If Death Wasn't a Thing

Chapter one

“I‘m not like a car you can fix up. I‘m never gonna run right” — Bella

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Grief, a five letter word, seeming meaningless, powerless — yet it had so much power in it’s five syllable, so much weight people hardly ever managed to say it without a tear or a stream of them rolling down their faces, regret filling their voices as they screamed, shouted, in grief.

The what if, the if only and if they knew racing in their thoughts, over and over again till a person was weak and powerless.

She never once understood it, never understood the why. Why people left her behind and as they did. Why they would be placed in a tiny wooden house, in the ground.

Why people cried. Parting was such sweet sorrow. But why? Would she not see them again, would they not return — ever?

Her mother always told her she would be back and each night she was back. She kept her word each day after her father left the very same way, in a tiny wooden house, deep in the ground.

She knew he would not return then or ever in this lifetime, but even though she stood in front of the door each night, waiting and waiting for her father to show up. He never did but she never lost hope, she had her mother — her hope, the reason.

The light in the dark days, when she felt lost and unloved. Her mouth was there to remind her. How truly lucky she was, such a loving soul she had.

Her mother never lost patience on her, she was eight. Such a young age to loose a father, a kind and hardworking man, taken from them before their lives barely began.

She wasn’t so little anymore, she wasn’t eight anymore, ten years had passed since then. She now knew who ever left in a coffin never returned, they would never returned.

Her father never returned for ten years of her life, day after day but then she had her mother, to hold her, give her hope and comfort her.

And now, she had no one. Her father nor her mother either. Today she was saying goodbye to her mother, after two years of constantly fighting, battling the demons, it won — cancer won.

The girl gripped the umbrella handle with all her strength as her heart ached in pain, she had never felt such pain — so much pain.

Not when she was bidding her father farewell, she was too young to understand back then, she never knew the pain her mother felt. Why the woman cried herself to sleep each night since then for months.

Now she knew, she felt it and it hurt. She wanted nothing more than to cry, to pour it all out but nothing came. No single tear dropped from her eyes, they had been as dry as the soil in summer, no trace, no nothing.

She stared as the men covered up hole her mother’s body laid, shove after shove, filling it up slowly untill she could not see the dark infinity void the earth opened up to swallow her mother.

The crowd slowly began to fade away, each one as they left patted the girl paying their respects then left.

It would be okay, most of them said, sweet nothings into her ear. She had heard them before and nothing had been okay for years, she anticipated it but then again the world proved her right.

Life had no sweetness. Bitter sweet, yes, that it had and she had experienced it for a while now. For ten years but two the most, the two years she witnessed her mother’s pain, her suffering.

She wanted to take it away and she would have, if she could. Now she couldn’t her mother was gone, maybe it would be okay for her mother. She was now resting, no pain, no suffering — that gave the girl a bit of relief to know.

Shaking her head in respect she thanked the crowd, old and young, those she knew and those she knew not.

Standing alone like how she left inside, the girl stared at her mother’s grave right besides her father’s. Together once again like it should have been in the start.

The sky had still been morning, it had been since yesterday. She hadn’t cried and she still couldn’t cry, maybe the world had been crying for her. All the emotions she had inside, all the emotions she wanted to release — stuck.

Maybe her parents would have been disappointed or they were. Their child never once shade a tear for them, no even as she grew and understood, did the girl cry.

She wanted to, but she just couldn’t for a reason. She never cried after her father left, crying was for the weak. She learnt that the hard way, she would never left herself get weak — never.

Closing the umbrella, she placed in her left arm touching the dirt.

The rain poured, soaking her black attire. Black was her favourite colour, today she hadn’t felt it’s favour. Like the world, it turned it’s back on her like the world.

Raindrops ran down her face, giving her the same sensation of her tears running down her cheeks.

That’s how she morned. With the sky, the world but not with her tears. They never came when they needed to, nothing ever came when it needed to. Only the pain, that never failed to come, it never made her feel alone.

Sad, it surely was. But it had her, it showed up and never left — she had company.

Letting out a ear piercing scream, the girl screamed. That’s how she cried, that was how she left her emotions out to the world.

It was it’s fault after all, it never gave her a reason not to be upset with it. It took the only people her heart had grown fond of, she was alone and it was death’s fault.

The sad cruel truth behind life taught to her at age eight. The truth she wished she never knew, twice. If death wasn’t a thing, she would still have her parents.