Chapter 5
The raven blackness was beginning to annoy Lily. She wished she could scream out and get someone’s attention. She knew there must be people out there somewhere. Who wouldn’t come running when a cripple fell down a flight of stairs?
“Slade must have gone for help,” she thought. “As rotten as Slade was, he couldn’t be heartless. Or maybe he is totally devoid of feeling, and he ran away to protect himself. He wouldn’t want to be involved. What if I’m still lying on that filthy cafeteria floor? Or maybe his nice guy act wasn’t an act? Is it possible that he might actually care enough about a lowly nobody to go for help? Maybe they are taking me to the hospital, or maybe I’m already at the hospital in a cold, dreary room hooked up to blinking machines keeping me alive”
Her imagination invented endless scenarios. Then her thoughts led her to another option that had not even occurred to her.
“Maybe I’m dead,” she thought despairingly. “I thought I would see a white light or a winged angelic being.”
As she contemplated this, she realized she was beginning to hear voices. They didn’t sound like anyone from the school or hospital staff. The voices were muffled at first, and then became crystal clear.
“Lily honey, Lily it’s okay, we’re going to get this all straightened out. Don’t worry; your old dad will take care of everything.”
Dad? She was dead then.
“No, you’re not dead sweetie, although “old dad” here wants you to be,” a woman said half serious and half-jokingly.
Lily could tell it was her mother. She knew her voice so well. It was as smooth and rich as chocolate cheesecake.
“It’s not that I want her dead, but a father would like to talk to his daughter now and then.”
“Well it’s not her time yet, so you better put that dream on hold.”
Lily’s thoughts were in a tangled mess. She was so confused. So if she wasn’t dead, how was she talking to her parents? Was she dreaming? Why couldn’t she see their faces and run into their arms like other dreams she had had in the past? Her father’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Well you’re in a slight coma. Okay, a big coma, but not to worry honey, everything is going to be just fine. To answer your questions, sometimes when a person is in a coma, they can visually see angelic or spiritual visitors, but sometimes they only hear voices accompanied by complete darkness. You, my dear, happen to only get the audio. Sorry, that’s not something we can control.”
How did he know what she was thinking? Totally creepy.
“But how can you hear my thoughts?”
“Your thoughts are actually how you are talking to us right now,” her mother said. “We can tell which thoughts are directed to us, as if you were talking to us. Normally we wouldn’t be able to hear your personal thoughts, but we have been given special permission in this case because it makes it easier for us to help you. It’s also much faster, and we don’t know how much time we’ll have with you.”
Well, at least there was a good reason. Besides, it was her parents listening. It wasn’t like some creepy stranger was lurking in her head.
“Lily, dear, there has been a slight mistake. You see, your dad has felt for many years that it is incredibly unfair that I got to be with you for more than fifteen years, and he only saw you for three. He wanted so badly to see you that he arranged for you to fall down the stairs with the likelihood that you would go into a coma. Don’t ask how he arranged it because it’s a long story, and we don’t have the time to go into it now. His hope was that once you were in a coma, he would be able to visit with you. However after this was all arranged, I found out about it and I made sure to watch you every second of every day so I could prevent you from falling. I obviously wasn’t successful. How are you feeling about all this? It is a lot to take in, I know.”
Had she been able to move her lips and speak, she would have been speechless. There were no words to describe this strange dream.
“This isn’t a dream honey, it’s real. This is really happening,” said the man she once knew as father, but she now thought of as daughter-slayer.
“You’re not dead. It’s not like I arranged to have you killed, just think of it as putting your life on hold for a while to talk to your dearly departed dad.”
His statements were almost joyful. His voice sounded as if he was standing in front of a Porsche with the keys in his hand. Lily could almost hear the keys jingling. The excitement was almost too much for this man.
“But you could have killed me! Doesn’t that mean anything to you? I may have had some bad stuff happen in my life, but I do NOT want to die. I’ve barely even lived yet! Wait, what do you mean on hold? How long will this last, a few hours?”
“Well…..it could be a few hours…..or a few days. It might be for weeks or maybe even months. It just depends on how hard you hit you head, I guess.”
“WHAT? You guess? Why don’t you know? Who arranges for their own daughter, at the risk of her life I might add, to go crashing down a flight of stairs just so he can say hello for a bit? Did you even think how I would feel about this? Did you even care? As much as I would love to talk to you, I would never have even dreamed up a scheme like this!”
She was livid at this man. Who did he think he was thinking he could just take her life in his hands and crush it as easily as a cheese puff? How could her own father put her into a coma, and almost kill her in the process?
“It’s not as bad as you make it sound,” the daughter-slayer quipped. “I just wanted to visit my daughter, and I saw an opportunity to do it. What’s the harm in that?”
