and feeling exquisite.

And I bet I can fly like in dreams she shouted aloud in exhilaration, hearing her own voice, its gorgeousness. I can fly in the clouds forever.

Bursting into laughter, lacking any sphere of reference at all but feeling both serene and euphoric she easily launched herself upwards, rising through the ceiling, through the building’s floors above her, the roof, out into the misty morning air. She soared over a nearby dark forest then skyward into the lightening sky.

And out into the world.

Damn this is gonna be good she beamed gleefully. This is gonna be FABULOUS!

And it was, for about three decades.

She visited and she collected.

Visiting, she traveled the globe, delightfully passionate over the multitudes of diverse life she discovered living upon the Earth’s thin crust, under it, and within its waters. She learned to avoid the cruel places and things ―there was nothing she could do to help those who needed it because when she touched something though she felt it, she could not affect it for the plain reason that she had no body. She did have a voice ―a magnificent on― but no one but her to hear it. She didn’t mind really, she got quite used to it, with all the wondrous places she was soaking in, her situation was entirely worth the bodiless trade-off.

What she collected was knowledge and skill. She discovered (by accident) that if she wanted the knowledge or skill somebody had all she had to do was touch them and think about whatever it was they knew or whatever it was they could do that interested her, and she would know it too. She lost count of how many languages she collected. She learned all about music, how to write symphonies, sing opera, play a dozen different instruments. Dance too, but just ballet, she spent six months dancing ballet on major New York stages, knowing, feeling, that she was incredible. And books, the brilliance of the world’s scholars, she collected that too.

For the fun of it she collected cool and kooky stuff as well, like how to sew splendid outfits and costumes from an Oscar winning designer, how to cook French food from the highest rated chef in Paris, how to play various games.

Certain things she did not collect, did not even peek at. No voyeurism, she viewed no sex and she collected no business skills. She saw the world of computers bloom in front of her and while she observed people operate them from time to time, she never bothered to collect the skill. Why should she? All a computer was was a device to access information, something she was far superior at and she couldn’t push the keys anyway.

After thirty years alone though, it did begin to wear. Perhaps she should find out more about this death thing she pondered, maybe learn where she was supposed to be. So she began haunting hospitals trying to catch the exact moment when someone died hoping she could spot something (she hadn’t entirely given up on the tunnel thing). And that was why one winter night she was in the emergency room of a hospital when a child was rushed in.

The girl was young, maybe ten or eleven years old. Unmoving. Her father had lost control of their car on some ice and the car had careened off a bridge into a river taking the girl and her parents with it. Only the child had been fished out with a still beating heart though apparently not a very willing one. The shouting medical army that descended upon the unconscious girl in the emergency room shocked her heart back to work three times but on the fourth attempt it looked definitely no-go.

She got caught up in the drama.

C’mon kid, you can do it! I made it to ninety-four, you’ve gotta at least make it to twelve! Try!

But the electric line on the child’s monitor screen continued only to quiver, no spike, no blip, to show the child was still there.

This kid istoo damn young to die she decided angrily and without thinking she threw her spirit-self down into the child’s body.

Whatever strength I have, kid, take it! Come back!

She saw the child’s doctor above put the electric paddles back on the girl’s bare chest again and shout “Clear!”

Something tore through her, something for a moment she didn’t know what it was, though it was dimly familiar. What? Pain. That was it, gargantuan pain. Impossible. She hadn’t felt pain since she’d been alive, since she’d had a body. She went to rise out of the kid, lift herself up, but something was pinning her down, holding her back, again impossible. And then in one bombshell moment of clarity she understood.

The kid couldn’t be brought back. The kid had already gone. But then that medical army had re-started the kid’s heart ―a body needed a soul― and hers was the only one available.

“NO!” she believed she screamed in a shrill frightened voice as she was dragged down into nightmare.

*****

Onn...zshell...leeek she heard a man call softly. Onn-zshell-lique! Wake up!

She opened her eyes. Everything hurt. Hurt. She had forgotten hurt but she got an immediate crash course reaquaintment with it. Her blurry eyes cleared and she saw she was flat on her back in a bed with a collared priest looking down upon her.

“Angelique,” he spoke, his face tense and stark. “It’s me, Father Wadzniak. You remember me, Angelique. Don’t you?”

Freefall.

SHE was Onn-zhell-lique now, he was talking to her. But she was not Angelique, she was... who?

OhmyGod I can’t remember my own name. But I know who I am. I am NOT this child!

“Can you hear me, Angelique?” he persisted. “You’ve been in an accident, you’re in a hospital, you’re going to be fine. But I have some very bad news for you―”

Man have you ever got THAT right she scowled sourly.