I see on the news all the time; when someone dies there is an abundance of flowers left by their place of death. Usually they all have messages with kisses and remainders of tear drops from where their loved ones cried and wept.
There is one flower near my place of death. One red rose that sits forlornly, the head of it just brushing the lamppost where the car crashed. Its petals shivered slightly in the harsh wind that I could not feel. That’s an advantage of being dead; you can’t feel the cold.
I had always had a glorified image of my death; I would die some kind of hero or martyr and then I could reunite with my parents in heaven. Why was I not in heaven? Why was I not with my Mum or Dad? Why am I not in hell, at least then I would know what was going on! Why am I stuck here, staring at a rose? If God is real then why does he not help me? I thought you were supposed to find all the answers when you die, not have a thousand more questions thrown at you.
The angrier I became, the more the wind seemed to blow; but the more the wind seemed to blow, the more nothingness I felt.
“Curse this stupid rose!” I screamed to the wind, my head bent back to the sky, looking at the thick grey clouds that appeared as heavy as my spirit.
As I screamed, a thick black mist left my blue lips, cursing the Earth and rotting the air. Why even bother leaving me a flower? What did it mean, what could it do for me now? Why can’t I stop staring at it? Who left me that rose; who? I hate them!
I reached out and touched it, and for a second I felt its velvety soft petals caress my hand; but then, with some power invested in my spirit form, I turned the rose black and watched it wither. Youthful and smooth petals shrivelled up, and ruby red vanished into an indistinguishable colour of rot. One by one, each dead petal fluttered off into the sky and eventually fell down and scattered all over the floor.
The whole area reeked of death now, and the very air was rancid. The world was silent and my anger had subsided, leaving me alone with my thoughts once more.
“Are you quite finished?” I heard a voice say. Despite my knowing it had been spoken aloud, I still felt like the voice had come from within me, in my head. It was not me who had spoken though; rather it was someone whose voice was much richer than mine. “You managed to kill my rose I see."
My heart began to thump in my chest. Or perhaps I only thought it did, seeing as I was dead and my heart could no longer thump.
“Who is there?” I shouted, but all I heard in reply was my own echo as my surprisingly powerful voice thundered down the empty street.
“Turn around,” I heard a whisper in my ear.
I jumped violently, but did as I was told. There was a man and a woman staring at me whilst holding hands. Wait, staring at me; they could see me?
Underneath my raw curiosity, I was dimly aware of a vague annoyance within me. Their apparent happiness irritated me, for they could be happy all they wanted, but I was dead.
“We’ve come to collect you,” they said in eerie unison. “Come with us."
It was then that I realised who they were, but just like in the seven minutes before my death, my body and brain were too numb to allow emotion to filter through.
“Mum ... Dad...” I whispered.
I waited for the pain to come, the chronic agony that awaited me, but there was only numbness. I felt that I was stuck in limbo, or suspended in mid air with no way of getting back to the ground. They say the brain is active for seven minutes after you die, and that must have been my seven minutes.
All of a sudden I felt an uncontrollable, insatiable need to run towards the white light that was getting bigger and bigger in front of me. The light felt so powerful and it was drawing me towards it, stronger than any magnet I have ever known. Every uncertainty, every doubt, every shadow that I had ever felt in my life was washed away as I bathed in this beautiful light.
***
The next day, an elderly couple were walking up the street.
“Look dear, what is that?” The woman said.
“Some leaves or petals or something? Look how much of it there is! Youths these days never think to clean!” The husband replied.
“Shall we do anything?"
“Like what? No come on, we’re already late."
So as they walked on, they did not see the rose petals returning slowly to their ruby red colour, nor did they see them rising and scattering themselves in the air, spreading their sweet scent around to remove the death that occurred the day before.
The elderly couple will never know that someone died here, but that doesn’t matter. Everyone is happy now...