Lily didn’t know how much more of this man she could take.
“The harm is that I don’t think I ever want to talk to you again. Go away. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
Then it was quiet. After a minute of silence she heard whispers. It seemed her parents were talking to each other and trying to keep her from hearing. It wasn’t working very well.
“Okay, in hindsight, maybe this was not such a good idea. I mean, we can’t even see each other.”
“Maybe?” Her mom butted in. “How can you even think that right now? It was never a good idea! I still can’t believe you went through with this. I know you love Lily as much as I do, but don’t you see now how this is affecting her? How will your relationship be now? All because of your selfishness your daughter has nearly disowned you. ”
Mom wasn’t really whispering anymore. Her voice had escalated to nearly yelling.
“You’re right; I should have left her alone. She doesn’t even want to talk to me, which was the whole point to begin with. What do I do now?”
“I can hear you, you know,” Lily reminded them.
They were silent for a brief moment and then her mother decided to take control of the situation.
“Well, I think we all agree now that this whole mess was wrong to begin with and needs to be set right as soon as possible.”
“How can we do that? I thought that we don’t have any control over when I wake up from this stupid coma.”
“That’s not what I meant. We don’t have control over that. You wake up when your body has healed enough. What I meant was that your father needs to make things right with you. He needs to make it up to you somehow.”
“How am I supposed to do that? I’m dead! What can I possibly do for her?”
“Well you arranged all of this disaster, I’m sure you can manage something,” her mother said clearly annoyed at him. “Now while you are working on that, Lily and I are going to have a little chat.”
***
“I still can’t believe this is happening to me, mom. How could he do this to me?” Lily had been talking to her mother for what seemed like hours. It was like old times, filling her mom in on her life at school and at home. As important as all those things seemed, they were almost trivial now that she was in a coma.
“I’m not entirely sure, hon. Your father was always a bit on the selfish side, but I never thought it would come to something like this. I think his desire to talk to you consumed him to the extent that he was willing to do anything to see you.”
There was still something that bothered Lily.
“How exactly did dad arrange for me to fall?”
Her mother’s usually strong, rich voice became almost timid and nervous.
“Well, first you must understand that where we reside is not actually our final resting place like many people believe. Right now we are in what is like a holding area. We exist in an in-between space where we await judgment. It is actually after we are judged that we are given our personal heavenly dwelling place. During our judgment, we are shown what is like a movie, of sorts. Each individual watches this replay of their life, and then they are judged according to how they spent their life on earth. I can’t say much more about it simply because I haven’t gone through it yet, but that basically sums it up. So while we are in this in-between place, we spend our time doing various assignments or spend time with other departed spirits. Some are assigned to watch out for those still living, like guardian angels, and others may be assigned to inspire the living to make good choices. They can also give them ideas to help them solve problems in their life. Not all spirits qualify for these assignments. Only those who are exceptionally good and can be trusted with such a task are chosen. I have spent some of my time watching over you. Not all the time, but when you really needed me, I was there.”
Lily smiled to herself. She knew in her heart it was true. There had been many times when life seemed overwhelming and almost too much to endure, but somehow she made it through. She had always felt that her mother was watching over her in those moments, and now she knew.
“I haven’t had any other assignments yet. Most of my time is spent with other spirits. Your father was chosen many years ago for an assignment to protect a little boy in New Mexico, but he was unsuccessful and has never been given another assignment.”
“What happened?”
“The little boy was playing near the street when a dark man pulled up in a grey van. Your father was supposed tell the boy to run inside his house as fast as he could. I mean, he was supposed to put the idea in the boy’s mind to run inside, but he didn’t. It’s not that he wasn’t going to, he was, but he decided it would be a good idea to have an adult witness come out and see just in case the boy didn’t run. So he put the thought in the boy’s mother’s head to go check on her son. By that time the man in the van had already gotten out and was grabbing the boy. There wasn’t time to run anymore. The mother came out of the house to see that horrible man throw her six year old son into a van and drive away. She never saw him again. Your father’s intentions are good, but when it comes to executing them, it doesn’t always pan out.”
Lily had learned this first hand.
“Avery has a good heart. He still feels horrible about what happened to that family, and I know he is going to feel the same way when he truly realizes what he has done to you.”
Lily knew her mother was probably right, but she wasn’t ready to forgive the man who put her in this predicament. She wanted to change the way this conversation was going.
“So my body has to heal enough to wake up from this coma, right? Is there any way we can find out how bad my injuries are so I have some time frame of how long I’ll get to talk to you?”
“Probably, but I haven’t finished telling you about how….”
“That’s okay. You can finish telling me later,” Lily interrupted.
“I’ll see what I can do sweetie.”
Lily could feel her mother’s smile on her like the morning sun, and then she was gone. Lily was now alone with her thoughts.