The Day(s) I Died {Book 1 - Completed}

7

abience

(n.) the strong urge to avoid someone or something

***

My eighth death was surrounded by sadness, but none of it was self-directed.

I was in Kansas at the time, and my life—in every aspect—was entirely boring. Jobs in Kansas are far and few in between, depending on which town you're in, and I had the unfortunate luck of being in a tiny rural town with hardly any openings.

I managed to snag a job at the quant daycare in town, but the pay wasn't great. I was barely able to afford food, much less housing, and I ended up renting out a farmer's hardly-used shed, which had just enough space to lay out my sleeping bag and nothing more (I had to use an outhouse fifteen feet away from the shed and everything).

Without heating or cooling and no hope of leaving until I died again, my days were filled with snotty children and chatty parents, and returning home to the lackluster shed didn't do much for my spirits.

Until one night, that is.

It had been a particularly grueling day, and I remember letting myself inside the shed (it didn't even have a lock) and collapsing onto my sleeping bag with no desire to ever move again.

That quickly changed when I felt something wet touch my shin.

I don't think I've ever moved as fast as I did in that instance, scurrying out of the shed with the words Oh, god, if that's a snake . . . ! flying through my head. The shed didn't have any lighting, so I whipped my flashlight over to the disturbance and breathed an immense sigh of relief when the beam settled on not a snake, but a dog.

An adorable dog, actually.

She wasn't too small or large—probably around thirty pounds, if I had to guess—and was covered in a mangy tan coat, with a darkened muzzle and wide, eager brown eyes. I tried to get rid of her, really, but it didn't exactly work.

Any attempts to shoo her out of my shed were met with whimpers and gentle licks against my cheek. Please don't kick me out, she had seemed to say. I don't have anyone.

And, because I didn't have anyone either, we were perfect for one another.

I named her Bean.

(Rather lame, perhaps, but I was surrounded by soybeans and she matched their color almost impeccably.)

Bean became the highlight of my life in Kansas. I never saw her during the day, since I was at work while she was off causing trouble somewhere, but she was always curled up in my sleeping bag when I returned at night, waiting for me to sit down so she could lick my cheek and eat any scraps left over from whatever food I had been able to gather that day. When we were done, I would enter my sleeping bag and she would settled herself by my side, acting as my personal heater in the cool of the night.

I lived in Kansas for around ten months, and Bean was my sole companion during that time.

Now, as much as I would like to remember the story as having a happy ending—perhaps one in which Bean found a loving, wonderful family and I moved on without consequence—it does not.

Every night I spent with Bean, I pondered over when I would die next. I wondered how it would happen, and if Bean would be alright once I was gone; I figured she would be, since she had been just fine before I showed up, but part of me hope she would at least miss me a little bit.

(It is a tragic sort of irony, I suppose, that in all my ponderings I never considered the possibility that Bean might die before me.)

Because I didn't think much about what Bean did during the day, I found myself shocked when I caught sight of a tan dog during my lunch break. I ran out of the café, chasing the sight of her tail as she vanished behind another building across the street.