Chapter 1
I cannot pinpoint the exact time that I realized I was not of this world anymore.
It wasn’t when my Mother ignored me in the kitchen as she listlessly ate dinner alone, or when I found my brother sitting on my bed staring hopelessly into space, or even when I stood at the place of my undoing – under the freeway bridge, broken and bloody.
I remember waking up and standing over my own dead body. Gross blue rings around my neck, deep bags under my non seeing eyes. Eyes that have a specific kind of terror nestled just behind the cornea, pupils dilated and unable to see the deep green that pooled around them.
If only I could of pulled those memories from those eyes but it felt almost intrusive at this point, they were no longer my memories were they? I was unsure. No, I couldn’t remember a lot from before.
I slowly walked along the bank of the river, the usual way I came home from school. People and kids flocked around me laughing wildly, boys teasing a group of girls – people I used to know, I think. They were familiar but not in the way you would think. Not familiar like hey! I know you, familiar as a feeling – a sense of DeJa’Vu floated through my brain with every face I looked upon. They looked a little younger than me, I wondered how long I would be in this state. Whatever this state was.
I know it had been a while, my body had not aged though.
I walked through the sun with the heat burning into my skin, making my way through the populated areas of town and into the thick underbrush covering a shoddy path filled with puddles and uneven terrain. Looking at my watch I quickened my pace, he would be gone soon.
I’m not sure why I started to come here, it wasn’t a want. More a need. A feeling – there seemed to be a lot of feelings in my dead state. This is not how I thought it would be when I died, stuck in some perma- reality where nobody can see you or hear you or feel you around them. Watching my family mourn when I was. Right. Here. Right beside them, always. Watching them grow old, watching them wither.
I started to run, each dip and groove and low lying branch etched into my memory. I ducked and weaved and stomped my way through the dense forest until I came to a cobblestoned bridge and there he was, standing just like before.
Each day, day after day he was there at 4.30, waiting for…something.
He stared ahead as always, cane at his side, silver hair glistening in the sun. He was tall, freakishly so, I thought. He was unmoving until 4.59 when he just – disappears - . I know how it sounds. My brain couldn’t believe it the first fifty times I seen it either. I would always run to the spot he stood, no sign of him anywhere apart from a faint hint of mint in the air.
Moving restlessly behind the bushes from the constant barrage of memories and feelings, my face prickled. Slowly I raised my eyes to lock directly with the strange man, I froze. This was new. He stood, unmoving staring right into the center of me and my non-existent heart started to beat out my chest.
“Come forth, Cora.”
A sense of familiarity washed over me, drowned me if I’m honest. His accent was thick, but I was unable to place it. I struggled to inhale as an overwhelming mint scented the air and at once the man towered in front of the bush I was so awkwardly hiding in. I barely stood upright, arms wrapped around my body for protection from this giant.
“Erm, hello?” I gave a small wave and then I paused while my brain ticked over slowly. “You can see me.” I mumbled, almost incoherently the fact.
“I can.” His voice, calming. I struggled to look at his face but when I did, I could see it was covered in grotesque scars and I quickly looked back down, heart speeding up again.
“You have no need to be afraid. I have been waiting for you.”
I was quiet for a moment. Unsure of how to say the multitude of things flying around my brain, I finally settled. “I’ve been here every day. For a long time.” I swallowed hard, unsure my voice had even made a sound.
He nodded, deep crevice’s lined his eyes – he wasn’t so hard to look at. I studied him. “Yes, but you were not ready to come with me.”
Suddenly anger washed over me, he knew I had been here every single day? And he said nothing. He can talk to me, the first person I’ve talked to in… ? And he chose not to say a thing.
He laughed, a deep throaty chuckle. “Calm, Cora. I know it has been a lonely existence for you.” He affirmed the one persistent emotion I had been feeling for who knows how long and I suddenly exhaled, years’ worth of emotion evident in one movement. He nodded knowingly.
“Do you wish to come with me?” He asked finally, my eyes snapping from his cane to come face to face with him, eyes unreadable.
“I cannot… disappear like you can.”
“You’ve already done it once. Why not again?” He held his arm out, I went to reach for it but pulled back.
I was going insane, this was a figment of my imagination, perhaps my own personal hell? Maybe I had done something terrible to deserve this, I knew if I touched him like every other person that I would feel nothing. He would feel nothing. I was nothing. Atom-less, weightless. Just a void of nothing.
But still he persisted.
I hesitated for a second more, slowly reaching for his arm expecting the absence of skin on skin. Instead on connection I was greeted with warmth. Real.
He was real, I was real and in a blink we were gone.
