Glass sliders overlooked a view of the ocean and the people tanning on the sand. They were as blissfully unaware of what might await them; as I had been, not long ago. I was jealous of them, lying there in the sun, just another day of living. I'd kill for one more day. A chance to say goodbye.
People often say a quick death is better. I guess in some ways it is, but it sure didn't feel like it right now. Long deaths have one big benefit. You get to say goodbye. Nobody understands how important that is until there's no time for words.
But after everything, life still went on, even if mine technically didn't.
I walked back inside, turning away from the sunny beach, full of people. I felt too bitter to bear exposure to their happiness.
I looked down at the table, the phone Harold gave me lying there, dead. How ironic? When I was alive, I couldn't stand to be without my charged cell phone.
I walked past without touching it. I couldn't find a reason to plug it in. It would only serve as a reminder of who I couldn't call and what those people might be doing right now, like burying their child. They might be staring at the ground and grieving for a fiancée who was still here, but might as well be just as dead as the body in the casket for all it meant to their lives.
I pulled out a chair and sat at the white-washed wood dinette by myself, wondering what in the hell I had agreed to.
My new body didn't let me stay in my catatonic state very long. A hungry growl erupted from my midsection that made me realize, I might not be exactly human, but I seemed to have a lot of mortal needs. And I had to pee. That shouldn't be a big deal, but it was. I didn't know if I could go into the bathroom and not look at myself, but this body wasn't giving me any other option.
The need overcame my hesitancy and made it easy to make it into the bathroom without looking. Making it out was the problem. Who knew good hygiene would prove to be my downfall? If I could've just not looked up when I was washing my hands.
I let out a small sound when I saw the image. It was me. I knew this face, this body, that there would be a mole on my left knee if I looked, but this wasn't the body that I'd just left dead and mangled. It wasn't the face of my parents’ daughter or the image of Charlie's fiancée.
Staring with gray eyes that were eerily similar to the ones I'd had before my death, I raised a hand to my almost black hair, so different than the blond I'd been. I touched my cheek, watching my actions mirrored. I was prettier than I had been in life. My eyes were a little bigger. I ran a finger across a fuller lower lip.
A knock on the door jolted me from my intense fascination with my new image.
Harold walked in before I could get there.
“I thought you weren't coming until tomorrow?”
“I wouldn't have, if you'd answered your phone.”
We both stared at the dead phone sitting on the table.
“It's...dead. I know.” Dead, dead, dead, just like me. I couldn't seem to get past that word.
“Please keep it charged from now on.”
If it were only so easy to fix my own dead state.
“Why do I recognize myself when I don't look like I used to?”
He was already looking down at papers he was holding in his hand.
“Harold?”
He looked up, as if not understanding the question and then the details seemed to click into place for him.
“Oh, that. I always forget transfers don't remember.” He scribbled on his paper a moment before he finally continued. He swirled a finger, encompassing me. “This is how you really look and will look in your true form for all of eternity. If you go to heaven, hell, purgatory or whatever is beyond, this is your form. That body in the ravine was just a shell, a loosely formed portrait. When your essence is squeezed into a mortal mold, it never matches up the same.”
I toyed with a lock of my hair, still adjusting to the different texture. “So I've always looked like this on some level? I guess I figured you would give me a new body or something.”
“Well, that's silly. You think we have stray bodies just lying around?”
“Uh, I guess...”
He actually rolled his eyes at me before he tucked his papers into the case he was holding.
“Do you have everything you need?”
I shrugged, having no idea exactly what I should need. “Not sure.”
“There's food in the fridge and my number is on the phone if you ever get around to charging it. I'll be back tomorrow morning for you.”
Chapter Four
It took me about two hours to convince myself that going out wouldn't be a bad decision.
I'd showered and changed into some clothes I found in the closet. They were all my size and, considering I was the only dead chick living here, I assumed they were for my use. I’d briefly wondered if this apartment had been used by another female employee, but they all still had tags. I was still the same size as I used to be, if a bit more endowed.
There wasn't a computer in the condo and Harold had given me a dumb phone, perhaps the last in existence. The thing looked like it should be dropped off at the Museum of History with its flip screen.
I didn't have money to buy a newspaper but I could still walk to the library.
But what was out there? The beach looked normal but what about other places? Would I see ghosts now? I wasn't a chicken, but I'd always been freaked out by that sort of thing.
Oh no. I was that sort of thing. Ugh!
Taking a deep breath, I opened the door, afraid of the monstrosities like myself I might find as I left the condo.
I stepped out and the sun was shining and the birds were chirping. It was the nicest day we'd had in ages. A couple of bunnies scampering about and it could have been the start to a Disney flick. I'd officially crossed the threshold into “out there” and it didn't look spooky.
I pocketed the keys to the only home I had. Normally, I would've hopped on my bike for a trip like this but, if not for that small reminder, walking along like this, I could pretend everything was fine. I could almost lull myself into believing I was simply taking a walk, like any other day in my life, not death.
The library was pretty empty but the kids were still in school, and if you were off, you were reading on the beach right now, not cooped up in a building.
I went over to where the newspapers were and flipped to the section I needed. There I was. There was nothing that could replace the feeling you got from seeing your name in the obituary section.
Camilla Fontaine, 27, of Surfside Beach, died in a fatal train crash. Camilla, a highly esteemed public defender, had dedicated her life to the defense of the under privileged. She is survived by parents, Lawrence and Debra Fontaine, and her fiancé, Dr. Charles Knight.
They'd buried me this morning. It was for the best it was already done. I wouldn't have been able to stay away from my own funeral. Some deep masochistic need would want to see the casket lowered and covered in dirt just to confirm it had happened.
I put the paper back and drifted out of the library, half incoherent and half devastated.
I wondered what my casket had looked like and how many people had shown up? What was written on my tombstone?
I saw a car I recognized pass and started to lift a hand to wave at Jimmy, the guy who delivered for the local pizza shop, but dropped it quickly. He didn't know me anymore.
I should just turn around and go back to the condo but I couldn't. I didn't want to sit there, thinking. I needed to see my grave. This wasn't going to be real until I saw my grave.
***
I didn't need to read where I'd been buried. There was only one cemetery our family had been using for all the long generations we'd lived in South Carolina.